Venice, April 11 (Inditop.com/AKI) The new mayor of Venice, Giorgio Orsoni, has rejected an offer from a shipbuilder to produce fibreglass gondolas for the northeastern lagoon city.
Orsoni said the traditional Venetian gondolas and the city’s water taxis should be made of wood. Venice’s gondoliers have also spurned the idea of fibreglass gondolas as “outrageous” and an “ill-timed joke”.
“Plastic gondolas? That’s just for souvenirs. In my view all of Venice’s boats should be made with wood, starting with water taxis,” said Orsoni, who is from Italy’s centre-left Democrat Party.
The offer to build fibreglass gondolas came from Giuseppe Gioia’s Cantieri Navali Brindisi shipyards.
The shipbuilder said it was putting the final touches to a prototype gondola which was an exact replica of the original in wood but made with more resistant fibreglass.
“Our aim is to produce a more useful and inexpensive service for tourists, which could also reduce the gondolas’ operating costs thanks to new technology,” said Gioia.
A traditional gondola costs more than 25,000 euros to make, while a fibreglass one would cost much less.
The head of the Venice gondoliers’ association, Aldo Reato, also strongly opposed the idea of fibreglass gondolas.
“I find this proposal unbelievably outrageous. It’s just an ill-timed joke. We gondoliers will oppose this in every way possible,” said Reato.
“I’m sure the whole world would agree,” he added.
According to the Venice Ente Gondola, the city agency responsible for the sector, the boats “can only be made of wood and built by our artisans using traditional techniques”.
The gondolas – flat-bottomed rowing boats – are made from eight different types of wood. An ordinance from the city of Venice prevents them being made from anything other than wood.
Pine, oak, cherry, walnut, elm, mahogany, larch and lime wood are used to make a typical gondola while its oar is made from beech wood.
The Ente Gondola four years ago introduced new rules aimed at returning the city’s gondolas to their traditional simplicity, banning statuettes and fancily embroidered cushions and gold leaf that gondoliers had added to lure tourists.
