An Indian house in Venice

The family living in this Venetian apartment travelled many times to India, and we can see it from the hundreds of objects lying on the walls or on the furniture.

One of the things I liked the most in this room was the painted stairs hanging from the door, giving the room even more space.

The mix between Hindu and Catholic religion is here evident.

Sometimes I wonder how could a child be in this house, with so many things to look at and to play with.

My project about Venetians inside their homes has taken me during the last ten years in so many different places, sometimes simple, sometimes sumptuous, sometimes rotting, sometimes shining.

This is a strange place, where it’s hard to decide where to look at, as there are so many interesting things everywhere.

Fiora's house

It happened after years of traveling through the narrow Venetian streets, following my instinct, and carefully avoiding crowded places.

I looked for sacred places, wandering shamans, nomads and memories to tell. Finally, I met Fiora.

Fiora in her corridor

I met her for the first time in June 2018, and it was immediately love at first sight.

Fiora’s book: “Adventures of a Venetian house”

Her house speaks of distant worlds, mainly Latin, and is a blaze of details, lights, shadows and colors. Conversation is always pleasant, profound and time always passes too quickly. Fiora is a writer, photographer, artist and sorceress. She has written several books, including the one entitled "Adventures of a Venetian house" in which I read:

"The furniture in my house are mobile in the truest sense of the word. They are not immovable furniture. Sometimes I think they move from one room to another one. The walls of my house are alive and during the night they change and breathe. I don't know what they do, but I always see them different according to my state of mind. A house with white walls feeds claustrophobia, the desire to escape, to get tattoos to fly, to run away or to get lost in impossible journeys in sinister and dangerous countries.

Fiora in her living room

A house with white walls feeds the desire to get tattooed on the body and to become a landscape, a dream, a myth. Every day I venture into the spaces where I live, barefoot like an enfant sauvage in his wood. I listen to the house’s voice, to the silence of the walls, to the sound of the lights, to the buzz of cracking on the walls. I would like to have a dark, protected from light, house in summer; I would like to have a house where every room follows the rhythm of the seasons so I could walk in autumn in a bedroom with the floor entirely covered with fallen leaves, and hear its creak and smell.

Fiora in Palazzo Cavazza Foscari Mocenigo dalle Zogie

I would like a spring house with all the windows open so the rooms could have a transfusion of air and wind. In winter, I would like to place the soles of my feet on warm kilim, full of colored kaleidoscopes with huge flowers-fruits of the wool  Eden garden. "

Fiora’s book: “Adventures of a Venetian house”

Memories of a lifetime in the corridor of Fiora’s house

A wall in the corridor of Fiora’s house

Inside Venetians' houses

The Venice beyond the doors

There are many different Venices. One is on the street, in the 4 or 5 main streets where everybody follows everybody. One is off the beaten path, where I usually go during a Photo Tour. One is on the canals, during a gondola ride, and one more is beyond the doors and the walls of houses and palaces. This last one is the project I am working on since six years so far, and you can’t imagine the incredible amount of stories you can find inside the centuries-years-old Venetians’ houses.

I took this picture with a Leica CL and a 18mm Elmarit 2,8 Asph - 1/8s - f/2,8 - is 1600.