The Gondola Maker

Venice’s gondolas are sleek in style, specific in design, and steeped in history. Once upon a time, 10,000 or so gondolas glided through the canals of Venice, Italy. It was the 1500s, and Venetians needed boats to move themselves and their goods around the city and beyond. The gondola of then was not the gondola of now: an elegant, narrow, flat-bottomed canoe painted black. In the past, gondolas were more of a ragtag collection of handmade boats, from rafts to gilded barges. As time progressed, so too did Venetian water travel, becoming regulated and organized as boaters crowded the canals. Gondolas became standardized as well. In 1562, authorities decreed they be painted black—the fashionable gilt and glitz of the status-conscious rich was deemed sinful. Over the centuries, gondola design further developed under the auspices of a number of boat building families responding to market demand.