Description of the attraction
The Venetian Gardens is a park area in the historic center of Venice in the Castello quarter, where the Venice Biennale Art Festival has been held since 1895, the main event of the city's largest cultural event. The gardens were laid out during the reign of Napoleon, who ordered the draining of the marshland off the coast of Bacino di San Marco, a narrow strait that separates the gardens from Piazza San Marco and the Doge's Palace, for this purpose.
Today, the park has 30 pavilions, 29 of which "belong" to certain countries and are used for exhibitions of national art during the Biennale. Pavilion 30, known as Padillone Centrale, hosts the main exhibition, the largest of all the pavilions. Some of the pavilions were designed by leading architects of the 20th century, including Carlo Scarpa and Alvar Aalto, and are a kind of architectural museum. For example, the American Pavilion is built in the shape of the Capitol, the German Pavilion is notable for its Gothic architecture, and the Brazilian Pavilion for its postmodern features. Unfortunately, some of the buildings are in poor condition, which has long caused criticism and discontent in society, but the countries to which these premises were given have not yet found funds to repair them. In addition, there has long been talk of turning the gardens into a freer recreational area.
Other attractions of the gardens are the numerous cats that live here and are protected by the state, and some sculptures. Among the latter, it is worth mentioning the statue of Garibaldi in the very center, the monument to the patriot Pierre Luigi Penzo, the monument to soldiers and sailors, created in 1885 and dedicated to the military who helped during the catastrophic flood of 1882, the monument to Richard Wagner and the monument to the great poet Josue Carducci …
