References in Literature and History
Mark Twain visited Venice in the summer of 1867. He dedicated much of The Innocents Abroad, chapter 23 to describing the curiosity of urban life with gondolas and gondoliers.
The first act of Gilbert and Sullivan's two-act comic operetta The Gondoliers is set in Venice, and the show's two protagonists (as well as its men's chorus) are of the eponymous profession, even though the political irony that makes up the core of the show has much more to do with British society than Venice.
The Japanese manga Aria follows a young woman named Akari as she trains as an apprentice gondolier in Neo-Venezia, a city on a terraformed Mars based on Venice.
Read more about this topic: Gondola
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