One Big Beautiful Billionaire Bezos Wedding in Venice

Bezos Wedding Base: The Aman Venice, set inside Palazzo Papadopoli on the Grand Canal
Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) It is astonishing to witness the almost non-stop English-language news about the Bezos wedding unfolding right in front of our eyes here in Venice. The media has taken frenzied reports about the Bezos wedding to a new level and warped reality into something unrecognizable. You would think nothing else was happening on the planet these days (like the US bombing Iran's nuclear sites, war in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza, etc.). 

Reality check: the average person walking the calli of Venice would not know there was a celebrity wedding going on. It is not impacting everyday life in Venice the way over-tourism and the lack of affordable housing does. Besides, everyday in life in Venice often includes yachts and celebrities arriving for events like the Venice Film Festival and the opening of the Venice Art and Architecture Biennale. Weddings take place every day in Venice -- getting married in the lagoon is the dream of many couples. 

In 2014, the Clooney wedding took place in the same place as the Bezos wedding, at Palazzo Papadopoli. Instead of protests, a group of locals used the extra media attention to form the Unlock Your Love project. We went around Venice snapping off hundreds of "love" locks that ignorant tourists had attached to Venice's bridges. 

In 2011, Lanza & Baucina, the same wedding planners that did the Bezos wedding, designed the billionaire Agarwal wedding, complete with elephant and Shakira, and no one said a word. 

In 2009, Salma Hayek had her big second-wedding bash with billionaire husband François-Henri Pinault and a bunch of celebrities, including Bono. The week after, the then-Prince Charles and Camilla arrived, with Charles contemplating "living like a Venetian" for a time.  

The point is that celebrities and dignitaries and billionaires arrive in Venice all the time, and it's been that way for millennia. In 1433, Cosimo de' Medici, one of the world's richest men, stayed in the Benedictine monastery on the very Island of San Giorgio Maggiore where the Bezos wedding took place. Medici was so rich that he was credited for kickstarting the Renaissance. 

And Jakob Fugger (1459-1525), also known as Jakob the Rich, came of age in Venice at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Fugger's wealth adjusted to 2015 was estimated to be around $400 billion. Fugger was so rich that he loaned the Vatican the money to build St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.

Random tourists kiss for Unlock Your Love project during 2014 Clooney wedding
Photo: Cat Bauer

Last week, before the Bezos wedding, a few small groups of anti-Bezos protestors with handmade "No Space for Bezos" banners gathered to protest something -- I was not sure what, and I don't think they were, either. The handful of protestors were suddenly splashed across the international news as if there was a major upraising in Venice. It was blown up all out of proportion, and seemed very weird.

A few days later, the locals were joined by professional outside activists, who know a good protest opportunity when they see one. The outsiders brought professional banners to promote their own causes. The media mistakenly reported that those outside protestors were locals, which they were not.

When I told one Venetian woman, a hotel owner, I was going to write something about the wedding, she said, "Tell them that Venetians are used to aristocrats shopping next to them at the market. After the flood in November 2012, everyone helped each other, rich and poor. I don't know a single Venetian who agrees with the protestors. They are only two people and basta. We don't care."

Personally, I think there is plenty of space for Bezos, and I am glad that the lagoon is still a crucial spot on the global chessboard. Venice knows how to host popes and emperors, kings and queens, sheiks, high-level forums, and G7 summits. A bunch of billionaires already own a bunch of property here. 

And you can visit the wedding venues on your own, you just couldn't barge into the Cini Foundation during the wedding celebration. But you can't barge into the Cini Foundation during many private occasions.  

 

Michelangelo river boat & Were Dreams yacht in Venice lagoon
Photo: Cat Bauer

I think yachts liven up the lagoon and am happy to see them here. And it is not true that the yachts have taken up all the berths. Docked in front of the Were Dreams yacht was the riverboat Michelangelo. You regulars will remember that a similar riverboat, the River Countess, was slammed by the massive MSC Opera Cruise ship five years ago back in June 2019. Now, the River Countess has transformed into the S.S. La Venezia, completely redesigned with custom Fortuny fabrics and Murano glass elements, and the cruise ships are no longer barrelling down the Giudecca Canal. 

In fact, I've always supported the No Grandi Navi movement and Tommaso Cacciari, one of the protest leaders, as did masses of locals. I first covered the No Grandi Navi protests back in 2012, which felt organic and true. In 2015, I translated photographer Gianni Berengo Gardin’s open letter to the mayor of Venice when his cruise ship exhibition was forced to change venues. Back then there were real outside forces that latched onto the protests and tried to create division in Venice.

These days, Cacciari seems to be part of the No Space for Bezos protests, which, to me, seem forced and manufactured. Again, I feel that Venetians are being used by outside forces. I mentioned this to a prominent Venetian Friday evening at a local event, and he said that he agreed and could not wait for the wedding to be over.

 

The anti-Bezos protestors claimed victory when one of the wedding venues was changed from the Scuola Grande della Misericordia to Arsenale. The protests may have had something to do with it, but I don't think that was the main reason for the venue change. 

On June 22, 2025, the US bombed three of Iran's nuclear sites as part of the Iran-Israel war. 

In response, on June 23, Iran launched missiles at the US military base in Qatar. 

