Venetian Ghetto
— — the first place in the world called by that word.
Not only on a wall.
“A small square in Cannaregio, ringed by buildings taller than anything else in old Venice. The rule was the gates closed at sunset, so the floors went up instead of out. Five synagogues sit hidden above the shops, one above the next. The well is still in the middle of the campo, and the water in the canals around it runs a quieter green than the Grand Canal. — from the studio
Venetian Ghetto, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Venetian Ghetto sits on two small islands in the Cannaregio sestiere, in the north of Venice. It was established by a decree of the Venetian Senate on 29 March 1516, which confined the city's Jewish residents to the site of a former copper foundry — the Venetian word for foundry, geto, gave the world the word ghetto. The community lived under the rule until Napoleon's troops tore down the gates in 1797. Two campos, Ghetto Nuovo and Ghetto Vecchio, are linked by a single short bridge.
Because the residents could not build outward, the buildings around Campo di Ghetto Nuovo rose to seven and eight low-ceilinged storeys, among the tallest residential blocks in early modern Europe. Five synagogues were built into the upper floors between 1528 and the early 1600s — the Scuola Grande Tedesca, Scuola Canton, Scuola Italiana, Scuola Levantina, and Scuola Spagnola, the last with an interior attributed to Baldassare Longhena. None is visible from the campo below. A small bronze memorial by Arbit Blatas, set into the wall in 1980, marks the deportations of 1943 and 1944.
The campo is a ten-minute walk from Venezia Santa Lucia station, across the Ponte delle Guglie and left along the Fondamenta di Cannaregio. The Museo Ebraico runs the only guided tours that enter the synagogues; tickets are timed, in small groups, and the museum closes on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. Two kosher bakeries and a small Jewish library border the square. Sunlight reaches the well in the centre for only a few hours a day, which is the time most photographers come.