Gondola ~ Rainer Marie Rilke

In 1920, when the gondola had already ceased to the chief mod

of transportation in the city, Rilke described the results of all this 

craftsmanship in his inimitable way:

"Seven years ago, because the gondola was then still

an affordable vehicle, one always sailed along the canals into

the lagoon, up against the darkening of the sky;  one perhaps

never entered so fully into the medium of the night, as

when one was lying almost flat on the black leather

cushions of this coaxing vessel, the only one that does not tear

a hole in the nights as it presses forward.

However well you know the gondola, its consummate perfection

always amazes;  many of its particular features, its

extraordinary length for example, seem the opposite of what is

required and yet then prove themselves to be unerringly

practical and insightful.  How Venice brought forth this slim black ship

from its innermost nature, a creation, an essence - in the world of objects, only a

musical instrument compares to it, an object whose entire body is

shaped by requirements that reach deep into the invisible, the gondolier

stands there like a sign, like the treble clef, at the beginning of

a line of movement, of noiseless, silent music, endlessly varying and

 intensifying."


 From:  Rilke's Venice by Birgit Haustedt