Page 54 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Venice & The Veneto

52  INTRODUCING VENICE AND THE VENE T O

Venice in Vogue

From being an introverted and unchanging city,
Venice developed with remarkable speed. The
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought new
prosperity; a new harbour was built for ocean-
going ships and Venice became a favourite
embarkation point for colonial administrators
and rich Europeans travelling east. The fashion for
sea-bathing and patronage by wealthy socialites Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979)
reawakened interest in the city, and the founding of Patron of the avant garde, Peggy
the Biennale attracted Europe’s leading artists, who Guggenheim brought her out-
standing art collection (see p138)
expressed their enthusiasm for the to Venice in 1949.
city in novels, paintings and music.
The Hotel Excelsior’s
Moorish exterior is
distinctive.

Bathing
huts,
designed for
modesty in
the 1920s, are
still a feature
of the Lido.

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Along with Turgenev, Diaghilev
and Ezra Pound, Stravinsky was
one of many émigrés enchanted
by the magic of Venice.
The Lido
From the turn of the century, grand
hotel developments along the
Hotel Excelsior sandy Adriatic shore turned the
When it was built in 1907, Lido into Europe’s most stylish
the Hotel Excelsior (see seaside resort. The island has since
p234) was the world’s given its name to bathing
largest hotel. establishments the world over.

1902 Collapse of 1912 Opening of
campanile in Piazza rebuilt campanile;
1883 Wagner dies in Palazzo Richard Wagner San Marco Thomas Mann writes
Vendramin-Calergi (1813–83) Death in Venice
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
1889 Poet Robert
1881 Venice becomes Browning dies in 1895 First 1903 Patriarch Sarto
second-largest port in Ca’ Rezzonico Biennale art of Venice becomes
Italy after Genoa Pope Pius X
exhibition

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