Did you know there are two military bases about an hour outside Venice? The US Army Garrison is in Vicenza, and the US Air Force base is in Aviano. Fun fact: B61 nuclear bombs are stored in underground storage systems inside aircraft shelters at Aviano. 

On June 23, the wedding venue was changed from Misericordia to Arsenale, which, to me, is a much nicer (and safer) location. The ancient shipyard is funky and full of life because La Biennale is always doing something interesting inside the space, like dance, theater, and music performances. It converts to a press room during Art and Architecture openings. In fact, last year, Diane von Furstenburg had her DVF Awards at Arsenale, complete with excellent dinner -- I ran into Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King in the ladies room!

On June 25, the Bezos wedding guests started arriving, including President Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, and their three children. A gaggle of Kardashians arrived. Jerry Seinfield(?!). Leonardo DiCaprio. Bill Gates. The eclectic list of wedding guests went on and on. With so many prominent potential American targets concentrated in one space, security needed to be top level — especially with the protestors adding an extra challenge.

Media covering Bezos wedding - Photo: Cat Bauer

I was curious about the reason for the global frenzy, so I visited some media people (not paparazzi) who were set up across the Grand Canal from Palazzo Papadopoli, where the Bezos are based.  I asked a fellow with a mike where he was from.

"Germany. Where are you from?"

"I'm American, but I live here. I'm a writer. Why are you here? Why all the media attention?"

The fellow chuckled. "Good question. They sent me here for three days and put me up in a very nice hotel, which is not cheap. This is not something that I usually cover. I'll talk to you in a second because right now I'm going on air and need to focus."

I waited.  

After a few minutes, he took a breath. "They're coming back to me so I still can't talk."

"Just two quick questions, and then I'll leave. How long ago did they give you this assignment?"

"A day, but that's normal."

"What do you usually cover?"

"The war in Ukraine. Bombing in Iran. Gaza. Stuff like that."

"That's what I thought. Thanks. Have fun!"

Aman Venice, prime location: Grand Canal at Rialto
Photo: Cat Bauer

Something I do agree with the protestors about is that Bezos has way too much money. That is not the fault of Venice -- it is up to the United States to regulate him. The US must change the laws so that one individual cannot accumulate so much wealth. Bezos must pay tax and give back to the country that made him billions. And not just Bezos... 

It seemed like some protestor had come up with the tagline “No Space For Bezos” and then they tried to jam the narrative to fit that framework. The problem was that it was only a distraction and just not true. 

After the protests managed to focus on the vast discrepancies of wealth between the few and the many, and how billionaires spend their money (does one really need a sailing yacht longer than a football field?), the global conversation became more interesting, and we can thank Venice for that.

Gondola in front of Island of San Giorgio Maggiore
Photo: Cat Bauer

The government of the Republic of Venice was ruled by an aristocratic oligarchy, a group of noble families, headed by a Doge. For the most part, they were extremely wealthy merchants and all had the same equal title of "Nobleman." The title was abbreviated N.H., Nobilis Homo for men, and N.D. Nobilis Domina for women. 

The Venetian nobility not only set the rules for the Republic, they also kept each other in check. Legend says that the reason that gondolas are black was because they had become too ostentatious when families tried to outdo each other with their wealth.

From the book, Venice, A Documentary History 1450-1630, edited by David Chambers and Brian Pullan:

"English travellers were impressed by the tendency of Venetian...nobles to go in for conspicuous investment in building or parks, in things that lasted and could be kept in families, rather than for conspicuous consumption on clothing, feasting and large retinues of servants." 

Since 1299, laws had been issued to restrain ostentation and lavish spending. By 1515, things had gotten so far out of hand that a special magistracy was created by the Venetian Senate to enforce them. 

"A MAGISTRACY TO ADMINISTER SUMPTUARY LAWS, 1515

It can be plainly seen, and it has come to our attention, that in the city of Venice there is much gross and unnecessary expenditure on meals and banquets, on the adornment of women, and on the decoration of houses, so that fortunes are squandered and a bad example is set to those who seek to live modestly. It is proper, therefore, especially in these hard times, to make every effort to put these matters right, and so do honour to the majesty of God."

By 1562, wedding feasts themselves were regulated by the Venetian government. 

"THE REGULATION OF BANQUETS, 1562
From a Senate decree of 8 October 1562

BE IT THEREFORE DETERMINED that, at nuptial feasts, at banquets for public and private parties, and indeed at any meal of meat, not more than one course of roast and one of boiled meat may be provided... Wild birds and animals, Indian cocks and hens, and doves shall be strictly forbidden... Oysters may be served only at private meals for twenty persons or less, and not at larger banquets or feasts..."

The impossible city of Venice was born over 1,600 years ago in the middle of a lagoon, the product of the powerful creativity and ingenuity of humankind. 

I like to believe that the sacred majesty of Venice's architecture, built on the highest principles by enlightened beings, affects the souls those who visit. It's good for the spirit just to walk the twists and turns of the ancient labyrinth of Venice.  

Vintage Amazon Mouse Pad

Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos and his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, back on July 5, 1994, when the Internet was tiny and squealy. The majority of the public wasn't online, but writers were, and MacKenzie Scott was a writer. When Amazon first starting selling books online back in 1995, many of its first customers were writers. We thought it was revolutionary and cool. 

