The Rialto market, from being at the centre of the world to an uncertain present

A book by Donatella Calabi traces the history of what was the centre of a “world economy”, and now is a local market in crisis. What are the prospects for the future? The interview.

Vittore Carpaccio, The Miracle of the Cross, 1494. In the painting appears the wooden bridge of Rialto and the Fondaco delle Farine, in the context of an evident cosmopolitanism (different costumes, skin colors, languages) of the insula realtina and of the city of Venice itself in the modern age.

Credits Venice, Academy Galleries

Planimetry of the insula of Rialto with the reconstruction of the many activities that took place there in the sixteenth century

Historical elaboration on the basis of multiple archival documents by Donatella Calabi

Descent from the Rialto Bridge (1587) in stone and of the Drapperia realized on a project by Antonio Abbondi, called lo Scarpagnino (1521)

PhotoFoto Nicolò Folin, 2019

Photo of the underpass of the Ruga degli Oresi and the building of the Drapperia, 1521-1527

Photo Nicolò Folin, 2019

Giovanni Antonio de Sacchis, called the Pordenone, Frescoes in the sottoportico of the Ruga degli Oresi, 1521-1527

Photo Wolfgang Wolters, 2012

Antonio Abbondi called the Scarpagnino, Porticoes between the room of San Giacometto and the Erbaria, 1520-1527

Photo Nicolò Folin, 2019

Jacopo Sansovino, The New Factories (1550-1554) along the Grand Canal and overlooking the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (1508)

Photo Simone Padovani

Cesare Laurendi and Domenico Rupolo, Angolo della Pescheria between the Grand Canal and the Rio delle Beccheie, 1907

Photo Nicolò Folin, 2019

One of the decorative elements of the Fish Market: the two artisans carved huge fish, sea monsters, fantastic capitals, 1907

Photo Nicolo Folin, 2019

Donatella Calabi

During the 1575’s plague the Venetian notary Rocco Benedetti noted that the virus came from abroad, a third of the city’s population passed away (around 50,000), the calli (Venetian streets) and the campielli (Venetian little neighbourhoods) were empty, there was an absolute silence, no one could leave their homes without written permission, the Grand Canal was empty, the Rialto bridge was closed, the shops were locked, there was an economic crisis, and an emergency income was required. It might seem a neutral record of facts, but it is Donatella Calibi’s usual historical work who, having spent her entire life studying markets [1] in general and the Rialto one in particular [2], bears in her surname a trace of Venice’s many and remote commercial relations with the East – in fact, it means “of Aleppo”. She is a long-standing historian of architecture and of the city – she was Bruno Zevi and Leonardo Benevolo’s student at Iuav University of Venice, then Ennio Concina and Manfredo Tafuri’s collegue – and is now the head of the Progetto Rialto civic movement https://www.progettorialto.org/.

Vittore Carpaccio, The Miracle of the Cross, 1494. In the painting appears the wooden bridge of Rialto and the Fondaco delle Farine, in the context of an evident cosmopolitanism (different costumes, skin colors, languages) of the insula realtina and of the city of Venice itself in the modern age. (Venice, Academy Galleries)

Tell us about your new adventure as a cultural and, in a way, political activist.
Progetto Rialto is an association aimed at mobilising the Venetian citizenry, which includes many foreigners and Venice’s friends such as Cambridge Professor Deborah Howard, in order to preserve this city starting from its old market, knowing that today it is going through one of its most difficult moments.

Your recently published book, Rialto. The market island in Venice (Verona, Cierre 2020 €19) is a concise history of a place that was the centre of a “world economy”, but it summarises all the current problems as well, could you point them out to us?
First of all, there is undoubtedly the demographic decline, which, however, characterises almost all the Italian historic centres. For instance, Bologna’s old town has more or less the same population of Venice’s one even though the two cities morphologies are extremely different from each other. Secondly, there is the structural change in the food trade: there is an objective competition between the historic markets and the small supermarkets that have been multiplied, and this was a political choice. Today’s shoppers are more likely to go to a supermarket because it has longer opening hours, offers different products such as washing powder and now it is possible to eat in there as well. The historic market can only survive by enhancing the quality of its fresh products, definitely greater than that produced by the large-scale retail trade, and by mixing them up: you cannot just offer fish and vegetables, rather you have to provide surplus value such as the artistic craftsmanship, then you will win the competition. The market should certainly equip itself so that its products can be directly eaten on the spot. Currently, a municipal ordinance establishes that you can eat anywhere in the calli except Rialto and St Mark’s Square, and I think that is frankly anti-historical.

