Why are all the gondolas in Venice black (5 photos)

Using the example of Venetian gondolas, you can talk about the diversity urban myths, tracing them from the most realistic to the most fabulous. By the way, did you know that almost all gondolas in Venice have black color? There are several explanations for this fact.





Let's start with the fact that if historical evidence that once all gondolas - and already in the 11-12th century almost every inhabitant owned them - painted in bright colors, upholstered in all sorts of fabrics like velvet and silk, in general, everyone decorated their vehicle in what much

The task is clear - I wanted to seem the coolest, or at least no worse than many, stand out from the crowd. This is precisely the desire, according to one of the urban legends, and became the reason for the current tradition of making black gondolas. And the unusual thing is that just the black gondola is very stood out strongly.



At that time there lived a doge (that is, the head of the republic, between other) - not very young. But he had a wife - young gorgeous. And a certain lover got into the habit of going to her, and he came on a black gondola, in a black cloak and probably in a black mask. All in all, there were bad rumors.

Here's how you would do it. They would have sent guards to watch for the traitor with her boyfriend, they would have punished everyone ... The Doge acted differently.

He issued an order that all gondolas in Venice be repainted in black color and removed all these trinkets and multi-colored from them.





As a result, the lover continues to come, but the gondola is already and do not determine that this is not the Doge himself. Apparently he started a rumor or just pretended to sail to his wife personally - such a romantic a man rules you, vote for me again (doge - elective office, by the way). What happened to his wife and real lover - history is silent.

Other versions, of course, fade against the background of this wonderful fairy tale. There is an option that the local authorities are simply tired of this "color pants differentiation", emerging problems on the "roads", etc. In in general, they simply said that all gondolas became black with minimal embellishments.



A partly similar theory is a change in production technology gondolas, when they began to coat them with black resin, which noticeably increased the water resistance of the vessel. Boats turned out black, everyone liked it so much that little by little it became the norm.

Well, the saddest version says that when in 1575 a plague swept through Venice and killed about fifty thousand people, in Everyone in the city was in mourning. But the point is not so much in mourning as in the fact that corpses were transported all over the city on colorful playful gondolas, which was blasphemous to say the least. Therefore, the boats were repainted in mourning black.



This version, however, is strongly criticized by historians who say firstly, that black gondolas in the Venetian canals appeared much earlier, and secondly, that the color of mourning in Venice was then considered red or purple, but not black.

However, some other colors can now be used quite - so that they do not look so gloomy and attract tourists.