Amazon was so small back then that it gave a Christmas present to all of us who had bought a book that first year: a mouse pad with a quote by Groucho Marx:

Outside of a dog,
a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog,
it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx

I'll bet the mouse pad gift was MacKenzie Scott's idea. Maybe it was Jeff's, but if not, he did go along with it. The good will of writers gave Amazon a strong foundation, and we loved being appreciated with a mouse pad. It was a novel gift back then.

Zaleti from Rosa Salva

Venice was told by the media how Bezos had used mostly local businesses to execute the wedding, including goodie bags for the wedding guests from the Venetian pasticceria, Rosa Salva. 

You know what I think would be a nice gesture of appreciation? If Bezos bought all the residents of Venice (less than 50,000 people) breakfast at any Rosa Salva in the historic center on July 5, the 31st anniversary of the founding of Amazon. Coffee, plus a certain selection of sweets, no takeaway. You must show your carta d'identità as proof of residency.

 

Venetians enjoy Rosa Salva, too.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog 

"In Minor Keys" -- Koyo Kouoh Curates the 2026 Venice Art Biennale from Beyond the Grave

Koyo Kouoh - Photo: Mirjam Kluka

(Venice, Italy) I was deeply moved by the beautiful and poignant presentation of Koyo Kouoh's In Minor Keys, the title of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, held on Tuesday, May 27, 2025 in Sala delle Colonne at Ca' Giustinian, headquarters of La Biennale.

On October 17, 2024, Koyo Kouoh accepted the invitation by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, President of La Biennale, to become the Artistic Director of the Visual Arts Department for La Biennale's 61st International Art Exhibition in 2026. Her appointment as the first African woman to curate the Venice Art Biennale was publicly reported on December 3, 2024.

On May 10, 2025, Kouoh's sudden passing at the age of 57 due to recently diagnosed cancer was announced. The world of art and culture was stunned. 

Just the week before, in an excellent Q&A with Charlene Prempeh of the Financial Times, Kouoh looked very much alive in vibrant photos by Trevor Stuurman. With prescience, she said:

“I do believe in life after death because I come from an ancestral Black education where we believe in parallel lives and realities,” she said. “There is no ‘after death,’ ‘before death’ or ‘during life.’ It doesn’t matter that much. I believe in energies—living or dead—and in cosmic strength.”

Kouoh had nearly seven months on Earth to develop her curatorial project. She chose the profound and perfect title, In Minor Keys. The artists and artworks were selected, and her philosophical framework defined.

At the presentation on Tuesday, after an introduction by Biennale spokesperson Cristiana Costanza and President Pietrangelo Buttafuco, who said that Kouoh was "whispering from elsewhere," Kouoh's team took turns reading the text that she had sent to La Biennale on April 8, 2025. By the end, as the audience in the Sala delle Colenne rose to its feet, I had tears in my eyes.

In Minor Keys - The Team: Siddartha Mitter, Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira,
image of Koyo Kouoh, Rasha Salti, Rory Tsapayi
Photo: Cat Bauer

The philosophical framework that guides Koyo Kouoh's curatorship is simple and divine. Here is the text, in her own words:

La Biennale di Venezia
61st International Art Exhibition

Curatorial Text by Koyo Kouoh

In Minor Keys

[Take a deep breath]
[Exhale]
[Drop your shoulders]
[Close your eyes]

This is an invitation to encounter these words in the immediate physical, meteorological, ambient,
and karmic conditions in which they meet you. To shift to a slower gear and tune in to the
frequencies of the minor keys. Because, though often lost in the anxious cacophony of the present
chaos raging through the world, the music continues. The songs of those producing beauty in spite
of tragedy, the tunes of the fugitives recovering from the ruins, the harmonies of those repairing
wounds and worlds.

There is a reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend.

                                                                                                                            — James Baldwin, 1972

Koyo Kouoh - Photo: Mirjam Kluka

The minor key, in music, alludes both to the structure of a song and to its emotional effects. It is a
rich idea, so rich that it quickly overflows its technical definition and spills with metaphor. It
summons moods, the blues, the call-and-response, the morna, the second line, the lament, the
allegory, the whisper.

The minor keys refuse orchestral bombast and goose-step military marches and come alive in the
quiet tones, the lower frequencies, the hums, the consolations of poetry, all portals of
improvisation to the elsewhere and the otherwise. The minor keys ask for listening that calls on
the emotions and sustains them in return.

The minor keys are also the small islands, worlds amid oceans with distinct and endlessly rich
ecosystems, social lives that are articulated, for better and worse, within much larger political
forms and ecological stakes. Here, the evocation of the key and the island extends to an
archipelago of oases: gardens, courtyards, compounds, lofts, dance floors — the other worlds that
artists make, the intimate and convivial universes that refresh and sustain even in terrible times;
indeed, especially in terrible times.

Look at the creole garden, you put all species on such a little lick of land:
avocados, lemons, yams, sugarcanes …plus thirty or forty other species on this bit of
land that doesn’t go more than fifty feet up the side of the hill, they protect each other.
In the great Circle, everything is in everything else.

