El docufilm “Venezia tra Oriente e Occidente” de Nelo Risi (1974): el patrimonio arqueológico y arquitectónico de Venecia a través del agua

In 1974 the “Enciclopedia dell’Arte Italiana” commissioned the Istituto Luce to produce a film documentary for the exhibition “Venezia e Bisanzio”. The little-known documentary “Venezia tra Oriente e Occidente”, directed by Nelo Risi, with texts by the art critic Sergio Bettini (1905- 1986), aims to narrate to the public the story of the origins of Venice and its arts interpreting them on the basis of the semantic multiplicity water element. In this article I will present the film documentary. In addition, I will also compare this filmic experience to the genesis of Bettini’s book “Venezia: nascita di una città” (1978), where the scholar emphasises the relationship between the flowing of water, with its reverberations and iridescence, and the sequence of anti-classical components of art and architecture in Venice, as if the city itself in its entirety were to be interpreted as a co-responsion between man and water.