A LIFETIME AGO - 
 HAROLD BAIM'S QUOTA QUICKIES

Enchanted Cities

Registered: 23rd July 1957
Duration: 21 minutes
Feet: 1870 feet
Board of Trade Certificate number: ​BR/E22611
Production Company: ​Panoramic Film Productions Limited

More Film Stills: ​at baimfilms.com (opens in new window)

Florence and Venice in ‘Sol Scope’ (widescreen)

TITLE CREDITS:
Kenneth Macleod Takes You To ... Enchanted Cities

Narrated by: Kenneth MacLeod
Photographed in Eastmancolor by: Eric Owen
Music: M. De Wolfe
Continuity: Glenda Baum
Research: ​Prof. Enrico Bettarini, Giuseppe Cartoni
Film Processing: Rank Laboratories, Denham, London, England
Produced and Directed by: Harold Baim

SCRIPT

The bells ring out in welcome. Florence lies before us in a sunlit valley, domes towers and palaces rise from it in a glittering heap and shine in the sun like gold.     

Cathedral of San Maria del Fiore, the Cathedral of St Mary of the Flowers, completely dominates the city of Florence. It was consecrated in the year fourteen thirty-six.     

In thirteen thirty-four, the great artist Giotto began the bell tower of the Campanile, but it was Talenti who completed it twenty-five years later. It is said to outdo in magnificence and height anything of the like in the world.     

Greater in diameter than that of St Peter’s in Rome, the dome of Florence Cathedral is considered one of the greatest feats in the history of architecture.

Now the National Museum, the thirteenth century Bargello was once the palace of the Captains of Justice and was used as their stronghold.     

One of the most enchanting features of the city is the Ponte Vecchio, an ancient bridge across the Arno River. On the bridge flanked by the shops of workers in precious metals, we wonder if another Michelangelo is apprenticed here. For all the masters of those days learned their artistic skills amongst the tradesmen of the Ponte Vecchio.     

At the Great Franciscan Church of the Holy Cross, there is a school of leatherwork and in the peace and tranquillity of the fourteenth century cloisters, some of the pupils work at this ancient craft. They are instructed in the use of gold leaf in the decorating of leather, so great is the standard of excellence reached that the products of the school are sought after the world over.    

The implements are heated to the exact temperature required for the work demands an extraordinary amount of patience and skill.     

Even in the Middle Ages, schools were started and flourished in the shadow of the great monasteries. The leather school at the Church of the Holy Cross, enrols pupils mostly from modest families. They are initiated into the many secrets of artistic leatherwork, so enabling them to pass on an art so typically and exquisitely Florentine.     

Here is a replica of a leather desk set used by the President of the United States of America, the original was made here at the school.     

Amongst the many Florentine palaces, that of the Medici family is perhaps the most famous. This is one of the courtyards.     

Very few squares in the world can compete with the Piazza Annunziata, with its statues, fountains and colonnades.     

Boasting the most valuable and important collection of paintings in Italy, the Uffizi Gallery is one of the largest treasure houses of art in the world.   At the entrance to the Vecchio Palace, stands a copy of Michelangelo’s David. The four- hundred year-old original is in the Academy of Florence.     

A familiar scene a few miles from the city is the creation of work in straw. The curiatam is part of Italy. Finished products can be found all over the world. With nimble fingers, the straw is plaited or wound around the glassware to decorate it and give it the hallmark of its origin.     

An ingenious way to keep wine cool. The ice is dropped into a separate glass compartment within the decanter. The wine is then poured in through the top. The ice cools it from inside. Altogether a useful and pleasing piece of work which can be used, of course, for water or wine.     

We say ‘goodbye’ to Florence, spoken of by Coleridge as ‘the brightest star in star bright Italy’ and come to the second of our enchanted cities.   The play of sunlight on the canals, the reflection of buildings on the water and the vast bowl of the sky poised over the entire city, give Venice an enchantment unequalled by any other place on earth.     

Those who come by sea disembark at The Zattere, the main quay where magnificent liners ride at anchor to make a striking picture against the ancient buildings.     

Those who come by rail alight at the modern terminal which somehow looks so out of place. Particularly when we realise that the only method of transport after leaving the station is by a boat of one kind or another.    

Those who come by car can drive no further than the enormous eight thousand vehicle garage where all thoughts of motoring cease until Venice is left behind once more.     

At the eastern end of the Grand Canal is the Church of Santa Maria della Salute rising like a cluster of triumphal arches roofed by an enormous dome.     

The Rezzonico Palace was built in sixteen eighty, here two hundred years later died the poet Robert Browning.     

To get around in Venice you have two choices, walk or take a boat. Those of foot travel down narrow streets lined with colourful shops and the bridges which span the canals have to be crossed continuously.     

Typical are these two streets, one of them only wide enough to allow only one person through at a time. From the Fundamenta di Canonica and the bridges we can just see the Bridge of Sighs beyond which are the famous lagoons.     

Over the Canale della Paglia is the Bridge of Sighs, over which so many passed to their doom in the days of long ago.     

There are many quiet backwaters shady and inviting, so much of the life of the Venetian is spent upon the waterways of his city.     

‘Venice enfolds me in a tender melancholy charm’ so said the great composer Wagner who died here in eighteen eighty three.     

The scene on the Riva degli Schiavoni is always one of great activity, for it is here that the steamboat from the islands and motor launches set down their passengers.     