                                                                                                                        — Édouard Glissant, 1993

Koyo Kouoh - Photo: Mirjam Kluka

These are the cues for an exhibition; an exhibition tuned in to the minor keys; an exhibition that
invites listening to the persistent signals of earth and life, connecting to soul frequencies. If, in
music, the minor keys are often associated with strangeness, melancholy and sorrow, here their
joy, solace, hope, and transcendence manifest as well.

In the minor keys, sound and sensation are grounding, they hold the cadences, melodies, and
silences of resonant worlds that gather and create together a polyphonous assembly of art,
convening and communing in convivial collectivity, beaming across the void of alienation and the
crackle of conflict.

The 61st edition of the Biennale Arte is grounded in a deep belief in artists as the vital interpreters
of the social and psychic condition and catalysts of new relations and possibilities.
The exhibition’s composition is formed by artistic practices that open portals, that refresh and
nourish, that prompt relation and relationship, that advance concept and form through networks
and schools — understood freely and informally.

The intended effect scrambles cohesion and dissonance in the manner of a free-jazz ensemble, or
perhaps, at the scale of the Biennale Arte, a festival of ensembles with a common premise: that
poetics liberate and people make beauty together.

Through relation, sharing, and transcendence, the artists and practices that operate in this spirit,
like jazz, across methods, scales, senses and forms, propose to visitors an exhibitional experience
that is more sensory than didactic, renewing rather than exhausting, and fortifying for the work
ahead.

Through a visual and meditative procession, the exhibition prompts all senses to interconnect and
meander from one universe to the other, rendering visible the possibilities that reside in the in-
between spaces and beyond the portals.

...there is no choice but to tune in like jazzmen to these imperative mutations.
The jazzman constantly meditates on the unpredictable, stands within it according to the
laws of polyrhythm, and improvises breathtaking moments.
We small-island Caribbeans are not ready, but we have this resource.
The change will have to be so profound that we will no doubt have to add to the knowledge of jazz, the
old totemisms, animisms, analogisms, and other metaphysics too summarily discarded.
These old-world poems are already precious scores.

                                                                                                                    — Patrick Chamoiseau, 2023

Koyo Kouoh - Photo: @Mehdl Berkler

In this spirit, the international exhibition of the 61st Biennale Arte intends neither a litany of 

commentary on world events, nor an inattention or escape from compounding and continuous

intersecting crises. Rather, it proposes a radical reconnection with art’s natural habitat and role in
society: that is the emotional, the visual, the sensory, the affective, the subjective.

In Minor Keys are sequences of exhilarating journeys that address the sensate and the affective,
inviting visitors to marvel, meditate, dream, revel, reflect, and commune in realms where time is
not corporate property nor at the mercy of relentlessly accelerated productivity.

After all, it is clear by now that the enduring time of capital and empire maligned local,
Indigenous and terrestrial knowledges as chimeric, and dismissed co-constitutive artistic practices
as artisanal, intended for decoration or devotional rituals.

The ‘civilizing mission’ flattens all with condescending contempt, and in the contemporary era
entire societies and ecologies are regarded as collateral damage in the headstrong pursuit of
growth supported by ruthlessness and greed. In refusing the spectacle of horror, the time has come
to listen to the minor keys, to tune in sotto voce to the whispers, to the lower frequencies; to find
the oases, the islands, where the dignity of all living beings is safeguarded.

The exhibition posits that such radical shifts are taking place — indeed, have been underway all
along — in the minor keys, and the artists, poets, performers, and filmmakers whom the exhibition
will convene are grounded in their commitments to realizing them. Artists are channels to and
between the minor keys and listening to, rather than speaking for them is at the core of the
curatorial conceit.

The exhibition In Minor Keys stands as a collective score composed together with artists who have
built universes of imagination. Artists who work at the boundaries of form, and whose practices
can be thought of as intricate melodies to be heard both collectively and on their own terms. These
are artists whose practices seamlessly bleed into society.
Artists who accommodate daily life as part of a logical and aesthetically consistent relation of
parts. Artists who are exceedingly generous and hospitable to life.

In our myths, in our songs, that’s where the seeds are.
It is not possible to constantly hone on the crisis.
You have to have the love and you have to have the magic, that’s also life.

                                                                                                                            — Toni Morrison, 1977

1 James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (New York: Dial Press, 1972).
2 Edouard Glissant, Tout-monde (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), 208; translated by Eric Prieto, 2010.
3 Patrick Chamoiseau, 'We Caribbeans are not ready but have the resources to adapt to unavoidable
climate mutations,' Le Monde, June 29 2023.
4 Toni Morrison interviewed by John Callaway, WTTW, Chicago, 1977. 

In Minor Keys, the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, will run from Saturday, May 9 to Sunday, November 22, 2026 with previews on May 6, 7, and 8. All the details of the project will be announced on Wednesday, February 25, 2026. Go to the Venice Biennale for more information.

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat Bauer

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog 

Silk Road Trip! 6 Venetian Merchants on the Silk Road in 1338 - From Venice to Delhi

From Venice to Delhi - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) In the summer of 1338, six noble Venetian merchants took off on a life-changing road trip. They had formed a societas, or company -- sort of like an early form of a limited partnership -- and left Venice on a trading adventure. The plan was to travel the Silk Road until they reached the Sultanate of Delhi on the Indian subcontinent. 

