Venice’s opera house, La Fenice Theatre, built in 1792, became a major Italian music centre. The structure was severely damaged by fire in 1996. The premieres of Gioachino Rossini’s Tancredi (1813) and Guiseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto (1851) and La Traviata (1853) at La Fenice were ...
The Campanile stands close to the 21 bays of the Old Library (1529, also called the National Marcian Library or the Library of St. Mark), on the western side of the piazzetta. The library was designed by Sansovino to house a great collection of humanist texts and manuscriptsbequeathedin ...
Italy is far more than the home of the Venice Biennale: it is the birthplace of opera. Since the 17th century, the Italian opera has contributed greatly to our contemporary understanding of this art form, providing us with masterworks such as Giuseppe Verdi’sLa traviata(1853) and Giacomo Pucc...