Sights of Venice

What a privilege to spend the inside of a week in Venice! Anne and I decided to follow the 3 day tour leaving 2 days for expansion into writing and drawing. Day by day we alternated tramping galleries with sitting out or travelling round the city or Lagoon islands on vaporettos. Our very reasonable B&B in Mestre was 10 min walk from the train that took us within 15 min to the centre of Venice. The whole experience was expansive somehow due to the way the city is framed by canals, and paintings and exhibits being framed by galleries twice the size in the UK. Venice’s breath-taking Scuola Grande di San Rocco grew out of compassion for plague victims. Tintoretto (1518-94) spent 20 years painting it after serving as Titian’s apprentice. Such was his painting energy he got nicknamed Il Furioso! Medieval Venice had many Scuola or lay fraternities linked to art, crafts and religious life. Scuola Grande grew into a fully fledged welfare system at first for members and then for