With global trade deals and tariffs blaring across today's headlines in 2025, it is important to remember that all this commotion about trading with foreign competitors is nothing new. As early as the 1300s, Venetian merchants had already formed trade companies to do business with Persia, India, and China. They had colonies in Constantinople and Crimea. (And yes, the head of the Venetian Republic was called the Doge:-) 

If you know a bit about Venice, you will recognize the family names of members of the societas:

• Giovanni Loredan
• Paolo Loredan
• Andrea Loredan
• Marco Soranzo
• Marino Contarini
• Baldovino Querini

Giovanni Loredan organized the trip. The nobles had been to China before, hauling back a load of spices from the East, which they had exchanged for amber, and Flemish and Florentine woolen cloths. 

 

That first trip had been financed by an early version of crowd funding, with contributions coming from a wide range of people, including a group of Venetian women -- backed by Caterina, Giovanni's mother. 

Now the noble merchants wanted to go to India to do business. Because of the nature of global trade, the goods and investments loaded in Venice were not necessarily the same as those that would arrive in Delhi. The continuous purchases and sales of goods would respond to the tastes and needs of the market the merchants encountered along the Silk Road. 

 

Caterina did everything she could to convince her son not to make the second perilous voyage. 

But Giovanni could not be dissuaded. He believed a fortune would be made if they could reach the Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq, whose Sultanate ruled most of India. For the journey to Delhi, the partners had a common capital of 12,600 ducats, equal to more than 44 kg (97 lbs) of gold.
 

It was said that the Sultan would receive guests in the gigantic hall of the 'Thousand Pillars,' reclining on a raised throne covered with white carpets and cushions. Surrounding the Sultan were hundreds of nobles, courtiers, and soldiers, and harnessed horses and elephants.

 

The Sultan was "famous for acts of great generosity but also for his extreme cruelty." If the Sultan liked the gifts bestowed upon him, he would respond by giving gifts worth three times their value in return. 

So, in addition to other goods, Giovanni & Co. shrewdly brought with them the latest marvels of European technology: a mechanical clock and a mechanical fountain. Both gifts had been made in Venice by the goldsmith Mondino da Cremona, the go-to guy for gifts for world leaders. A few years earlier, da Cremona had sold a clock to the king of Cyprus for an impressive 800 ducats, equal to almost 3kg (6.61 lbs) of gold.

Parchment of the 1350 court case - Photo: Cat Bauer

How do we know all this?

The Archivio di Stato in Venice is one of the largest in Italy, located inside the vast former convent of Santa Maria dei Frari. Venetians were diligent about keeping written records. The Venice State Archive preserves more than 1000 years of Venetian history, covering about 80 km (50 miles) of shelves.

Hidden within the labyrinthine archives of Venice was a fragile 1350 parchment about a court case brought by Alberto de Calle against the heirs of his son-in-law -- who happens to be our protagonist,  Giovanni Loredan. 

The 14th century parchment had been found and forgotten in the State Archives decades ago, and had been lost for more than 70 years.. It was largely overlooked by scholars of Venetian history, and in very poor condition.

 

Then, when the celebration of the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo's death in 2024 was approaching, historian Dr. Luca Molà remembered the parchment. Molà convinced the University of Warwick, where he is a professor, to fund the restoration of the document. The restoration allowed Dr. Molà and his colleague, Marcello Bolognari, to bring the ancient document -- written mostly in Latin with testimonies in Venetian vulgar dialect -- to life.

The 1350 parchment is the record of a long court case. It offers a rich glimpse into a pivotal moment in Silk Road history, and provides a rare insight into Venetian trade with Asia just years after Marco Polo's death in 1324.

Bust of Marco Polo by Augusto Gambo (1862-63)

Marco Polo, the Original Gangster 

Marco Polo was the OG. The six noble Venetian merchants were continuing his journey into the exotic world of the East. In fact, Giovanni Loredan was a distant relative of Marco Polo's. All the other travelers were Marco Polo's neighbors in Venice.

Marco Polo wasn't the first European to make the journey to the East, but he wrote the best seller, Il Milione -- commonly known as The Travels of Marco Polo -- so he is the one we know the best.

Born around 1254 in Venice, Marco Polo came from a family of seasoned merchants. Details are murky, but apparently Marco's mother died when he was young, and he was raised by his extended family.

 

His father, Niccolò, was one of three brothers who were also business partners. The eldest brother, also named Marco, was a resident of Constantinople; the youngest brother was Maffeo. All three made regular journeys to Crimea and beyond.

 

While Niccolò and Maffeo were in Bukhara (Uzbekistan) in 1260, a center of trade on the Silk Road, they met messengers on their way to meet the great Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. The envoys persuaded the Venetians to accompany them to what is now Beijing.   

 

When they arrived, Kublai Khan -- who was a Buddhist -- was fascinated by what the Polos told him about Europe and the Christian religion. He sent them back West as his special envoys with a letter to Pope Clement IV requesting holy oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ was buried, and a 100 missionaries to instruct his people in Christianity.

