For centuries, Venice let its people walk the streets with their faces covered. Behind a bauta, a patrician and a boatman could sit at the same gaming table, and a woman could stroll without anyone knowing who she was. But the Republic never quite let go of the reins: it filled Carnival with laws, timetables and bans. Twelve stops between the ghetto where identity was compulsory, the palace of costumes and perfumes, the stone where laws were shouted out, the square of the mask makers, the bridge of bare-knuckle fights, the palace that keeps the eighteenth century on its walls, the square of the bull hunts, the theatre that rose twice from its ashes, Europe's first public gambling house, the square of the mask, the bell tower of the Turk's flight and the waterfront where a republic ended and a festival was reborn. Approximate audio duration: 21 minutes.
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Venecia: siete siglos de máscaras en la república que reguló el anonimato
Durante siglos, Venecia dejó que sus habitantes salieran a la calle con la cara cubierta. Detrás de una bauta, un patricio y un barquero podían jugar a la misma mesa, y una mujer podía caminar sin que nadie supiera quién era. Pero la República nunca soltó del todo las riendas: llenó el Carnaval de leyes, horarios y prohibiciones. Doce paradas entre el gueto donde la identidad era obligatoria, el palacio de los trajes y los perfumes, la piedra donde se gritaban las leyes, el campo de los fabricantes de máscaras, el puente de las peleas a puño limpio, el palacio que guarda el siglo XVIII en sus paredes, el campo de las cacerías de toros, el teatro que renació dos veces de sus cenizas, la primera casa de juego pública de Europa, la plaza de la máscara, el campanario del vuelo del turco y la orilla donde terminó una república y renació una fiesta. Duración aproximada de audio: 21 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~21 min of audio · 4.34 km on foot (~1 h 5 min walking) · about 1 h 30 min in total
You are standing in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, in Cannaregio. Look at the buildings: seven, eight storeys high, far taller than anywhere else in Venice. There was no room to grow outwards, so the community grew upwards.
This walk is about Carnival, the festival when Venice let anyone hide who they were. But we begin in the place where exactly the opposite happened.
In 1516 the Republic forced the city's Jews to live on this small island. The name comes from an old copper foundry, the getto. That is how the word the whole world later used was born.
At night the gates were locked and Christi…
2
Palazzo Mocenigo: Anatomy of a Bauta
You are in front of Palazzo Mocenigo, on the Salizada San Stae. It was home to a branch of the Mocenigo, a family that gave the Republic seven doges. Today it houses the museum of the history of textiles, costume and perfume.
This is the place to understand something the word mask hides. The classic Venetian disguise was not just a cardboard face. It was a full outfit, almost a uniform.
It was called the bauta. A white mask covering the whole face, its lower part jutting forward like a beak. That hollow let you speak, eat and drink without removing it, and it also distorted your voice.
Over…
3
Rialto: The Stone Where Laws Were Shouted Out
You are in Campo San Giacomo di Rialto, the commercial heart of old Venice. Look in front of the church for a hunched stone figure holding up a staircase. That is the Gobbo di Rialto, the hunchback.
On the column beside him, an official read aloud the laws and sentences of the Republic. The same was done in Piazza San Marco. It was how everyone learned what was allowed and what was not.
And many of those laws were about masks. The oldest mention of a carnival in Venice is usually dated to 1094. In 1296 the Senate declared the last day before Lent a public holiday.
The first known law on mas…
4
Campo Santa Margherita: The Craft of the Mascareri
You are in Campo Santa Margherita, in Dorsoduro, one of the liveliest squares in the city. Notice the free-standing building in the middle: it was the seat of the guild of the varoteri, the furriers, completed in 1725.
Venice ran on guilds for almost everything. One of them was the guild of the mascareri, the mask makers. They obtained their own statutes in 1436, within the painters' guild.
That is no small detail. A mask trade with its own rules means it was a steady business, with apprentices, masters and customers for much of the year.
The technique was cartapesta, papier-mâché. The face…
5
Ponte dei Pugni: Castellani versus Nicolotti
You are beside the Ponte dei Pugni, the bridge of fists, over the Rio di San Barnaba. Look at the top of the bridge: there are four footprints set in white stone.
That is where the fighters stood. Venice was split into two popular factions: the Castellani from the east of the city, many of them Arsenal workers, and the Nicolotti from the west, mostly fishermen from the parish of San Nicolò dei Mendicoli.
