Smaller than gondolas, “sandoli” are ancient boats that have been used by everyday Venetians for centuries. Today, they whisk travellers to quiet corners Venice where other boats can’t go.
It is 09:00 in Venice and a peaceful silence blankets the city’s narrow streets and canals. Day-trippers begin to descend on the lagoon, while Luca Padoan leans against a wall near the Rio della Misericordia, one of the canals cutting through the former Jewish Ghetto. As he watches the neighbourhood come alive from behind his sunglasses, a few tourists approach, cautiously asking if they can photograph the handmade sandolo boat moored to his left.
“I have always explained that this is not a gondola, but its progenitor,” Padoan said, stroking its oar.
While Venice is synonymous with the many ornate gondolas that ply its canals, very few people know about the boat’s lesser-known relative, the sandolo, that once populated Venice’s waterways. Characterised by a steel “curl” on the prow and typically painted midnight black, these flat-bottomed rowing boats were historically used to navigate the shallow waters of the lagoon and to transport goods and people from Venice to the Italian mainland.
“If you do not understand the origin of the city and its evolution, you cannot explain the historical importance of the sandolo. The average depth of the lagoon [in the past was incredibly shallow]. With a normal boat, you couldn’t get there,” explained Valentino Scarpa, who oversees the nine stazi (stations) where sandolo boats continue to carry Venetians and tourists through the canals today.
The earliest written references of sandoli (the plural of sandolo) date back to 1292. Unlike gondolas, which have always been used for transportation, sandoli were historically used for fishing, racing and hunting as well as ferrying people and building materials throughout the lagoon. Sandoli are also slightly shorter, wider and less ornate than their more popular counterparts. Gondolas typically have two pointed ends: an S-shaped bow depicting the sinuous design of the Grand Canal that crosses the city, and an iron stern. In contrast, sandoli have a painted prow; a flat, open stern; and are less lavish.
These physical differences serve a few practical purposes. In a gondola, the rower typically stands on the side, while a sandolo’s symmetrical bottom allows the rower to stand in the middle of the boat. This centralised rowing stance allows for more balanced weight distribution, which increases speed, and its symmetrical design enables the sandolo to carry heavier loads than a gondola with less risk of tipping.
Like gondolas, sandoli are usually rowed with one oar, but they can also be rowed using two oars at the same time. This technique, known as voga alla vaesana in Venetian, was historically used in areas of the lagoon like Caorle, Marano and Grado to practice valliculture, a medieval fish-farming method pioneered in the Venetian lagoon.
“Historically, every family owned a sandolo. It was the means used in the city to carry people around, to procure food, to fish, and to transport materials,” said sandolo rower Livio Bon.
