The Doge Palace and the Venetian Ghetto

Friday, October 16, 2015

We left the hotel at 8:00 (after breakfast) and walked to the Doge’s Palace where we had a tour of this amazing building.  It was effectively the seat of the ducal government, and the doge and his senators took care of themselves very well.  Our readings were from Rabbi Leon Modena (1571-1648) and Isaac Cardoso (~1603-1683) and complemented the tour beautifully.  Cardoso had dedicated his Philosophio Libera to the Doge and the Venetian Senate, and we read a 1679 piece by Cardoso outlining the place of Jews in Venetian life.

Here’s the entrance to the palace:

The first inner courtyard:

The Venetians incorporated gods from ancient Rome into their art and architecture.  I don’t have a full understanding of the place that the ancient gods played in Venetian life and what place they had in the church.  We even saw a Virgin Mary portrayed as Venus!  The Venetian Church, while completely Christian, was not part of the Roman Church and was not subject to the Pope.  It had its own distinct style, and I need to learn more about that.  Here are statues of Mars and Neptune prominently placed in the Doge Palace courtyard:

Here’s a ceiling in the palace:

Here’s a detail from a Titian on a wall:

And here’s the stunning senate chamber:

The Bridge of Sighs connects the palace on one side of a canal with the prison on the other, and takes its name because of the last views of Venice prisoners had as they were escorted from the palace to the dungeon-like accommodations on the other side.

We then toured St. Mark’s Basilica which, again, was not built as a Catholic but rather as a Christian church, starting in the 9^th century.  There are Byzantine mosaics over the front of the church:

No photos are allowed in the Basilica itself, which is very beautiful.  

After touring St. Mark’s, we had lunch and walked to the Venetian Ghetto where we toured five synagogues which were very close to one another.  The ghetto was founded in 1516 and the synagogues were built between 1528 and 1589. The Jews lived with limited contact with the Christian community, and the only work they were allowed was money lending, as doctors, and as sellers of used goods.  They were not allowed to build new buildings but were allowed to add floors to existing buildings, accounting for the many multi-story buildings seen.  Jews were not allowed to join guilds, so the artisans who built the synagogues were all Christian.

Here’s a beautiful Aron Chodesh in one of the synagogues:

Here’s the Bima from another:

The fact that Christian artisans decorated the synagogues led to some unusual things.  Artistic depictions of bible stories generally do not decorate synagogues, but do decorate churches.  Here’s a carving of Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea after Moses had parted it.  Wrecked chariots and swimming Egyptians are easily seen:

We walked back to the hotel, washed up and changed, and walked back to the ghetto where we attended Kabbalat Shabbat services and then had a lovely Shabbat dinner at one of the kosher restaurants in the ghetto.  A day of rest tomorrow!