There is a hidden Venice made of gardens, gems to be discovered with Venezia da Vivere, along with the exhibitions and cultural activities offered by the city.
In keeping with the free spirit of Venetian life, we sometimes enjoy exploring the gardens of Venice. Let us discover together the many cultural initiatives currently taking place in the city.
Echoes of the Forest, Venice Gardens Foundation
The artists of the LABINAC design collective, Maria Thereza Alves and Jimmie Durham, present the project Echoes of the Forest at the Royal Gardens of Venice: a selection of design works, some site-specific, created for the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale.
“Architecture must start with a specific place, considering the nature of the surrounding environment; every building is made in a garden, whether it is recognized or not.”
Maria Thereza Alves
Adele Re Rebaudengo, President of the Venice Gardens Foundation, together with curator Chiara Bertola, commissioned the LABINAC duo to design work tables for the Royal Gardens, which serve as a meeting point for researchers and creatives.
Thirty proposals were donated by Alves and Durham to the Venice Gardens Foundation and are on permanent display at the Royal Gardens. These include a steel and Murano glass fragment chandelier and eight unique vases from the series: Cloudstone, Perfectly Imperfect, Allelic Combinations, and Forms of Life, created in various glass workshops in the lagoon through a process of experimentation between the artists and Venetian master glassmakers.
Three major exhibitions at the Giorgio Cini Foundation
Three major exhibitions with free admission are currently underway at the Cini Foundation on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, opposite Piazzetta San Marco.
In conjunction with the Venice International Architecture Biennale, EST. Italian stories of travel, cities and architecture is on display until July 18, 2021: a narrative told through drawings, photographs, ancient texts, and quotations that, starting from Italy, looks toward the East and develops over time to the present day.
An exhibition curated by Luca Molinari Studio, held in the Sala Carnelutti on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, features six internationally renowned Italian architectural firms: RPBW – Renzo Piano Building Workshop, aMDL Circle, Studio Fuksas, Archea Associati, Piuarch, and MCA – Mario Cucinella Architects.
Within the monumental complex of the Cini Foundation, specifically in the spaces of the Longhena Library, the exhibition Venice is all gold. Tomaso Buzzi: fantastic drawings 1948-1976, curated by Valerio Terraroli, is on display.
A rare exhibition of approximately ninety sketches, watercolors, and two paintings by architect Tommaso Buzzi, made possible by the contribution of Rolex Italia as part of the Amici di San Giorgio initiative. The works come partly from the archives of the Cini Foundation’s Institute of Art History and partly from a selection on loan from the Pieri collection in Milan.
The exhibition, open until August 1, can be visited with a guide available at specific times and only by prior reservation on the visitcini.com website.
The Borges Labyrinth, among the 10 Italian wonders of “Italy’s Most Beautiful Park”
Let us stay a little longer on the island of San Giorgio, which, like a treasure chest, holds one of Italy’s ten wonders: the Borges Labyrinth, inspired by the short story The Garden of Forking Paths by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
Defined as a “green masterpiece,” the Borges Labyrinth is a 2,300-square-meter space with over 3,000 boxwood plants—a genus belonging to the Buxaceae family—nearly one meter high. It was created in 2011 through a collaboration between the Giorgio Cini Foundation and the Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges.
A tribute marking thirty-five years since the death of the great writer, who loved the city of Venice for its history and the labyrinthine complexity of its streets and canals.
The path is accessible only by guided tour every day of the week (except Wednesdays), offering an intimate experience enriched by the presence of small objects: a walking stick, mirrors, hourglasses, a giant question mark, a tiger, the name Jorge Luis, and the initials of his second wife, Maria Kodama.
In addition to the guide’s explanation with anecdotes and curiosities, visitors can listen to music composed specifically by Antonio Fresa—a composer nominated for the David di Donatello and Nastri d’Argento awards for best musician for Cinderella the Cat—and the four-movement suite Walking the Labyrinth performed by the Orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice. Recorded last May at the Teatro Malibran, it is now an album mixed and mastered by Paolo Iafelice for the independent label Adesiva Discografica.
Also on the island of San Giorgio, the Vatican Chapels installation—the Holy See Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice—is well worth a visit; it remains open today with free admission.
Also part of the Cini Foundation is the house-museum of Palazzo Cini in Dorsoduro, San Vio. In partnership with Assicurazioni Generali, it celebrates the loan of the painting Saint George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello from the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, in exchange for Botticelli and workshop’s The Judgment of Paris.
The important exhibition titled Piranesi Roma Basilico, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero—Director of the Cini Foundation’s Institute of Art History—and organized in collaboration with the Gabriele Basilico Archive, is still open at Palazzo Cini.
Grand Priory of Lombardy and Venice
Few know that Venice is home to the oldest Grand Priory of the Order of Malta. It is located at Palazzo Malta in the Castello district, not far from St. Mark’s Square.
Among the six existing Grand Priories in Italy, the Venetian one represents the oldest evidence of the presence of the Knights Hospitaller. This is documented by a will written in Rialto in August 1144, as well as by the depiction of the Priory’s architecture in the woodcut bird’s-eye view map of Venice created by Jacopo de’ Barbari in 1500, which can be seen at the Museo Correr.
The Grand Priory covers over 7,000 square meters and is a complex well worth visiting, not least because it is hidden behind high brick walls. It holds a treasure trove of history, curiosities, and gems, such as the large garden that Sansovino is said to have called “Paradise,” the Cloister, the ancient stables, the Lapidary, and the Church, which houses a masterpiece by Giovanni Bellini: the Baptism of Saint John, and the altar designed and built by Sansovino.
Public visits are managed by the Parkviaggi – Venice Incoming agency (email: incoming@parkviaggi.it) and cost €25 per person.
This article is by Lucia Pecoraro.
The images of the Borges Labyrinth were provided by the Cini Foundation and are by Matteo De Fina.
