Unknown Maker

Ritual fistfights and organized combats with crude weapons such as sticks had occurred in Venice since the medieval period, and the most famous took place yearly on a bridge near Campo San Barnabà, seen here. First, a public challenge was accepted; then the bridge was reinforced, if necessary. The fight began with two “armies” of about three hundred men, usually fishermen and arsenal workers, converging on the bridge to the sound of pipes, drums, and trumpets. Here, clothing and hairstyle clearly demarcate the divide between participants and spectators, with the patricians enjoying the spectacle of brawling workers from windows and balconies, like ringside seating for civic theater. Some are drawn into the fight. Fifteen years before this print was published, a particularly vicious fight leading to a church fire resulted in the cessation of bridge battles. Prints like these rendered the history of the city as colorful tales for a new generation of foreign tourists, mixing carnivalesque violence and splendor in a partly fictive image of Old Venice.