It is said that Venetians only enter a gondola twice in their life: at their wedding and their funeral. Today it is almost exclusively a tourist venture. This was not always the case, however. Until the 18th century, gondolas were once mainly owned by noblemen under whose employ gondoliers would work for rather low pay. They were essentially taxi drivers, and so always abreast of the gossip surrounding the city’s elite members, who went to brothels, gambling houses, or simply spent private time with their lovers inside the gondola’s felze, a covering at the centre of the gondola which provided much-needed secrecy, today no longer in use.
And it is precisely because they knew so much about so many, that gondoliers were excused for being loud and brash. Still today gondoliers hold this reputation, but this is because they are used to shouting at one another across the water in order to be heard at a distance. When you turn a corner on a small canal, your gondolier will shout his “Oé” as a warning to other gondoliers, a sound which has become part of Venice itself.
Gondoliers are extremely proud of their job and of being the upholders of a century-old tradition, which they also maintain by speaking strictly Venetian dialect rather than Italian; although it is probably best that most of what is said is not understood.
