Most of your books will probably say that a 'bridge of boats' is built across the Giudecca Canal for the Festa del Redentore. As you can perhaps see from the photo, the bridge is built on pontoons, not boats. This misunderstanding may have arisen from using a rather too literal translation from the Italian for a pontoon-bridge, 'ponte di barche'. The Italians have a word for pontoon - 'pontone' - but choose not to use it when talking about a pontoon-bridge. In 1576, the plague claimed over 50,000 lives in Venice, almost a third of the population. [The present population is less than 60,000.] Titian was one of the victims. On the third Sunday of July the following year, it was decreed that the plague was over. The Festa del Redentore has been celebrated on the third Sunday of July ever since.
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