This touchscreen display and projection encourages interactivity with historical people, places, events, and material objects, including the Ughi Map from the Rubenstein Library. Using the Map, A Day in the Life enables visitors to explore eighteenth-century Venice as a urban phenomenon—a locus of spectacle and delight— and to experience a “day in the life” of four well-documented Venetian characters.
Illustration of la Forza di Ercole (the Force of Hercules stunt), early 18th century.
The map, the first accurate representation of the city, can be zoomed, rotated and studied in detail prior to embarking on a character’s journey. The fictional days of Giacomo Casanova, Rosalba Carriera, Joseph Smith, and Caterina Sagredo Barbarigo, are based on historical evidence about the places they visited, the activities upon which they embarked, and their interests. As a visitor moves from site to site, the Venetian clock rotates to indicate time— from early morning to late in the night. In this way, visitors move both spatially and temporally along their Venetian journeys.
Francesco Guardi, Ladies Concert at the Philharmonic Hall, 1782.