For centuries they clashed on the bridges. The aim was to knock your rival into the canal. The bridge had no parapets, precisely for that, and thousands of neighbours watched from the banks,…
6
Ca' Rezzonico: The Eighteenth Century Painted in Masks
You are in front of Ca' Rezzonico, one of the great palaces of the Grand Canal. Baldassare Longhena began it in the seventeenth century and Giorgio Massari finished it in the mid-eighteenth, by then for the Rezzonico. One member of the family became pope in 1758, as Clement XIII.
Since 1936 it has been the museum of eighteenth-century Venice. And if you want to see Carnival from the inside, this is the place. Painters of the time portrayed it again and again.
One of the most famous pictures is by Pietro Longhi and shows Clara, a rhinoceros exhibited in Venice during the Carnival of 1751. Aro…
7
Campo Santo Stefano: Bulls, Dogs and a Neighbour Called Casanova
You have crossed the Grand Canal and are now in Campo Santo Stefano, one of the largest squares in Venice. Today it is calm, with cafés and a statue in the middle. During Carnival, it was an arena.
The squares hosted the caccia ai tori, the bull hunt. The space was ringed with stands, bulls were brought in tied with ropes, and dogs were set on them. Men held the ropes while the crowd bet and shouted.
This square was one of the main stages for those hunts. They were banned in the early nineteenth century, when the Republic no longer existed.
A few steps from here, near San Samuele, Giacomo C…
8
La Fenice: The Carnival Season
You are in Campo San Fantin, in front of the Teatro La Fenice. Look at the neoclassical façade and the golden phoenix above the entrance. The name is no accident.
The theatre opened in 1792, five years before the fall of the Republic. It burned down in 1836 and was rebuilt straight away. In January 1996 it burned again, in an arson attack, and reopened in 2003.
Venice had a special bond with opera. In 1637 the Teatro San Cassiano opened here, the world's first public opera house: for the first time, anyone who bought a ticket could hear an opera.
And the main season was Carnival. It began a…
9
The Ridotto: Europe's First Public Gambling House
You are in Calle Vallaresso, near San Moisè. In one of these buildings, Palazzo Dandolo, the Ridotto operated for more than a century. Today those rooms are part of a hotel.
In 1638 the Republic authorised a public gambling house to open here during Carnival. It is considered the first in Europe. The idea was simple: if people were going to gamble anyway, better they did it somewhere under control.
The rules were curious. Players had to come in masked, usually in a bauta. So a merchant, a foreigner and a nobleman could sit at the same table without anyone knowing who was who.
But there was …
10
Piazza San Marco: Good Morning, Lady Mask
You are in Piazza San Marco. Look at the basilica at the far end and the long arcades of the Procuratie on either side. During Carnival this space filled with stages, acrobats, sellers of miracle cures, fortune tellers and exotic animals.
This is where the masks strolled up and down. Since no one knew who was underneath, people used a neutral greeting in dialect: bongiorno, siora maschera. Good morning, Lady Mask. It worked for a man or a woman, a noble or a servant.
That anonymity had real effects. A woman could go out unaccompanied. A patrician could talk as an equal with a shopkeeper. Peo…
11
Fat Thursday: A Bull, Twelve Pigs and the Turk's Flight
You are at the foot of St Mark's bell tower, at the corner where the square opens onto the Piazzetta. Look up: nearly a hundred metres of brick. The original collapsed in 1902, and the one you see was rebuilt exactly as before, finished in 1912.
The biggest day of Carnival was Giovedì Grasso, Fat Thursday. And it began with a military victory. In 1162 Venice defeated Ulrich, Patriarch of Aquileia, and took him prisoner along with twelve canons.
To free him, an annual tribute was imposed: a bull and twelve pigs, standing for the patriarch and his canons. Every Fat Thursday the animals were sl…
12
The Piazzetta: The End of a Republic and the Return of a Festival
You are in the Piazzetta, between the two columns of Saint Mark and Saint Theodore, with the lagoon before you. This is where ambassadors and kings entered Venice. And this is where, in 1797, the end arrived.
On 12 May 1797, with Napoleon's troops at the gates, the Great Council voted for its own dissolution. After more than a thousand years, the Republic of Venice ceased to exist without a fight.
That same year, Napoleon handed Venice to Austria. The new governments distrusted a city where anyone could walk about with a covered face. Mask wearing was restricted, and the great Carnival slowl…
How long does the "Venice: Seven Centuries of Masks in the Republic That Regulated Anonymity" audio tour take?
It has about 21 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 4.34 km walking route (~1 h 5 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Ghetto: Where Faces Could Not Be Hidden" (coordinates 45.44462, 12.32602). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Venice and pick "Venice: Seven Centuries of Masks in the Republic That Regulated Anonymity". No account required to start.