Traffic is a problem in the City of St Mark as Venice is known, but the traffic is rather different. At a busy intersection, the policeman sits in his control box directing the constant stream of motorboats, public transport launches and gondolas. It’s not so easy to jump the lights by boat and the traffic flows smoothly. Yes, they have mobile police and you can get a ticket just like you can back home for traffic offences. There is, however, no parking problem.

Let us sit back for a little while and watch the constantly changing scene as we journey down the smooth unruffled waters of the side streets of Venice, where bridges arch across the water and quaysides with their shops and cafes lead into sunlit squares great churches and palaces stand side by side. 

Behind the high walls on either side of us we have a mysterious hint of modern industry. We pass stairways worn away by the lapping of the water and the tread of Venetian men and women of a bygone age. When the gondola was the only means of transport, when the motorboat was some fantastic dream. Past windows criss-crossed with bars of iron and always, the bridges.     

The long long afternoons of childhood when the sunny hours seem to go on forever, return once more and we eventually reach the end of the line, on which you expect, and indeed do find, washing.     

Reached by steamer and just across the lagoon is Merano, built on five islands, it is renowned for the glass which it has made there. An industry which started in the thirteenth century, since then the glass blowers of Merano taught the world.     

We do not think of the fire in which the glass was melted because as we look we find all of the colours of the sea and the colours of the waters of the canals. The pale blue sea of morning, the green of the afternoon, the colours of the sunset and the pure pale glitter of water from the fountains.     

The elegance of Venetian glassware is renowned, each example magnificent in conception and execution.     

The Rialto is one of the most famous sights in Venice. Two lines of shops are built on the bridge dividing it into three streets. You walk up one side of it to get a magnificent view of main street Venice with all the activity of a modern thoroughfare. The quaysides are gay with coloured umbrellas outside the numerous cafes. You walk down the other side and rejoin the launch to continue the Grand Canal journey.     

We are close to the oldest part of the city and the main waterway now opens up and takes a wider sweep which continues until the terminus is finally reached.     

Little has changed here and the markets are held on the same site as they were hundreds of years ago.     

The main impression that Venice gives is that life slows down. Here at last we reach the water gateway to the Piazza San Marco, flanked by the huge columns of St Theodore and St Mark, between which we have a glimpse of the clock tower and the Cathedral of St Mark.     

The fabulous ducal palace comes into view. For a thousand years it was the site of the home of the Venetian government. The present building is exactly as it was built in fifteen seventy three. It was also the seat of the doge and the magistrates of the city. We see again the Bridge of Sighs linking the palace to what was the prison building on the other side of the small adjoining canal.     

The thrill of the sight of St Mark’s Square has to be experienced to be believed and we descend at the landing stage of San Marco to visit one of the wonders of Italy.     

The square has a beauty which is between fantasy and reality. It contains the most famous and the most splendid buildings of the city. It is a universal meeting place and the principal gateway to the canals, the lagoons and the sea. It’s the heart and soul of Venice. 

The front of the Cathedral of St Mark is so unlike any other that you are completely dazzled. It is certainly fantastic glowing with ornaments and colour and shining with gold mosaics, marbles and stones. It has been called a jewelled casket. This great building was erected as a resting place for the body of St Mark, the patron saint of Venice. Work upon the main part of the cathedral was started almost nine hundred years ago. In the last years of the fifteenth century, the clock tower was completed, rivalling the Basilica of St Mark for colour. Not only are the hours indicated, but also the phases of the moon and the sun and the zodiac. A great bell struck by bronze figures chime the hours and the lion of St Mark stands guard over all.     

The Ducal Palace is decorated by many groups of sculpture which adorn the three angles, from which the outside of the palace can be seen. They are known as the fig tree, vine and judgement angles.    

The angle of the fig tree has a famous carving of Adam and Eve representing the fall of man.     

Next door is the magnificently carved entrance to the doge’s or ducal palace called the Porta della Carta. Through this elaborately decorated gateway is the immense courtyard containing the fourteenth century Staircase of the Giants, so called because of the colossal statues of Neptune and Mars which adorn its summit.     

Though now only a symbol of its past glories, the palace still remains a masterpiece of architectural art.     

Venice still has the custom of firing a cannon at midday. This always takes the pigeons by surprise, for they suddenly rise and sweep overhead in a great circle, but when two o’clock strikes from the bell tower, that’s when the municipal seed man, every day in the year, comes to feed them. He scatters grain around, the air becomes a mass of fluttering wings and the pavements a mass of bobbing heads and tails.     

The origin of the name ‘gondola’ is unknown and in the great days of Venice, each noble family owned a private gondola which they decorated so extravagantly, each one trying to outdo the other, that the municipality decreed that all gondolas should be painted black, that is why they are that colour today.     

When the small son of a gondolier is asked what he is going to be when he grows up, the answer is invariably ‘a gondolier’. For generations, sons have followed in the footsteps of their fathers. Due to the construction, the motion of the gondola is particularly soothing. They are made here in Venice of oak, larch, fir, walnut and linden. Each wood being used for a different part of the boat. With amazing skill, the gondolier manoeuvres his craft, they pass each other with often only sixteenths of an inch to spare. To watch them is fascinating, to ride with them, enchanting.     

Florence and Venice are enchanted cities both. Florence the jewel of Europe, Venice a strange dream upon the water.

[End Credit]

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