 

So, off went the Polo brothers. The dates are blurry, but they reached Acre around 1269, then the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem -- which roughly corresponds to what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories, southern Lebanon and southwestern Jordan. They met with the papal legate, Teobaldo Visconti, who was representing the Pope in the Holy Land. Visconti was assisting Prince Edward of England (who would become King Edward I) with the Ninth Crusade.

 

The Polos found out that Pope Clement IV had died and the election for his successor was embroiled in turmoil. Visconti suggested that the Polos return to Venice to await the election of a new Pope before attempting to fulfill Kublai Khan's request for the 100 learned Christians and holy oil.

 

Marco was about 15 years old when his father and uncle returned to Venice sometime in 1269 or 1270. The young Venetian was riveted by the tales of their mission for the great Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan, the first non-Chinese emperor of China, and founder of the Yuan Dynasty.

Kublai Khan's great desire was to rule all of China, a goal he would go on to achieve in 1279 backed by his fierce Mongol fighting forces. Under Kublai Khan, the Mongol Empire grew to 9 million square miles, making it the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world.

 

Map of Mongol Empire - World History Encyclopedia

 
The Second Journey to Kublai Khan

 

In 1271, Niccolò and Maffeo Polo set off on their second voyage to meet the Great Khan -- this time accompanied by the teenage Marco. They headed to Acre to meet again with the papal legate, Teobaldo Visconti, who was still in the Holy Land. In a remarkable and fortunate turn of events -- after the longest papal vacancy in the history of the Roman Catholic Church -- from 1268 to 1271 -- a new pope was finally elected.

And it was Teobaldo Visconti! Who was as surprised as anyone to receive the news that he had been elected as the new Pope. 

Before Visconti left the Holy Land to return to Italy to assume the papal mantle as Pope Gregory X, he gave the Polo Trio the sacred oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, but not the 100 learned Christians requested by Kublai Khan. Instead, they were accompanied by two friars, who did not finish the voyage out of fear.

 

When the Polo Trio arrived in China about four years later, the now 21-year-old Marco Polo met Kublai Khan for the first time. And he was a big hit with the Mongol emperor. Kublai Khan adored the young Venetian and sent him out on diplomatic missions as a foreign emissary throughout this vast empire. 

 

The Polos spent about 20 years in China. Apparently Kublai Khan appreciated the Venetians so much that he would not agree to their departure. Around 1295, when he was about 40, Marco finally was able to return to Venice after escorting a Mongolian princess to her betrothed.

 

To this day, Marco Polo is the symbol of the link between Venice and Asia, West and East. How different would the world be today if the young Venetian had not charmed the exotic ruler of the largest contiguous land empire in the history of the world?

Veneto-Byzantine marble arch, remnants of the Polo family home in Venice - Photo: Cat Bauer

 6 Venetian Merchants on the 1338 Silk Road Trip

Thanks to Il Milione, for the first time, Europeans got a glimpse into the great wealth of the Mongol Empire. For Venetian merchants, the temptation to tap into the exotic trade of the Eastern world was irresistible. By the end of the 13th century, China -- then called Catai -- had suddenly become reachable thanks to the security of the caravan routes guaranteed by the Mongols. 

The Itinerary - Photo: Cat Bauer

Giovanni Loredan and the societas first stopped in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, in what is now Istanbul. From there they embarked on four galleys bound for Tana, a commercial emporium on the Sea of Azov at the mouth of the Don. Tana was the most distant emporium of the entire Venetian colonial system, where both Venetian and Genoese merchants had permanent residences. 

 

Here is a map of where the ancient territory would be in 2025:

 

Map at Geography

From Tana, the next stop was Sarai on the Volga river, a thriving metropolis and capital of the Tatar Khanate of the Golden Horde. From Saraj the merchants headed first to Astrakhan, around 55 miles from the Caspian Sea. They waited there for about 50 days before fording the Volga and traveling to Urgench in Uzbekistan -- now an important UNESCO World Heritage archeological site called Old Urgench in Turkmenistan.

 

Here began the hardest part of the journey. They had to cross the Amu Darya River to reach the Pamir Plateau, known as the Roof of the World, in a range of mountains between Central and South Asia. The Pamir spills over into Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China.

Where our voyagers are now is so utterly complicated that I will direct you to a site called Big Think that will break it down for you:

The “Roof of the World,” in eight simple lines

Somehow the merchants got down out of the mountains and into Ghazni in Afghanistan at the gates of the Sultanate of Delhi.

 

And there in Afghanistan is why Giovanni Loredan should have listened to his mother, Caterina. Because Giovanni Loredan died in Ghazni and never did meet the Sultan. 

 

After several more perilous months, the remaining merchants reached India. 

 

The gifts the Venetians brought pleased the Sultan so much that he rewarded the merchants with the fabulous sum of 200,000 Indian coins. The Venetians invested half the money in pearls. 

 

On the way back to Venice, another merchant, Boldovino Querini lost his life. 

 

The remaining four Venetians made it back to Venice by the end of 1341, having made a substantial return on the initial investment. 

 

In 1350, Alberto de Calle sued the heirs of his deceased son-in-law, Giovanni Loredan, for his share of the profit of his investment. The trial involved Giovanni's three sons and his wife, Filipppa, Alberto's own daughter. The court case took place before the Judges of the Procurator, the magistracy that dealt with testamentary matters and the protection of minors.

