Throughout Europe, the Enlightenment brought a thirst for reason, advances in the sciences, and a new concern for humanity.  In Venice, it corresponded to a time of economic decline, political decay, and moral depravity.  With the French Revolution and the epoch of Napoleon on the horizon, the Most Serene Republic of Venice was about to conclude its over one-thousand-year existence.

     In The Age of Decadence, you'll immerse yourself into the revelry and the contradiction of this lighthearted era to discover the political, social, and economic conditions that animated the uninhibited passions of the eighteenth-century city and learn why Venice degenerated into the dissipate and licentious capital of all of Europe.

     We'll begin at the church of Our Lady of the Rosary and the dark years of the War of Crete when wealthy religious orders were suppressed and their properties confiscated in order to replenish the State's depleted coffers. As we visit the church, we'll talk about Venice's final acts of piety and observe the Old World as it struggles with the laicism and disbelief of the Enlightenment.  Next, it's off to the lavish Ca' Rezzonico where we'll see the financial fall of Venice's ancient families and the rise to prominence and power of the nouveaux riches.  We'll then turn our attention to the house's incomparable collection of eighteenth-century Venetian art.  While Tiepolo immortalizes the self-proclaimed virtues of a dying aristocracy, Canaletto depicts sun-drenched facades of pageantry and bliss for foreign consumption.  The scandalous poet Giorgio Baffo strikes out next at inept officials and lascivious priests in his lewd and erotic stanzas.  We'll talk about the political significance of these censored sonnets and learn why they particularly appealed to the members of the Venetian judiciary.  At the "Fenice" theater, we'll then see self-interested nobles spend the remnants of once-great fortunes on entertainment and talk about the social and political overtones in the plays of Goldoni and Gozzi.  Next, it's on to a private casino where masked revelers whiled away the hours and then into Saint Mark's Square, the stage of Venice's roisterous Carnival.  We'll talk about the distant origins of this most famous of celebrations and see the unrepressed enthusiasm embrace Venetians and foreigners alike.  Cups still clatter in the nearby coffeehouses where we'll enjoy a sampling of the precious dark liquid and discover the reasons behind its irresistible appeal in eighteenth-century Venice.  Here, we'll also relive the dramatic days of April 1797 when French troops arrived to the cry of "liberté, egalité, fraternité" and Europe's oldest republic took its final bow before quietly entering into the annals of history.

Venicescapes   Guided Itineraries   Lecture Series   Suggested Reading   Travel Planning   Home