Entering the word Venice in the most famous seach engine on the Internet, around four million and one hundred thousand results will appear, coming from every corner of the web, written in every language and about every field of human knowledge. The greatness of our city is even this. And in this case, more than in others, this greatness is unsettling. This article does not want to be an inventory of this uncontrollable moltitude of resources, but it wants, maybe more ambitiously, to present the “navigation in Venice” as a partial but intelligent and critical operation. We need to clarify immediately that a valid and exhaustive search engine about Venice does not exist, and that all the websites which say to be about Venice often are only websites where hotel stays, souvenirs or something else is sold. Often they just sell advertisment spaces to Venetian activities willing to be known from the tourist even before he gets to the lagoon, and those websites do not offer almost anything valid.

The first help for anyone who is searching the Web looking for a direction, can be the network of the city’s administrative sites, that is to say the civic network. The visibility of the Venice City Council on the Web has two reference channels: the institutional site of the City Council and its administration (www.comune.venezia.it), called official Web portal of the city, and the portal of services of the Venice City Council (www.egov.comune.venezia.it). On the first the institutional activity of mayor, committee, Council and administration is exhaustively monitored and documented; the second, as arealization of the national plan about e-government, is configurated as a virtual desk offering interactive and remote access to the communal services. They are sites with a traditional structure and with a complexively good functioning, frequently updated and modified. The civic network is composed also of the other two main levels of the administrative system: the Province of Venice (www.provincia.venezia.it) and the Veneto Region (www.regione.veneto.it). On the site of the province you can find particularly useful information about the territorial and environmental policies, which are issues of primary importance for the life and safeguard of the city and of the lagoon.

Venice is an ancient and celebrated university and the students’ community has always been one of the liveliest and precious components of the city’s community. The visibility of Venetian universities on the Internet goes back to the first days of the Web. The Internet has had in the university and research network its first great development engine, in Italy and all over the world. The university of Ca’ Foscari (www.unive.it) and the IUAV university, that is to say the faculty of architecture, (www.iuav.it) have an abundant and exaustive visibility on the Internet, but both sites suffer of a defect common between the universities’ institutional sites: it is difficult to move inside them and often it is easy to lose orientation; anyway, this characteristic reflects the complexity of the institutions represented by these sites. What must be appreciated is the fact that both sites have, starting from their homepage, a well visible section containing an agenda/calendar of events, that may be meetings, expositions or anything else, often of general cultural interest and not limited to the academic world. The graphic style and image of the two sites are very nice; the style of the Ca’ Foscari website is more classical and traditional, while the site of the IUAV is more sophisticated as to image and navigation system, in line with the recently renowed university’s image. The more recently founded Venice International University (www.univiu.org), is present on the Web with a more simple and synthetic equipment, in which have been documented the didactic organization and the efficient logistics of the wonderful headquarters in the San Servolo island in the lagoon of Venice, in front of the San Marco basin.

If, as we said before, it is not possible to find on the Web a really efficient general portal about Venice, however it exists an efficient and constantly updated agenda reporting the cultural and recreative appointments expected in the city: Agenda Venezia (www.agendavenezia.org). The structure is well designed, with a sober graphic style, and the navigation is always under control. Events are presented in a clear and concise way and timetables, dates and places where events take place are always well informed. The section with the places of the events is very useful, with a good system of localization on schematic maps, with detailed clues about addresses and links to public transport. It is a real handbook of culture places, accompanied by clear suggestions on how to reach them. Going around in Venice is often complicated. Also the search engine of events is very well made, organized according to dates and periods of the different appointments, and allowing to monitor quite in advance a particular period, so that the user can organize visits and brief stays in relation or contemporarily to particular events.