The Parchment

 

The ancient parchment recording the 1350 trial has arrived to us in the year 2025 thanks to the determination of scholars and their enlightened supporters who are dedicated to the preservation of human nature. It gives us the opportunity to learn from history instead of repeating it.

Honestly, the story told by that parchment gave me goosebumps. Writing and researching this post has been an in-depth history, geography, and economics lesson. From Palestine to Crimea to Afghanistan and beyond, it seems that similar upheavals are happening in the same regions today.

 

Professor Luca Molà said, "This is by far the most detailed document we have on the activities of Venetian merchants in Asia, ranging from China to India and involving the trade of goods from the whole Eurasian continent. The restoration of the parchment has ensured the survival of an extremely valuable cultural asset."

The parchment illustrates the sophisticated and extensive trade networks that existed in the 14th century, connecting Europe with distant regions like China and India. 

 

The 1350 parchment serves as a powerful reminder that globalization is not a new phenomenon but has deep historical roots. 

1338 From Venice to Delhi. Six Merchants on the Silk Roads runs through May 4, 2025. You will find the 1350 parchment in the Museum of Oriental Art on the top floor of Ca' Pesaro, Venice's International Gallery of Modern Art. Museo d'Arte Orientale is home to one of the largest collections in Europe of Japanese art from the Edo period.

 

Go to 1338 Da Venezia a Delhi. Sei mercanti sulle Vie della seta for more information (in Italian). 

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat Bauer

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

The Wondrous Cabinet of Wonders at Palazzo Grimani in Venice - A Celebration of Art in Nature

George Loudon discusses his astonishing collection with curator Thierry Morel
Photo: Cat Bauer

UPDATE: A Cabinet of Wonders - A Celebration of Art in Nature is a great success, and has been extended until October 5, 2025.

(Venice, Italy) George Loudon has a whimsical soul and an eclectic mind. I had the chance to chat with the Dutch collector about his astonishing assortment of 19th-century life science artifacts while sipping a Select spritz out in the courtyard of Palazzo Grimani on a chilly winter’s day after the press conference for A Cabinet of Wonders - A Celebration of Art in Nature. The retired investment banker loves living in London and has an endearing curiosity about how life works. 

Just when you think all hope is lost and humanity is doomed, you encounter another cluster of creatures of light right here in Venice. George Loudon said he loved being based in London because there were so many things to do. I said I loved being based in Venice because it is a town oozing with art and culture, and everyone who is interesting comes here. “Look where we are right now! Look what you’ve brought with you! How wonderful is that! Thank you so much!”

The George Loudon Collection is unlike anything you've seen before. It's displayed in the majestic piano nobile of Palazzo Grimani like a Darwinian art installation. Handcrafted teaching models -- papier-mâché flowers, taxidermy (there's a two-headed kitten), anatomical specimens, and much more -- are laid out as if they are precious artifacts. It's nature as a work of art.

Venetian Cabinet - courtesy of Galerie Kugel, Paris
Photo: Cat Bauer

And that's only half of the exhibition that awaits you at the top of the palace's monumental staircase. Sharing the space is "Mythical Rooms," a recreation of the "Cabinets of Curiosities" or "Wunderkammer" that flourished in the rooms of gentlemen-turned-curators in the 16th and 17th centuries. The space is brimming with rare antiquities, paintings, bronzes, furnishings, and other assorted masterpieces from private collections, galleries, and institutions.

Only human invention can blend these two distinct collections inside Palazzo Grimani to create a singular show like A Cabinet of Wonders: A Celebration of Art in Nature. The exhibition, curated by crackerjack French art historian Thierry Morel, pays tribute to the art of collecting. And Palazzo Grimani sets the scene with the perfect backdrop.

 

Domus Grimani - Sala della Tribuna inside Palazzo Grimani
Photo: Venetian Heritage

PALAZZO GRIMANI

 

Palazzo Grimani was home to some of the most ardent collectors in history. The palace was acquired by Antonio Grimani (1434-1523) in the late 15th century. Antonio would go on to become the 76th Doge of Venice, and the patriarch of a large and powerful family.

One of his grandsons, Giovanni Grimani (1506-1593), the influential Patriarch of Aquileia, enlarged Palazzo Grimani and created the impressive Sala della Tribuna to display the Grimani family's bountiful collection of antiquities. The palace was a Renaissance gem and a magnet for the world's greatest travelers, thinkers, and diplomats.

 

Palazzo Grimani was the Grimani family home until 1865. As the centuries drifted by and ownership changed hands, the palace slowly slipped into decay. The Italian state acquired the building in 1981 in "deplorable condition." It underwent years of extensive restoration and opened as a public museum in 2008, but there was not much left inside except the phantoms of the past. I wrote a detailed post about it in 2021:

A Brief History of Palazzo Grimani + Domus Grimani & The Room of the Doge

After languishing for years, Palazzo Grimani was brought roaring back to life when Toto Bergamo Rossi, Director of Venetian Heritage, and Daniele Ferrara, Director of the Veneto Regional Directorate for National Museums, curated the stunning Domus Grimani exhibition in 2019. They hauled a load of the original Grimani loot out of the National Archeological Museum in Piazza San Marco and put it back inside Giovanni's Tribuna and the Sala del Doge in Palazzo Grimani where it belonged. 

