10 Things You Never Knew About Gondolas
• The earliest recorded use of gondolas in Venice dates to 1094.
• Today, all gondolas are black—following a 16th-century decree to stop nobles from trying to outdo each other with ostentatious colors and ornamentation.
• To Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Mann, and other writers, the shape and funereal color of gondolas suggested coffins—one among Venice’s many associations with death.
• Historians credit the 19th-century boat maker Domenico Tramontin with the design of the gondola as we know it today. His descendants still operate a Venetian boatyard.
• All gondolas bow out farther on the port (left) side to compensate for the rowing motion of the gondolier, who stands in the stern and rows only on the starboard (right) side.
• Each gondola is made of eight different types of wood (elm, oak, lime, walnut, larch, fir, cherry, and mahogany), plus beech for the oar.
• A gondola’s hull comprises 280 separate pieces of wood.
• The gondola’s ornamental prow (ferro) has six teeth, possibly representing Venice’s six administrative districts (sestieri).
• Today, 425 licensed gondoliers (and 175 substitutes) ply Venice’s canals—down from a peak of more than 10,000 at the end of the 16th century.
