Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice (Italy)

“Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.”

Truman Capote

Ponte dell'Accademia crossing the Grand Canal of Venice (Italy)

O Venezia che sei la più bella
e tu di Mantova che sei la più forte
gira l'acqua intorno alle porte
sarà difficile poterti pigliar.

E quel giorno, entrando in Venezia
vedevo il sangue scorreva per terra
i feriti sul campo di guerra
e tutto il popolo gridava pietà.

Lyrics of O Venezia,

by Giovanna Daffini

Ponte degli Scalzi (Barefoot Bridge) over the Grand Canal in Venice (Italy)

"It has no armor, neither in reinforced concrete, nor in iron, nor in bronze; it has no mysterious curse"

Eugenio Miozzi, 

arquitect of the bridge about it

Ponte dei Tre Archi (Three Archs Bridge) spanning the Cannaregio Canal in Venice (Italy)

Passano sul mar le gondole

trepide nei sogni d'or

ed ogni gondolier con nostalgia

sospira la canzone sua d'amor.

Venezia, la luna e tu

stanotte questo cuore

sognando aspetterà

Venezia, la luna e tu

sulla laguna l'amor ci avvincerà.

Tra il sussurrar di dolci cantilene

tra i baci ti dirò, "Ti voglio bene"

Venezia la luna e tu

è questo il grande sogno

che non si scorda più

Lyrics of Venezia la luna e tu,

by Luciano Tajoli

Ponte degli Scalzi over the Grand Canal of Venice (Italy)

¡Venecia la encantadora,

La de los pardos pilares,

De las ciudades señora,

La señora de los mares,

La corona de jardines

Colgada sobre canales!

Fragment of A Venecia

Poem by José Zorrilla

Bridge over a canal in Venice (Italy) painted by Vlad Kravchuk

Que c'est triste Venise

Au temps des amours mortes

Que c'est triste Venise

Quand on ne s'aime plus

On cherche encore des mots

Mais l'ennui les emporte

On voudrait bien pleurer

Mais on ne le peut plus

Song by Charles Aznovour

Ponte della Paglia (Bridge of Straw) over the Rio del Palazzo in Venice (Italy)

Night in her dark array

Steals o'er the ocean,

And with departed day

Hushed seems its motion.

Slowly o'er yon blue coast

Onward she's treading,

'Till its dark line is lost,

'Neath her veil spreading.

The bark on the rippling deep

Hath found a pillow,

And the pale moonbeams sleep

On the green billow.

Bound by her emerald zone

Venice is lying,

And round her marble crown

Venice

Fanny Kemble

Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal of Venice (Italy)

Passa una gondola
della città:
- Ehi, della gondola,
qual novità?
- Il morbo infuria
il pan ci manca,
sul ponte sventola
bandiera banca!

Arnaldo Fusinato

Bridge of Sighs over the Rio de Palazzo in Venice (Italy)

White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest
So wonderfully built among the reeds
Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,
As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest!
White water-lily, cradled and caressed
By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds
Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds,
Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!
White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;
I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets
Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting
In air their unsubstantial masonry.

Venice

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Bridge in Venice (Italy)

Windows pampered like princes always see
what on occasion deigns to trouble us:
the city that, time and again, where a shimmer
of sky strikes a feeling of floodtide,

takes shape without once choosing to be.
Each new morning must first show her the opals
she wore yesterday, and pull rows
of reflections out of the canal
and remind her of the other times:
only then does she concede and settle in

like a nymph who received great Zeus.
The dangling earrings ring out at her ear;
but she lifts San Giorgio Maggiore
and smiles idly into that lovely thing.

Venetian Morning

Rainer María Rilke

Ponte dell'Accademia over the Grand Canal in Venice (Italy)

Dans Venise la rouge

Pas un bateau qui bouge

Pas un pêcheur dans l'eau

Pas un falot.

Seul, assis à la grève,

Le grand lion soulève,

Sur l'horizon serein,

Son pied d'arain

Alfred de Musset

Bridge across the Rio dei Bareteri in Venice (Italy)

Voga e va, gondolier,
canta ancor: "Non posso andar più via
perché, Venezia mia,
m’hai fatto innamorar

Venetian song

San Cristoforo Bridge over the Rio de le Toreseie in the city of Venice (Italy)

È fosco l’aere,

il cielo è muto,

ed io sul tacito

veron seduto,

in solitaria

malinconia

ti guardo e lagrimo,

Venezia mia!

Arnaldo Fusinato

Ponte Santa Maria Nova over the Rio dei Miracoli in Venice (Italy)

Éclats de lune

Sur les canaux

Que disent les runes

Baron Corvo

Pont des merveilles

Pour une émeraude

Que les lions veillent

Dans la nuit chaude

...

Didier Venturini

Bridge over the Rio de l'Arsenal in Venice (Italy)

I sat on the Dogana’s steps

For the gondolas cost too much, that year,

And there were not “those girls”, there was one face,

And the Bucintoro twenty yards off, howling “Stretti”,

And the lit cross-beams, that year, in the Morosini,

And peacocks in Koré’s house, or there may have been

Ezra Pound

Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice (Italy) painted by Antonio di Bernardino

Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys, and my usances
...

From The merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare

San Cristoforo Bridge over the Toreseie canal in Venice (Italy)

Venezia! l’ultima

ora é venuta;

illustre martire

tu sei perduta…

Il morbo infuria,

il pan ci manca,

sul ponte sventola

bandiera bianca!

Arnaldo Fusinato

Bridge in Burano (Italy)

E s’accendono allegre come le stelle
nella notte già estiva le lucciole,
inseguono il miracolo i bambini
nella piana del lago di Burano.

E non sanno perché oggi spegnere
si devono se incolumi da secoli
quei guizzi tremuli di luci vere
al buio tra le maggesi e i fossi.

Gabriella Sica

Ponte della Dona Onesta crossing the Rio de la Frescada in Venice (Italy)

"When I seek another word for 'music', I never find any other word than 'Venice' "

Friedrich Nietzsche

Bridge of Sighs over the canal Rio di Palazzo in Venice (Italy)

I remember now … the deep night, the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of women...

From de The Assignation
Edgar Allan Poe