On the grey stone of a column, in the hush of a Venetian courtyard, someone long ago scratched their name. Elsewhere, a crude drawing of a ship: a mariner’s hope, a silent signature on the walls of a city.
In the heart of Venice, amidst the gilded canals and grand palaces, there lies another kind of monument — the everyday marks of lives lived, recorded not by masters of art but by ordinary hands.
Now, thanks to a large-scale research project, these countless traces are stepping into the light. A team from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, working with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and the Superintendence of Architectural Heritage and Landscape of Venice and its Lagoon, has uncovered approximately 40,000 pieces of historical graffiti — and they’ve only surveyed about 20 percent of Venice’s urban area.
These carvings and drawings — from pilgrim names to heart-shapes, from ships to crosses — span centuries and connect the city’s past to its people in unexpected, deeply human ways.
A City’s Walls Begin To Speak
Walking through the corridors of the Doge’s Palace, the vaulted ceilings and lavish halls carry all the grandeur of the former Venetian Republic. But hidden in plain sight, low on doorframes or high above arches, are etchings made not for show but for memory — a name, a ship, a lion, a heart.
Professor Flavia De Rubeis, lead investigator, explains that many people left their mark inside the Doge’s Palace, and her team aims to link these “signatures” to graffiti across the city and lagoon. Through this, they hope to highlight the stories of seemingly marginal people and show how their paths enriched Venice’s cultural landscape over the centuries.
The project, called VeLA — Venezia Libro Aperto (Venice Open Book), began in 2019 and employs modern tools like 3D scanners and digital tablets to document the markings. Each etching, once dismissed as vandalism, is now studied as a deliberate act — sometimes taking hours or even days to complete.
Why Graffiti Matters
At first glance, graffiti might seem marginal — a tag, a doodle, something fleeting. But in Venice, these marks are archives of human presence. They tell stories of sailors longing for home, artisans marking their labor, pilgrims passing through, and even prisoners leaving traces of hope or despair.
One striking discovery included seven lions of St. Mark — symbols of Venice — drawn by an anonymous artist. Another signature came from the Greek painter Theodoros Rallis, carved during his 1875 visit. Yet, the most profound revelation is that most of these marks were made by ordinary people — those whose names never appeared in history books.
Their work challenges the conventional view of Venice as a city of elites. These simple carvings and drawings remind us that history belongs not only to rulers and merchants but also to everyday Venetians who walked its narrow streets and bridges.
As Professor De Rubeis noted, this research materializes the silent testimony of many people once linked to this extraordinary building and its many functions.
A Growing Map Of Yesterday
Although only a fifth of Venice has been studied, researchers have already catalogued around 40,000 graffiti markings — of which approximately 20,000 have been identified and 9,000 fully analyzed.
The project has received about €300,000 in funding, supporting 3D mapping, digital cataloguing, and an open-access website that will include multilingual audio guides for the visually impaired.
Beyond the Doge’s Palace, the initiative plans to expand to Venice’s lagoon islands, monasteries, and other heritage sites, comparing graffiti distribution with historic maps to uncover patterns of social movement.
This is not just historical research — it’s cultural listening. The city’s walls, once silent, are being transformed into storytellers that connect generations across centuries.
Stories That Endure
Beneath the palace, in the prison cells known as the Pozzi and Piombi, prisoners once etched symbols, prayers, and fragments of thought into the walls. Elsewhere, a stonemason on a monastery wall left his mark centuries ago — perhaps as a quiet signature of his work.
Picture a gondolier carving his name before setting out to sea, or a pilgrim inscribing a heart as an act of devotion. Picture a child in the 1400s sketching a ship after watching one sail by. Each image, each line, is a whisper from the past — proof that human expression transcends time and circumstance.
These graffiti teach us that history is not only written by the powerful. It exists in the everyday acts of those who lived, loved, and hoped. The walls of Venice hold more than stone; they hold presence.
Preserving The Unnoticed
The VeLA project also poses an important question about preservation: how can we protect the voices of ordinary people when heritage efforts often favor monumental art and architecture?
Historical graffiti, Professor De Rubeis warns, are rarely protected as part of official heritage. The project aims to change that by making its findings public — mapping, cataloguing, and digitizing every mark for future generations.
Soon, visitors walking through the Doge’s Palace may stop to notice a tiny scratched ship or a name half-worn by centuries. They may realize that the city’s walls are alive — alive with memory, with humanity, with time itself.
Looking Ahead With Hope
There is a quiet wonder in these discoveries. Forty thousand marks, each a small declaration: I was here. Together, they form a tapestry of human life spanning centuries.
As the project grows, it invites participation from locals, students, and travelers — anyone willing to listen. Because when the walls of Venice speak, they remind us of something essential: that every mark, no matter how small, tells a story worth remembering.
If Venice can reveal such rich history through its graffiti, perhaps every city has similar stories waiting to be uncovered. The act of marking a wall becomes an act of continuity — a way of saying that human presence endures.
In the end, it is not grandeur but humility that defines these findings. In every carved name, every scratched heart, there is hope — the same hope that connects us all across time.
Sources:
Medievalists
Eurasia Review
Weird Italy
Venice Insider Guide
