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After Five Years, Could Venice Get its Doge's Palace Back?

After Five Years, Could Venice Get its Doge's Palace Back?

The 17th-century Sospiri Bridge (Bridge of Signs) in Venice connects an ancient prison with interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace. The bridge crosses the Rio de Palazzo that itself slices through the palace and makes a spectacular vista as one crosses the canal bridge on the Grand Canal. This vista has been rudely emblazed for at least the past five years by a giant advertising sign the wraps the palace walls and over and under the beautiful Sospiri bridge.

Finally the Art Newspaper reports that after a campaign led by the British charity Venice in Peril Fund and signed by Norman Foster, Glenn Lowry, and other sculptural dignitaries the sign will be taken down after the contract ends. The sign has been raising about 40,000 Euros a month to help maintain the Doge’s palace. Further, the newspaper reports that Italy’s cultural minister,  Giancarlo Galan, claimed “the advertisers themselves must be finding that they are bad publicity.”

Venice is of course faced with many other (perhaps more serious) issues like its declining population of full-time residents (from 200,000 to 70,000) over the past 15 years, but the removal of this vulgar signage is some progress for the serene republic!


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