Where Are You Now?

“VENICE IS PRESENT, PAST AND FUTURE”

Despite the passing of time and the glimpse of history that has seen them going through these places, something of them has remained in Venice, and will remain forever. They are “Souls”, which all together mark the present of Venice, City of all Cities, to which they are inextricably united for eternity.
They have lived their time, they have left their inheritance, and the city preserves their presence within itself together with any other presence that has passed through the centuries.
In fact, there is an invisible, immaterial Venice that supports the precious stones and marbles. A powerful and evocative force, which inhabits the city and nourishes its Spirit. Each of these Souls represents itself, of course, in its historical relationship with the Serenissima and with the world. But each of them also reflects that face of the City that provided them with all the tools to best express their qualities in the different Arts: in painting, literature, music and architecture, in government or in the affirmation of inalienable rights. And in some way they are Venice, following that process of identification that also belongs to us, men and women of the present, who in the current city – which contains all its past and is writing its future – identify ourselves in a beneficial symbiosis. And in experiencing the city – here and now – we are also side by side with everyone and all those who preceded us, in a sort of fortunate resetting of the time line. When questioned, these Souls speak to us and tell us about themselves and a city of which they continue to be part.

In loving Venice we are Venice.

Venice is the zero line of time

It is the place where everything that has existed, exists and will exist translates into an “forever” that knows no interruption. The “Souls” that appear on this journey – chosen from among the thousand possible ones – are voices that populate every present, because Venice is made up of every moment of its past. They are Men and Women who, in living the city, have reshaped Venice to the point of making it what it is: they made it, and in telling about themselves they tell about it.
In doing so, they do what Italo Calvino – with acute intuition – put into the mouth of Marco Polo when describing his travels to Qubilay Kahn: “Every time I talk about a city I say something about Venice”. The same principle also applies to what we carry inside of us: we describe it, and we find it intact outside, around us, between the visible and invisible walls of a city as solid and evanescent as the most powerful and prophetic dream. It could not be otherwise: She was born from a prophecy.

– Alberto Toso Fei Art Director

Venice encapsulates everything within itself, embodying both the present and the future. It’s a journey through the centuries of its rich essence, expressed in art, architecture, music, and theatre—the legacies of its great souls. Venice is the ultimate journey.

– Patrizia Zambelli Technical Director