Photostory: making a Venetian icon

photography by Boris Conte/Lightmediation

If you’re in Venice for carnival this February, you may well take a ride in a gondola, one of the city’s iconic, black lacquer boats. Today, most of the gondolas you’ll see gliding through the canals and lagoons are built using modern materials – laminates and plywood – but a handful of craftsmen still make them using traditional, centuries-old methods. From boatbuilders to oarmakers, metalworkers, woodcarvers and gold beaters, the process involves a string of specialists. Here, photographer Boris Conte took a look around the workshops of Dorsoduro, Cannaregio and Guidecca and captured another world.

Made in venice

In Venice, a few skilled boatbuilders and craftsmen still make gondolas by hand. Photographer Boris Conte goes in search of a dying tradition

A battiloro (gold beater) in Cannaregio prepares to decorate the gondola’s ornate oarposts in gold leaf.

Traditional Venetian boatbuilders like this one on Guidecca, use steam to bend the hull into its familiar banana shape.

At brass worker Diego Rosettin’s workshop, the drawers are crammed with rare items and oddments.

Master remer (oarmaker) Saverio Pastor gives a final protective coating of oil to an oarpost.

Woodcarver Emilio Piacenti is something of a local character. He’s been creating intricate carvings for luxury gondole in his Ghetto neighbourhood workshop for the past 53 years.