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Venice is built on alluvial mud, and most buildings in the city were (and mostly still are) supported by large numbers of timber piles driven into the mud. Above a stone platform sitting on these, the normal building material is brick, although the Renaissance facades were usually faced with Istrian stone , a fine limestone that is not strictly ...
Venetian Gothic is the particular form of Italian Gothic architecture typical of Venice, originating in local building requirements, with some influence from Byzantine architecture, and some from Islamic architecture, reflecting Venice's trading network. Very unusually for medieval architecture, the style is at its most characteristic in ...
Velma (plural velme) is a Venetian dialect term derived from "melma" (mud). It is also used by Italian scientists to refer to lagunar mudflats (also called tidal flats), such as those found in the Lagoon of Venice. They are areas of shallow lagunar bottoms which are normally submerged, but emerge at low tides.
Compared to the Renaissance architecture of other Italian cities, in Venice there was a degree of conservatism, especially in retaining the overall form of buildings, which in the city were usually replacements on a confined site, and in windows, where arched or round tops, sometimes with a classicized version of the tracery of Venetian Gothic architecture, remained far more heavily used than ...
These stilts were driven deep into the ground through the unstable silt and dirt and into the hard clay beneath, allowing for a strong and stable structure. While wood is susceptible to rot and decay, the lack of dissolved oxygen in the mud protects the wood from significant rot, with some wooden Venetian foundations being over 500 years old.
The early Venetian constructors used building techniques that included using impermeable stone supported by wooden rafts and timber piles. [2] The timber piles did not rot because they were set into the mud at the bottom of the lagoon which prevented oxygen and harmful microbes from reaching them. [2]
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The buildings were frequently constructed by the Capitano del Populo of each city, an organization that represented the guilds and the wealthy merchants of the city. Major examples included the Capitano del Popolo in Orvieto , the Palazzo Communale at Piacenza , and the massive Palazzo del Capitano, or Bargello , in Florence . [ 9 ]