Monday, February 8, 2010

Squero San Trovaso - Architectural Evidence of Il Cadore

photo by Garrett Budwine

Centuries ago in Venice all boats were built from wood, and a lot of that wood came from a mountain region in the Veneto known as Il Cadore.
This alpine setting was home to a hearty people with a strong heritage in woodworking. Not surprisingly, when the wood came down from Il Cadore, so did some of the people.
Their natural ability to work with wood opened them up to great opportunities in boatbuilding and other trades.

In fact some of the squerarioli (boat builders) in Venice today are descendants of the mountain people of Il Cadore.
One obvious indicator of this geographic origin is the classic architecture seen in most squeri. While most Venetian buildings are made from brick and stone, the structures of a sqero are predominantly wood.
They look like they came from the mountains...
because the people who built them did.

1 comment:

Tamas Feher from Hungary said...

The interesting question is, how do they manage it? Building asymmetric boats includes bending planks with open fire, in a wooden building.

A lot of wood is also stored on site in the not too large squeri yards to dry for a few years before use in gondolas.

The shipwmakers must have been pretty influential if the city council still let them stay. The glassmakers had to move to Murano centuries ago.