Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

My first journey through the colorful scenes and history of Venice was not traversing the island, rather, in the classroom for an Art History course. Our class studied the minority groups during the city's Renaissance and we looked at how Venice provided a unique opportunity for courtesans, dwarfs, nuns, and Moors to make a unique life for themselves in a world where priests, doges, and merchants were limited by social mores and religious taboos. This class was the instigator for my interest to study abroad. Once in Italy, I made sure to visit La Serenissima. Toward the end of my tour of the Ca'd'Oro, I was stopped short from what would have been an excellent view of life below on the canal by a traditional bottleglass window. As I stood separated from the world outside the palazzo by a rose-colored and slightly distorted glass wall, I was finally confronted with the complexity and reality of life in Renaissance Venice.