2 Mar 2012 - A Venetian Gondola must be black

This evening I was watching QI again and I discovered that there was a decree passed the stated that all gondole (plural of gondola) in Venice must be black in colour. I was intrigued by this fact and I wanted to know more, such as why? I Googled, as I am want to do, and discovered a website called Life in Italy. On this site there was an article about the Gondola. It turns out that in 1562, the Doge (chief magistrate) in Venice passed a decree stipulating that 'only gondole in the service of transporting important personages could be coloured.' So the reason why the decree was passed was because important people wanted to stand out in the crowd and they wanted everyone else to travel in drab vehicles. The article I was reading went on to say that due to this decree people further developed the shape and form of their gondole in order to make them more stylish, so that the colour was no longer what made their gondola stand out in the crowd.

I thought this was quite amusing, because if you look at important people nowadays, they all choose to be driven around in black limousines and other black vehicles. The president of the United States of America, always seems to have a cavalcade of black vehicles driving him around. When you watch any awards ceremonies on television, you see people arriving in black limousines (although the level of importance of these people is debatable). It is amusing to think, that a decree was passed to ensure that all ordinary people's gondole are required to be black, in an attempt to make important people stand out, however this decree in turn actually spurred people on to spend more time designing sleeker and more beautiful designs for their gondole. It was probably the stylish designs of these black gondole which have contributed to the notion that black cars these days are more stylish. Hence why unimportant people nowadays choose to be driven to important events in black vehicles, and why important people choose to be driven to any event in a black vehicle. A book I once read stated the law of unintended consequences, for each decision you make, three consequences that you have never imagined with occur as a result. I think this relates well to this situation, because I am sure that the Doge would not have imagined at the time when he passed his colourless decree, how a modern gondola would look at a result, or that he might influence others to adopt colourless transport modes as a result.

You can read more about Gondole on the Life in Italy website.