Ritratti Veneziani

Giovanni Dell’Olivo: vocals, guitar, bouzouki
Serena Catullo: guitar
Alvise Seggi: cello

On July 11th at 7:00 PM, Aquarius will host the preview of **”Venetian Portraits,”** a new musical show by Giovanni Dell’Olivo. This performance tells the story of Venice through the biographies of real—but strictly deceased—figures who have been part of Venetian popular culture from the Middle Ages to today. These are historical figures who have become archetypal, forming part of our linguistic and semantic “bestiary.” Alongside them are other, lesser-known, more enigmatic figures whose lives remain luminous symbols of individual redemption or damnation. They are, in some way, always rebellious against the injustice of established power that has, throughout history, afflicted the daring, the visionary, and the artists who glimpse the future in solitary and perilous contemplation.

Inspired by Alberto Toso Fei‘s well-known “Ritratti Veneziani”, this show, composed of songs and stories, observes Venice “from the lowest point”—from the *masegni* (Venetian paving stones).
These stones, unchanged for centuries, have been trod upon by generations of Venetians and foreigners, not always “de garbo” (politely) or “de sesto” (properly) as we would say.
Their stories, grand or humble, form an endless rosary of existences that have shaped Venetian culture, like water droplets shaping stone. On this journey through the “Ritratti,” we will encounter Baron Corvo, Rolandina Roncaglia, Cecilia Venier Baffo, Gabriele D’Annunzio and Luisa Casati, Joseph Brodsky, and many more.