Donatella Calabi

Having a comprehensive knowledge, at least at a European level, of the historical markets I imagine that you have in mind virtuous models to follow.
Indeed. A doctoral student I followed analysed the Toulouse’s example, which in a few years brought the old market to be now a youth meeting point, but there are many other possible ones. In Italy, old markets have so far been revitalised through quality catering only, as in the San Lorenzo’s market in Florence, in the Mercato delle Erbe in Bologna, and the same is happening in Turin and Milan, but I would like to be more ambitious. I think we need to mix and interweave different activities, the craftsmanship I mentioned earlier – in Venice there is still some of the highest quality such as the Sent sisters’ glass jewellery, or the paper craftsmen –, restorers such as the few remaining masters of Venetian-style terrazzo, cooking schools, etc., which, added to a series of precise cultural initiatives, could really revive a crucial area regardless of tourism. It would be possible to make a city museum without expensive documentary exhibitions involving all the city’s cultural institutions such as the two universities, the Academy of Fine Arts, Save Venice, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. In London they have carried out a similar idea by moving the Museum of London to Smithfield Market, reusing disused historic buildings. Barcelona, Hamburg, Lübeck and Paris have rethought their markets as well, by proposing a revitalisation based on a mixture of cultural activities and the production and sale of traditional fresh and cooked food on site, which can be taken away or eaten in refreshment areas. Venice has not made this, nor it is in the process of doing so; instead, it is thinking of transforming empty buildings into new hotels, and this is an unfortunate political choice.

It seems to me that neither you nor your association rely on the city administration...
No, not at all, in fact there is a climate of open hostility that emerged even during the last electoral campaign, which paradoxically cemented the members of the association, making us even more active and determined, involving other citizens and associations such as the Rialto Novo Committee, organising collections of signatures, but also a deeper knowledge, we are not just professors as some would have us believe! One of our pillars is Andrea Ghio, a fishmonger who is also a musician and keeps photographs of his father and grandfather that show the change in his world. For me, on the other hand, it is a new experience, transforming my studies into something alive and new, but still in continuity with my ideas guided by the teachings of Henri Pirenne [3]. It is not a battle of parochialism, because Venice is felt to be home to everyone, from Proust and Thomas Mann to Amitav Ghosh, who in his latest novel [4] reflects on the effects of climate change and invites us to consider it as a representation of the disorder of our time.

  • Donatella Calabi, Il mercato e la città. Piazze, strade, fabbriche d'Europa in età moderna, Venice, Marsilio 1993; The Market and the City: Square, Street and Architecture in Early Modern Europe, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004
  • Donatella Calabi, Paolo Morachiello, Rialto: le fabbriche e il ponte (1514-1591), Turin, Einaudi 1987. Morachiello, former professor at Iuav University of Venice and a Rialto project’s member, died on 7 December 2020
  • Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities: their Origins and the Revival of Trade, Princeton University Press, 2014
  • Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island, London, Murray, 2019
Credits Venice, Academy Galleries

Vittore Carpaccio, The Miracle of the Cross, 1494. In the painting appears the wooden bridge of Rialto and the Fondaco delle Farine, in the context of an evident cosmopolitanism (different costumes, skin colors, languages) of the insula realtina and of the city of Venice itself in the modern age.

Historical elaboration on the basis of multiple archival documents by Donatella Calabi

Planimetry of the insula of Rialto with the reconstruction of the many activities that took place there in the sixteenth century

PhotoFoto Nicolò Folin, 2019

Descent from the Rialto Bridge (1587) in stone and of the Drapperia realized on a project by Antonio Abbondi, called lo Scarpagnino (1521)

Photo Nicolò Folin, 2019

Photo of the underpass of the Ruga degli Oresi and the building of the Drapperia, 1521-1527

Photo Wolfgang Wolters, 2012

Giovanni Antonio de Sacchis, called the Pordenone, Frescoes in the sottoportico of the Ruga degli Oresi, 1521-1527

Photo Nicolò Folin, 2019

Antonio Abbondi called the Scarpagnino, Porticoes between the room of San Giacometto and the Erbaria, 1520-1527

Photo Simone Padovani

Jacopo Sansovino, The New Factories (1550-1554) along the Grand Canal and overlooking the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (1508)

Photo Nicolò Folin, 2019

Cesare Laurendi and Domenico Rupolo, Angolo della Pescheria between the Grand Canal and the Rio delle Beccheie, 1907

Photo Nicolo Folin, 2019

One of the decorative elements of the Fish Market: the two artisans carved huge fish, sea monsters, fantastic capitals, 1907

Donatella Calabi