Venice in beautiful old color images, 1890

These photographs of Belle Epoque Venice were processed and colored using the Photochrome process. The Library of Congress page on the photochrome process explains it: "Photochrome prints are ink-based images produced through the 'direct photographic transfer of an original negative onto litho and chromographic printing plates'."

Hans Jakob Schmid, the inventor of the photochrome, came up with the technique in the 1880s and involves coating a tablet of lithographic limestone with a light-sensitive emulsion, then exposing it to sunlight under negative photos for several hours. includes doing.

While Photochrom prints may look an awful lot like color photographs, if you look at them through a magnifying glass and tiny dots containing an ink-based photomechanical image, appear.

The photomechanical process allowed the mass production of vivid color prints, requiring "a separate asphalt-coated lithographic stone, usually a minimum of six stones and often more than ten stones" (one stone = 6.3 kg) for each color. Is.

The photochrome technique has given us, among other fascinating pieces of visual history, these lush images of Venice, the place's author Jan Morris once described as "a city less than an experience".

The construction of Venice began after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD when refugees from the mainland fled to the islands in the lagoon. Soon, there were so many of them that they needed more space, so they buried wooden poles deep in the soil beneath the ground.

On top of wooden pillars, they built wooden platforms, and then on top of that, they built their buildings—which means Venice is basically built on wood and water.

Wood has miraculously avoided decay over the centuries because it is under water and not exposed to oxygen, and also because salt water has hardened the wood into a more durable stone-like consistency.

Venice is known as "La Dominante", "La Serenissima", "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Facades", "City of Bridges", "Floating City" and "City of the City". goes. canals".

The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Parts of Venice are famous for the beauty of its setting, architecture and artwork.

Venice is known for a number of important artistic movements – particularly during the Renaissance period – that have played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.