Venice Waterfront from the Lagoon, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Venice Waterfront from the Lagoon, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Venice Waterfront from the Lagoon, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-5AD3BA

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Someone on a vaporetto or cruise vessel approaching Venice in the 1950s leaned into the rail and pointed a camera at the skyline, which had been doing this exact thing — domes, campaniles, and terracotta rooflines dissolving into water — since the Renaissance, and would continue doing it regardless. The domes of the Salute and the tower of the Campanile are just legible on the horizon, the same silhouette that had been ending arguments about whether Venice was worth the trip for four centuries. A single small boat sits mid-lagoon, crossing an expanse that would within two decades be contested between tourist ferries and the beginning of very serious conversations about the city sinking. The person in the lower-left corner, sunglasses on, orange headscarf catching the wind, has the posture of someone who has just decided this is the most beautiful thing they have ever seen and is already composing what they will say about it at dinner back home. They were right, which almost never happens.

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