Venice
~~For more than 1,000 years the Cornaro family commissioned the artists and
architects of Venice to create palaces, chapels and church art, villas,
paintings and theaters. Its male lines of the Corano family are extinct now
in but the family found immortality in the art which exists through space
and time to this day.
Can Venice Be Saved?
~~Will a high-tech plan keep the ancient city above water? Gondoliers paddle
sleek boats along some 150 narrow canals and under ancient bridges. Singers
serenade tourists who stroll along cobblestone streets to admire 15th century
architecture. Venice, built on 118 islands, is a sparkling gem among Italy's
great cities. Its art-filled churches and quaint streets have long made it
one of the world's most beloved places. Ten million people visit Venice each
year.
~~Venice is sinking, and at the same time, the sea around it is rising. In
the fifth century, Venetians set the city in the middle of a lagoon to escape
enemies. They built it on millions of wooden planks pounded into marshy
ground. Since then the buildings have been slowly sinking. The removal of
groundwater by local industry, a practice that finally stopped in the 1970s,
made the city sink even faster. It has dropped more than five inches since
1900.
~~Meanwhile, global climate changes have raised the world's sea levels by
more than four inches this century. For Venice, the combination of sinking
ground and rising seas has been disastrous.
Is This a Job for Moses?
~~To save the city, a group called the New Venice Consortium has come up with
Project Moses. The $2 billion dam project is named for the biblical figure
for whom the Red Sea parted. The plan is to place huge underwater gates at
each of the three entrances to the Venice Lagoon. When the water is low, the
79 separate 300-ton flaps would sit on the ocean floor. But when the water
rises, the flaps would inflate and rise to block Adriatic Sea water.
