Robert C. Davis, Garry R. Marvin. Venice, the Tourist Maze: A Cultural Critique of the World's Most Touristed City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. xi + 372 pp. ISBN 978-0-520-23803-9; ISBN 978-0-520-24120-6.
Reviewed by Stephen L. Keck (Department of International Studies, American University of Sharjah)
Published on H-Travel (March, 2007)
Consuming Venice
The frequent publication of a wide range of books about Venice--novels, plays, monographs, coffee table books, and histories--ritually demonstrates that the city has been captivating readers and travelers for centuries. In Venice the Tourist Maze Robert C. Davis and Garry R. Marvin combine the methodologies of history and social anthropology to exhibit Venice in a new and fascinating light. Drawing on Arjun Appadurai's characterization of certain types of globalized cultural phenomena as "scapes," Davis and Marvin organize their study of Venice around such themes as timescape, landscape, seascape and worldscape. Examining Venice from these different perspectives allows Davis and Marvin to show the realities that lie behind, beneath, and beyond arguably the world's most touristed city.
The first section, "Timescape," includes two chapters, which examine the ways in which Venetians have reacted to the ever increasing numbers of foreign visitors. This focus on local reactions, contrasts with previous, more xenocentric studies, which have concentrated on the experiences of the men and women who visited the city. Between the mid-fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries these first travelers were drawn to Venice for reasons of piety. The Irish friar Simon Fitz-Simon, for example, was typical of many of these medieval pilgrims. He journeyed to Venice en route to the Holy Land in the 1320s, noting that the city possessed "the bodies of saints which are whole and uncorrupted" (p. 18). Galleys brought roughly three to four hundred men and women annually to Jaffa from many points in Northern and Central Europe. As Davis and Marvin reveal, medieval and early modern Venetians were quick to capitalize on the increasing number of visitors to the city. Venetians sought to make their city appealing to the diverse interests of these travelers. For instance, they incorporated foreigners into the festival of Corpus Christi, encouraging them to be part of the procession which began at St. Mark's. Tolomazi (guides) also emerged to exploit this source of foreign income. These guides invariably performed a diverse range of functions: they helped exchange money, secured lodgings, booked pilgrims on galleys to the Holy Land and some even served as pimps.
By the time the pilgrim trade collapsed in the mid-sixteenth century, Venice had already established a service industry, which drew upon the annual influx of pilgrims. This industry included not only the tolomazi, but at least twenty state-sanctioned inns. Recognizing pilgrims as a potentially important source of revenue, as well as trouble, the Senate established this system of "official" inns. Monitored by the Giustezia Nuova, these inns provided not only income but also a means of keeping an eye on visitors and their activities in Venice. For by the seventeenth century the city's main attractions were rooted in earthly pleasures, primarily the ridotti (gaming) and prostitution. The first guidebook appeared in 1581 and soon guidebooks were published that devoted entire chapters to the varieties of Venetian prostitution. Thomas Coryat, who traveled to the city in the seventeenth century, wrote about the infinite "allurements of these amorous Calypsoes" which resulted in many coming to Venice from "the remotest parts of Christendome" (p. 44). The flesh trade in Venice, which Davis and Marvin argue was probably not as large as its counterparts in Rome or Naples, ensured that Venice--which acquired the reputation as the "fleshpot of Europe"--became identified with libertarian practices and moral failure.
In the next two sections, "Landscape" and "Seascape" the authors move their story two to three centuries forward to describe the ways in which tourism defines modern Venice. As Davis and Marvin make clear, no part of Venice is free from the presence and influence of the millions of tourists who descend upon the city each year. While most tourists are concerned with the triangle (as Davis and Marvin have it) formed between St. Mark's, the Accademia (the art gallery which contains the best-known collection of Venetian paintings) and the Rialto Bridge, it is evident that every year more travelers encroach upon other areas of the city as well. Nowhere is this as clear as it is with the decline of the campi--the public squares which define the urban landscape of the city and which were once the center of life for most Venetians. In the campiVenetians bought and sold local produce, children played, and adults relaxed. Davis and Marvin show that these public squares have increasingly become the terrain of tourists as they are now largely occupied by outdoor restaurants, which cater to them. Public space, once the nearly private domain of the locals, has been redefined to gain greater revenue from tourists.
