Venice: The Basin of San Marco on Ascension Day

Every year on Ascension Day the doge of Venice was rowed out into the lagoon on the Bucintoro, the state barge, and dropped a blessed ring into the water to marry the city to the sea. The rite celebrated Venetian power over the Adriatic. The gold and red vessel at the centre was still fairly new around 1740. It had first sailed in 1729, the last and grandest of its line. Gondolas and parade boats pack the water around it, some passengers in the white mask and black cloak of Carnival. On the quay, the palace balconies and up in the bell tower, the crowd dissolves into careful dots of paint. That Bucintoro lasted until January 1798, when French soldiers broke up its gilded carvings and burned them on the island of San Giorgio for the gold.