The public museums of Venice are visible on the website of the Venetian Civic Museums (www.museiciviciveneziani.it). Under the name Civic Museums there is the system of the City Council’s public museums, that presents itself in an organic and organized way and, for what concerns the website, graphically pleasant and functional. It is a network, spread on all the territory of Venice, of museums hosted in renowned historical seats, hosting collections of irresistible touristic and cultural attractive; from Palazzo Ducale to Museo Correr, from Ca’ Pesaro to the Museum of Natural History, reaching a total of 10 museums organized in different macro areas (marcian area, i.d. area of San Marco, Venetian 18th century, modern and contemporary, naturalistic and etnographic). Each area and seat has a large section inside the website, where it is possible to find the basic information in order to organize a visit (expositions, places, timetables) but also specific critical and documental information. Chorus – association churches of Venice – is similar to an expanded museum, available at www.chorusvenezia.org. The organization’s mission, explained in the welcoming screen of their nice website, is to “help to protect, maintain, restore and to bring out the artistic and architectural heritage of the churches of the city of Venice and of the other churches belonging to the Patriarchy. (...) Chorus intends to assist the development of studies and knowledge about this heritage’s history, involving all those who love it in the enterprise of its safeguard.”. What is really remarkable in this site, is the section dedicated to the description and history of the city’s churches, of which are available well made, specifical and exaustive files. The museums offer of Venice is almost immeasurable and it does not end with the public offer or with the historical-architectural heritage; another important part of the offer is represented by the numerous and prestigious Private Foundations.

The world’s most famous foundation is undoubtedly the Venice’s Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, with a prestigious seat on the Grand Canal and the website at www.guggenheim-venice.it. The foundation hosts the Peggy Guggenheim collection, a collection of European and North American art of the first half of the twentieth century, besides many temporary exhibitions often of world-wide importance. The website, as the whole graphic image of the foundation, has lately undergone a substantial redesign and now presents itself as completely renowed: witha simple and enjoyable graphics, a good and functional navigation, an intuitive search for the required information. The Querini Stampalia Foundation and its homonymous palace of the Sixteenth century (wonderfully restored by Carlo Scarpa in the years between 1949 and 1963)are visible at www.querinistampalia.it. Besides many expositions, the Foundation hosts a famous library, a reference point for many students in Venice. The Bevilaqua La Masa Foundation (www.bevilacqualamasa.it), founded at the end of the Nineteenth century by the homonymous duchess, aims at supporting and spreading the works by young artists in the Triveneto (Friuli- Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto) and its activity is made up by the organization of exhibitions and the suppot and promotion of a young artists’community. It focuses mainly on photography, design, graphics and the many-sided informal expositive forms, which differentiate themselves from the more complex system of the Biennale of Arts. This series of celebrated Foundations cannot fail to mention the Cini Foundation (www.cini.it), located on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in front of San Marco Square, founded in 1951. The island, with its luxuriant garden and the impressive and well-restored ancient Benedictine convent, is now the seat of an important centre for cultural social, educational and congressual activities. Partially moving apart from the initial statute that made of it a centre of studies on the Venetian civilization, the foundation is now a centre for contemporary research and culture of international reputation. The institutional activity is made up by eight Research Institutes (Art, Music, History of the Venetian Society and State, Comparative Music, Letters, Theatre and Drama, Vivaldi, "Venice and the Orient" and "Venice and Europe"), inside an expositive and museal structure with permanent expositions and temporary exhibitions and in a congress centre. Its structures often host also cultural and recreational activities, mainly linked to the Biennale of Art’s activities and usually hosted in the magnificent Teatro Verde, Green Theatre, in the middle of the big garden. The website conveniently reflects and documents this complex structure and its initiatives, besides giving, obviously, the basic information about its placing in the city and its accessibility. An historical and basic cornerstone of the local and global culture is the Biennale of Venice (www.labiennale.org) that with its sections (visual art, architecture, cinema, dance, music, theatre) and its Historical Archive for Contemporary Art represents since its origins in 1895 a worldwide point of reference for the promotion of new artistic trends. Its activities goes from the International Film Festival (61 editions) to the International Art Exposition (50 editions), from the International Architecture Exhibition (9 editions) to the wide choice of festivals with a noble tradition (dance, music and theatre). The website, presumably like the body self, suffers from a not immediate comprehension of the contents’structure, which can nonetheless vanquished by an alert and protracted use of the website, through which it is possible to access to a huge quantity of information.

