Ghetto Vecchio, Ghetto Nuovo and Ghetto Nuovissimo

The ghetto is composed of the Ghetto Vecchio, the Ghetto Nuovo and the Ghetto Nuovissimo.

 

They constructed 5 synagogues, called scuole there:

 

The Scuola Grande Tedesca, Scuola Canton, Scuola Italiana.

 

The more important two are the Scuola Grande Spagnola and Levantina.

 

It is in Scuola Lavantina that is the famous staircase of the bimàh, which goes up towards the sky.

 

“I enter with emotion and respect here.
Synagogues are marvelous.
Diversity and internal beauty, rolls
and books encircled and lit by one
red which is the fervor of the heart. ”
Philippe Sollers translated from:“Dictionnaire Amoureux de Venise”.

 

Small Manhattan

The population increased, but not the available space. The only resolution was to construct in height and to optimize this space.

 

The ghetto is small Manhattan of the Middle Ages: houses attain the 7 floors, scattered with tiny disorganized windows.

 

One imagines the cramped rooms which are behind narrow streets; no light, no nice stones, no even with any color, as in the rest of Venice area. Everything there is blacker, greyer, sadder, and even oppressive.

 

“We feel this reduced space,
this small city in the city,
in a more and more internal manner,
in the depths of us and from our islands:
and it is what counts beyond that
we see or of what it seems to us to see with eyes. ”
Paolo Barbaro translated from: “Petit Guide Sentimal de Venise”

 

“Its windows like gouged out eyes,
ts sweating haggard facades
I do not know which reeks worse;
moldy dread or ruinous terror,
Which makes think at the same time
of Shylock in the stunk out city
of Nosferatu:
they expect to see the rats leaving.  ”

 

Julien Gracq

 

 

 

 

 

 

Map and Satellite view of the Ghetto of Venice :

 

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