The authors make the annual tourist assault palpable by presenting the reader with a vast array of statistics, confirming the popular perception that tourism has grown dramatically in recent years. In 1990 some 10 million people visited Venice; by 2005 that number was expected to swell to 15 million. The rapid increase in tourists has been matched by the flight of the Venetians, who now number a mere 65,000 (down from 130,000-150,000 at the end of the nineteenth century). Statistical evidence also gives us some idea of what tourism looks like in practice; 85 percent of tourists spend most of their time around St. Mark's; Torcello (an island in the Venetian lagoon, which was initially occupied by some of the area's first settlers in the fifth and sixth centuries) in contrast, receives a mere 200,000 annually. The Accademia is also a popular site, but it only gets about 250,000 paid admissions each year. Activities associated with the city, such as gondola rides and the annual Carnival, remain popular. While there are about four hundred gondolas in service, some three million visitors pay for a gondola ride each year (some of these take place in false gondolas: smaller craft, which in some cases have outboard motors). The growing price of gondola rides also reflects dramatic increases (beyond what might be attributed to inflation) in consumption patterns as well. In 1930 it cost $.042 for a gondola ride; that price went up to $24.50 in 1979 and then to $70.00 in 1999. The popularity of the Carnival, which Venetian authorities brought back in 1979, bears out these trends. In 1994 some 450,000 people attended; by 2002 the number had swelled to 800,000. These figures aptly reflect a city that has become victimized by its own success: Venice has sought to attract tourists, yet tourists now threaten to engulf city.
The vast army of tourists, which Henry James once described as the "trooping barbarians" (p. 216), who come to Venice each year reflect the most obvious manner in which the city has become an important "Worldscape." In this final section of the book, the authors thus examine the rise of Venice as an internationally important and recognizable icon. The authors identify John Ruskin's efforts as beginning the process of "aestheticizing Venice" (p. 212). In this version of events, Ruskin arrived in the city in the 1830s and the experience "inspired his own life's work toward creating a new aesthetic for (and of) Venice" (p. 213). However, while Ruskin was hardly interested in making Venice the site for a new type of aesthetic experience, it is true that Venice certainly made an impression on Ruskin in the 1830s. Writing about it during the late 1840s and early 1850s, he sought to link changes in the city's architectural appearance with moral, not aesthetic, categories. Nevertheless, Davis and Marvin rightly see that it was actually Ruskin's disciples--here labeled as "Ruskinites"--such as William Morris and Henry Wallis, who established the St. Mark's Committee in the hope of saving the building from the restoration--a process which they believed could only be destructive. The work of the St. Mark's Committee was significant not so much for what they achieved (very little) but for being the first to make the condition of Venice an international issue. Using examples such as the rebuilding of the Campanile (the original collapsed in 1902) and the restoration of Santa Maria dei Miracoli (restored 1987-1997), Davis and Marvin show that the spirit of the St. Mark's Committee continues to shape the appearance of Venice to this day.
The internationalization of the city extended to the Venetians' inability to control local festivals. The Vogalonga (a rowing festival), the Festa del Redentore (a celebration of the end of the plague which dates back to the sixteenth century) and the Carnival have all been invaded, transformed, and decisively changed by their connections with tourism. These events have become opportunities for tourists to enhance their experience of Venice--often to the dismay of locals. In 1989, for example, many Venetians complained that by including a Pink Floyd concert--aimed at appealing to tourists--in the Festa del Redentore, festival organizers ruined the event.
Davis and Marvin also briefly describe the ways in which the icon of Venice has become important outside of the city. The construction of a replica of the city in the Nevada desert, "The Venetian" hotel, aptly illustrates the global appeal of Venice as a tourist icon. The authors see Sheldon Adelson, the American businessmen who created the hotel, as a nearly predictable postmodern extension of the internationalization of Venice. The city has been iconic precisely because it is a unique place. And with the creation of "The Venetian" in Las Vegas, Venice's iconic status may grow even more since it can be successfully replicated and detached from its location.
All told, Davis and Marvin have done a successful job of exploring the origins and impact of tourism on Venice. If the book has a shortcoming, it is that Venice is treated in isolation. That is, the authors are almost silent about the ways in which Venice's experience of tourism compares with other storied "destinations" such as Paris or Istanbul. This is not a serious criticism, but an invitation for scholars who work on the history and anthropology of tourism to explore the connections between Venice and other great "places." Nonetheless, their book will interest not only students of travel and tourism, but also scholars of cultural history and the history of Venice. In fact, having made tourism vivid for their readers, some may shift their gaze from Venice's many historical and artistic treasures to the human tide which now flows throughout the city and its lagoon.
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Citation:
Stephen L. Keck. Review of Davis, Robert C.; Marvin, Garry R., Venice, the Tourist Maze: A Cultural Critique of the World's Most Touristed City.
H-Travel, H-Net Reviews.
March, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12955
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