Venice is the Italian city on pilings in the Adriatic, banker to the world’s powers and gate to the East. A warning cut with a cobalt dagger into a back, addressed to the Regulators, reads «No vayan a Venecia» (“Don’t go to Venice”); its recipients “were all going to die”.
| Type | Place (city) |
| Spanish entry | Venecia |
Description
Islands on pilings are joined by bridges and narrow alleys over black canals, with gondolas “badly parked”. Each square keeps a medieval drinking-water well beside a cesspit. It is “a dark and melancholy city” of fog, damp cold, gray dawns and rain.
It lies 100 or 200 km from Florence; with Genoa, it is one of the few cities that became “bankers of the powers of the world”. Access is by sea, by horse from Florence (dusk to next afternoon), by teleport from the Lighthouse and by a gate outside town. Large vehicles are banned; a “mini city” outside lodges them. In 1900 Venice is almost unchanged.
Districts
- The Arsenal, “the gate to all the East”: shipyards on the canal to the Adriatic, near the house of the Millions, linked to Marco Polo. Dante passed through it. The port has a reinforced sea wall.
- The Rialto, “the old commercial seat”: the canal’s master charges passage, as once between privately owned islands.
- The campo of Saint Mark: the Basilica (with the stolen body of an Apostle), a government tower, Café Florian and the Town Hall. Also: the Doge’s Palace, Teatro Olimpico, the Odeon frescoes and horse symbols. The Grand Canal (“the Azo canal”) reaches the Arsenal.
Politics
Venice backs the Black Guelphs and so opposes the company. It has a gala guard, a small, very tough inner guard, and a secret police.
A route “to enter through hell” is known there, and the city’s shadows lead people through the streets: like Rome or Palermo, Venice has a shadow face.
Carnival of 1901
Carnival lasts over five days around February, tied to the 11th. Under the masks come decisions even to “have all the platform bosses killed along with all the regulators”, and a council receives political figures; Elías is invited, and his chief enemy “nests” in the wall of Venice. A guardians’ meeting there lasts about ten days; a deadline gave “30 days for Venice”. The Doppelganger Shop offers discounts to T-Flips and Doppelgangers.
Later fate
Events “led to the debacle of Venice”, which a document calls “the greatest cosmic-capitalist debacle”. In other lines “the great titan of Venice” sinks, but not in Uchronic Paris, where 1901 differs. A tower collapses in 1902. Electric Venice, with electric fields and many ghosts, is “like a theme park”.
Benetton was last seen there before reaching the island. Ludovico il Moro figures in its orbit, and a Lion of Venice as the zodiac platform after Virgo, of uncertain identity.
Conflicting accounts
- Magic: one account makes Saint Mark’s, the arsenals and the ports a dead-magic zone while the surroundings (the garcenas, the sea, the submarine) are fine; another has sorcerers in ritual raising steles and wards at the city’s limits.
- Carnival: one witness says it “has not yet begun”; another, that it began “2 days ago”.
Open questions
- What the wall of Venice is, and its spelling.
- What the great titan and the debacle are, and when the debacle falls.
- Whether electric Venice is a later state or an alternate line.
- Where the route through hell begins, and which tower falls in 1902.