Exploring our neighborhood

To explain, Venice is divided into six sestrieri each with different names. We are in Castello which is on the eastern side of the city. The principal sites in Castello are the church of St. Giovanni e Paolo (Zanipolo in Venetian) and the Arsenale--the site of Venice's historic naval power.
This morning, we set out for one of the less visited sites--The Scuola Di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. The walls of this Scuola (a workshop or fraternity of artisans was commonly referred to as a scuola) are covered with pictures by the artist Vittorio Carpaccio. I would go just for the Vision of St. Augustine--in the web site below, the first three frames are devoted to that painting.

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/carpacci/3schiavo/1/index.html

We had a very nice conversation with the custodian--I started by telling him in Italian that the St. Augustine was my favorite and how much I like the dog in the left hand corner---He took out a photocopy of a pencil drawing --the original is stored in the British Museum--where the dog was originally an ermine! He also said that the music in the lower right hand corner was the first depiction of printed music and told us about Petrucci---I tried to explain that Petrucci is the name of the musical font and I think he got it. After leaving the Scuola, we wandered over to St. Giovanni in Bragora.

http://www.savevenice.org/site/pp.asp?c=9eIHKWMHF&b=67637

There are some nice pieces in there but what was interesting to us is that it's the church where Vivaldi was baptized.

We went back to the apartment and hung out our laundry (exciting, I know). The exciting thing will be to see if it ever dries because it's so damp here :)



We'd been smelling seafood all during our walk (it's a plot) so we went to the Osteria across the Calle from our apartment for lunch---very reasonable and we were the only non-Venetians:

This was pappardelle Buranese---Wide pasta with shaved scallops.

Sarde e scampi in saor--(Venetian preparation with onions, vinegar and raisins)

I forgot to take a picture of our plate of Fritto Adriatico--Fried calimari, prawns, scallops, etc. (I guess I got excited!)

I was certainly stuffed after that but I heard the waiter describing una torta con pera e cioccolato. (Torte with pear and chocolate!) I remembered to get a picture before it was all gone.

Needless to say, we took a piccola siesta after that. We got up and had coffee (Italian style made in the Moka machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_(coffee_pot) and then took a walk over to the Campo S Giovanni e Paolo (about five minutes from our apartment). We were to late to go into the church but we did get to admire the statue of Colleoni

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/v/verocchi/sculptur/colleoni.html