Also theatres have always had, in hte city’s history, an important role of cultural promotion and social union. The instance of the rebuilding of the Teatro la Fenice after the disastrous fire in 1996 has been under the attention of the public opinion worldwide and, as it is known, has recently ended in a positive way, with the inauguration of the new theatre. Since then the opera and theatre activity is hosted also in the historical seat of the theatre, in addition to the more little Teatro Malibran, also recently restored. From the day of its reopening, the Teatro la Fenice has collected a uninterrupted series of “sold out”; it is necessary to buy the tickets for big events in great advance and with alertful organization, and in irder to do so the privileged way is the website: www.teatrolafenice.it. The activity and programming of the two prose theatres of the city, the Teatro Goldoni in San Luca and the Teatro Toniolo in Mestre, are visible respectively on the sites www.teatrostabileveneto.it and on www.culturaspettacolovenezia.it. The first is a site which since quite a long time has problems of tight updating, and is now online with a temporary version, probably in sight of a general remake; the second deserves a special mention because it is not only the theatre’s site, but also a complete frontoffice of the cultural section of the City Council, where it is possible to find news and info about many appointments and initiatives in the city.

For the ones who want a more general and wide view of Venice’s life, news and politics, the on-line versions of the two local newspapers are available on the Web: the Gazzettino at www.gazzettino.it and the Nuova Venezia at www.nuovavenezia.quotidianiespresso.it. The site of the Gazzettino is characterized by a not very attractive and modern graphics, but at least the contents’ structure is clearand easy to navigate. The newspaper is entirely put on-line at around noon everyday; the consultation is free, but you need to register and to give your authorization to the commercial use of your personal data. The Nuova Venezia, like all newspapers of the editorial group L’Espresso, refers for the on-line edition to the efficient programming and network structure common to all the local publications of the same group. The newspaper is on-line since early morning and it is possible to view it in three different formats: text only (for slow connections), text and image, and it is also possible to download it completely in pdf format. But this efficient service is not given for free, you have to do a monthly subscription or to buy through the telephone a single copy of the newspaper (you are given a password which allows a day’s access to that part of the website).

As we are approaching the conclusion, after having reviewed and commented upon a great number of news and informations, it is interesting and maybe amusing to point out some of the webcams which are scattered here and there around Venice. There are many of them, put in the most known and pitoresque spots of the city, but also in the most hidden and less known places, and I think it can be nice for the visitors of myvenice.org, particularly for those who are most far from the city, to have a curious and probably nostalgic look now and then. In the Piazza San Marco area there are many webcams, looking at the basin, the different sides of the square and the clocktower (www.comune.venezia.it/webcam). There are many also on the Gran Canal, looking over the Rialto Bridge (www.locandasturion.com) or in the area near Palazzo Balbi (turismo.regione.veneto.it/webcam). Given the technical ease with which nowadays anyone can easily place a good webcam , the map of “live” stories of the city of Venice is continuously changing. The results of the webcams’research in Venice are changing day by day; to give an idea of the surprises one can find, I suggest the "Gondola Webcam" installed at the Squero Canaletto in Cannaregio, in the Fondamenta Nuove area, through which it is possible to follow the works for the building of gondole day by day. (www.squero.com/gondolawebcam.html).

With some reserves and a bit of shame, I would like to close this quick trip into “Venice on the web” pointing out this last Internet resource. It is focused on the United States but it is perfectly adherent to the theme. I am talking about the luxury and kitsch website of the hotel casinò The Venetian – it even has a winged lion on the blazon – an incredible, grotesque, hyperbolic caricature of Venice, with enclosed the San Marco bell tower, gondolas, canals and the Rialto Bridge, under which passes a four-lane road! (www.venetian.com)