In Venice fresh water was a common and precious good!

Venice is surrounded by a lot of water that is brackish. From the very beginning, Venetians understood that water was a common good for everyone. For this reason its protection has always been of great importance.

In order to provide the city with fresh water local people had to look elsewhere for ideas as they had no drinking water at their disposal.

Venice and its marshes

They took the Benedictine monks as a model., who built cisterns around the courtyards in their cloisters. In open squares, courtyards and in private palaces Venetians constructed cisterns to collect their drinking water.

Public cistern

There were at least six thousand ones in the city and many of them were in use until the end of the 19th century.

Cisterns were opened at the sound of bells by the chief of the district.

The guilds of arts and crafts such as the wool workers, who needed a lot of water for their activity, had to bring in fresh water using barges.

Private cistern used like a vase for plants

During shortages water was also brought in with barges and cisterns were filled or the ‘bigolanti’ , who were women, went round the city and sold water in the various districts. They put a ‘bigolo’, a kind of curved wood, around their neck, with two buckets at the ends, and they sold it by the bucket.

A richly decorated cistern, once inside a private palace

Venetians protected their fresh water being aware that it was a common good and that high water and animals polluted their wells. Animals had to be kept away to maintain hygiene and the wells were raised or constructed on a higher level to avoid high water. The cost of cleaning the well was so high that very often it was abandoned rather than cleaned.

Cistern on a higher level

Venice inaugurated its aqueduct at the end of the nineteenth century and its cisterns were closed little by little. Today they are just ornaments!

Fishing in the lagoon of Venice: nets and equipments

When you take an excursion to the lagoon islands of Venice, you will seesome particular fishing nets. Find out how they are still used today.

Square cogoli

From March to April Venetian fishermen catch the’moeche’, small crabs, that lose their carapace at this time of the year and become very soft. Special nets called ‘cogoli’ in circular or square shape are used for this purpose and are provided with a trap at the bottom.

Nassa

The so -called ‘nassa’ consists of a metal or plastic mesh with a ‘funnel’ at the end. The bait is placed inside, and it consists of bread, cheese and bay leaf, but above all sardines because give off a strong smell. After twenty-four hours the bait is replaced and the catch is withdrawn. Those nets can be used all year round, even during the biological shutdown period and are considered eco-sustainable for the kind of fish caught, that is usually small.

For cuttlefish, nets are lowered in groups of twenty tied together, for other kinds of fish there are larger nets, and therefore they are single ones. If you catch sea cicadas they are semi-ellipsoidal in shape and fifty to one hundred are lowered at a time. The cicadas are then brought alive to the fish market.

Scales for fishing, the so-called bilancioni

Near Torcello island there is a big scale formed with a quadrangularshaped network, used for fishing. When the fish is captured it isconveyed by the movements of the net towards its centre. It is thenrecovered either with a landing net or using a boat that retrieves it frombeneath. It is used mainly to catch sardines.

Siever

Fishermen have this equipment on board, a mechanical tool or device consisting of one or more surfaces with holes of different sizes, used to separate fine materials from other coarser ones.

A tour to the islands and a stop for a bite at one of the local restaurants would be a treat!

Venetian cook book

The first printed cookbook was published in Venice in 1475, but the first Venetian one only in 1908. Why so late, given that Venice was one of the most avant-garde cities of the time and that it had also distinguished itself for the spread of publishing? The reason deals with its culinary tradition too rooted in its culture that the city did not need to pass it on.

Saor

However, a Venetian manuscript called the Cook’s book from the 1300s is still preserved in the Casanatese Library in Rome. It reports the recipe for ‘saor’. It is a condiment or dressing typical of the Venetian cuisine, ideal for seasoning fish and vegetables. There are 134 recipes listed in the manuscript dealing especially with meat dishes. It is precisely this manuscript that inspires the first printed book of 1475, which emphasizes that sea fish is unhealthy and makes you very thirsty. It also explains how to clean it by removing the entrails not from the belly, but from the gills. If fish were roasted the entrails were left.

Fish broth

In 1570 broth made with fish and meat was already known. Sea bass was preferred to other types of fish and mutton, kid and veal were used for meat broth.

At the end of the 1600s the French cuisine took hold in Venice and became a fashion. It influenced the way Venetians prepared desserts. The most appreciated one was zabaione, served early in the morning to hunters.

Zabaione

Venetian Rice soup and liver were introduced at the end of the 1700s and were very popular as well as ‘peoci’ that is mollusks were prepared starting from the 1800s.

Peoci

The recipes we still know today they come about just in the beginning of the twentieth century when finally the first Venetian recipe book was written and published by an anonymous person.