Every year, the horde descends on the Venice Biennale to look at contemporary "art". None of them knows what's under their feet.
To create the Public Gardens where the pavilions are today, Napoleon had at least 5 religious buildings razed between 1808 and 1812.
Medieval churches, a hospital for sailors — destroyed to make room for a park.
But the Gardens were just the beginning.
During the entire Napoleonic occupation of Venice, between 1806 and 1814, out of 187 churches, 70 disappeared - more than one in every three.
Another 17 were emptied and converted.
In total: 87 places of worship destroyed in less than 8 years.
Spoiler: it's not the number that hurts.
Around 30,000 works of art were torn from those buildings.
Altarpieces, paintings, sculptures, frescoes.
Some ended up in Brera — Titian’s famous Saint Jerome in Penitence, for example.
Most of them were sold, or just disappeared without a trace.
30,000 masterpieces in 8 years.
One every 6 hours, day and night, for the entire duration of the occupation.
Today the curators of half the world argue over which pavilion deserves the Golden Lion.
They do it exactly above the foundations of what is left of San Nicolò di Castello.
This awful contemporary garbage is built on the cemetery of medieval art.
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