The Bucintoro Departing from the Bacino di San Marco

The Grand Canal is filled with a colorful array of boats getting ready to make their way out to sea. This is Ascension Day, when Venice celebrates her authority over the sea by conducting a symbolic marriage ceremony with the Adriatic Sea. In front of the Doge's palace, the Doge boards the magnificent two-storied Boat of the State called the Bucintoro, which will head a procession of other boats out to the Porto del Lido. On arrival, the Patriarch of Venice will bless the sea with holy water and the Doge will throw out a ring from a little door in the prow, saying, "In sign of eternal domination, we, the Doge of Venice, marry you, oh sea."

Luca Carlevarijs carefully delineated the piazza San Marco, framed by the library, the campanile, the basilica, and most prominently, the Doge's palace. Carlevarijs founded the tradition of vedute, or view painting, that flourished in Venice in the 1700s.