Palazzo Grimani is now part of the National Archaeological Museums of Venice and the Lagoon. The new autonomous institute also includes the National Archaeological Museum of Venice in Piazza San Marco, the Archaeological Park of Altino, and the Archaeological Museum on Lazzaretto Vecchio in the Venice lagoon. The world's first lazaretto, the former quarantine station will transform into the headquarters for the institute, all under the domain of the dynamic new director, Marianna Bressan. 

 

A Cabinet of Wonders - Installation view
Camerino di Callisto - Photo: Cat Bauer

 MYTHOLOGICAL ROOMS

 

A Cabinet of Wonders begins in the Sala di Psiche. It's designed to sweep you back to a Renaissance Wunderkammer with paintings, tapestries, sculptures, furniture, and other goodies typical of what you might have found in the Grimani family home. 

Giovanni Grimani's private apartment was likely comprised of the Camerino di Callisto and the Camerino di Apollo. The Camerino di Callisto is laid out like a Renaissance scholar's study, as though Giovanni had just stepped out of the room. A never-before-exhibited painting, Christ in Glory, by Paolo Veronese hangs over the fireplace. Lush Rubelli fabrics give the room that lived-in Venetian palace feeling. 

A Cabinet of Wonders - Camerino di Apollo - Installation View
Photo: Massimo Listri

Adding to the enchantment, the Camerino di Apollo is decorated with surreal prints by contemporary French artist Erik Desmazières. Weird and wonderful objects like a crocodile stuffed with sawdust are mounted directly onto the prints. It's disorienting and makes you wonder what century you've stumbled into.

 

Two-headed kitten, Preserved by G. F. Bushell, 216 Graham Road, HACKNEY
George Loudon Collection
Photo: Cat Bauer

THE GEORGE LOUDON COLLECTION

The pièce de résistance of the entire experience is George Loudon's extraordinary collection of 19th-century life science objects.

Loudon has been a collector since childhood, inspired by a fascination with carpentry tools. He began collecting seriously in the late 1970s while working in the banking sector, focusing on young contemporary artists. 

 

In 2004, Louden visited Harvard where his daughter's husband was doing his PhD. His daughter took him to see the glass flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Louden was blown away by the glass flowers created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Dresden glass artist Leopold Blaschka and his son and apprentice, Rudolf Blaschka.

 

The Blaschkas had a thriving business making glass models of marine invertebrates before they turned to flowers. Harvard was a world center for the study of botany, but dried and pressed specimens were difficult to use as accurate teaching tools. The realistic glass botanical models crafted by the Blaschkas solved the problem. 

 

According to Wikipedia: "Over the course of their collective lives, Leopold and Rudolf crafted as many as ten thousand glass marine invertebrate models and 4,400 botanical models, the most famous being Harvard's Glass Flowers."

 

Pomegranates - George Louden Collection
didactic models attributed to Francesco Garnier Valletti
Late 19th-century - wax, pigments
Photo: Matteo De Fina

That started Louden out on his quest to collect teaching materials crafted by artisans in the 19th century. It took him several years to realize that he was gathering visual 19th-century science, which became the theme of his collection.

 

The hunt is part of the thrill. Louden finds didactic objects in flea markets and junk shops and the storage rooms of university museums. He's got boxes of Italian wax plants and fruit -- deformed lemons and peaches -- which were used at an agricultural college to teach students about imperfections in horticulture.

A Cabinet of Wonders - Installation View
Photo: Massimo Listri

Louden remembers where he found every object, and speaks with affection about each one. There are no labels or descriptions; you must examine each piece and let your imagination wander. The collection is a tribute to the artistry and ingenuity of the creators of the objects. 

It took me some time to realize that I was seeing two separate chapters of the same exhibition. One section of The Cabinet of Wonders flows seamlessly into the other. Curator Thierry Moral sums it up: "These two sections, while distinct, mirror and engage with one another, creating a dialogue that invites reflection on the art and practice of collecting."

A Cabinet of Wonders - Installation View
Photo: Massimo Listri

 

Afterwards, I spoke to Toto Bergamo Rossi, the Director of Venetian Heritage and a mighty force behind much of the movement of art and culture in Venice, especially Palazzo Grimani. I told him I remembered how barren and empty Palazzo Grimani seemed when it first opened as a museum in 2008, and how exciting it was to see it filled with life again. 

"I'm sure you have made Giovanni Grimani very happy," I said.

Toto smiled. "I speak to him every night."

 

A CABINET OF WONDERS. A Celebration of Art in Nature. The George Loudon Collection at Museo di Palazzo Grimani runs through May 11, 2025, and is curated by Thierry Morel. UPDATE: The exhibition has been extended through October 5, 2025.

The exhibition is promoted by the Italian Minister of Culture, the Musei archeologici nazionali di Venezia e della Laguna, Musei Italiani, Venetian Heritage, and the Loudon Collection in collaboration with Scuola Grande Arciconfraternita di San Rocco. The main sponsor is Viking. Go to Venetian Heritage for more information in English. 

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat Bauer

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog