18 Photographs of Peggy Guggenheim Wearing Her Iconic “Butterfly” Sunglasses in Venice in the 1950s and 1960s

A woman wearing extravagant sunglasses. She sits on a gondola in a Venetian canal. She’s surrounded by dogs. She looks straight at the camera. It’s Marguerite “Peggy” Guggenheim, of course. A character immediately recognizable for fashion and art lovers alike.

Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) was a American art collector and friend to the surrealists who chose to wear her butterfly sunglasses like a badge of honor. Designed by Edward Melcarth, her butterfly style glasses were a work of art–a vision of power; inspiring, shocking, and leaving others in complete awe.

In 1994 Safilo paid homage to this iconic design by producing a remake of these imaginative frames on sale at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Twenty years later, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the brand, the model was proposed again with bright blue acetate lenses and caramel profiles. Today you can find a new version of this collector's item: the structure is cream-colored, in perfect harmony with the havana profiles.

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Beautiful Photos of Venice in the Early 1950s

During the Second World War, Venice was largely free from attack, the only aggressive effort of note being Operation Bowler, a successful Royal Air Force precision strike on the German naval operations in the city in March 1945.

The targets were destroyed with virtually no architectural damage inflicted on the city itself. However, the industrial areas in Mestre and Marghera and the railway lines to Padua, Trieste, and Trento were repeatedly bombed.

On 29 April 1945, a force of British and New Zealand troops of the British Eighth Army, under Lieutenant General Freyberg, liberated Venice, which had been a hotbed of anti-Mussolini Italian partisan activity.

Just years after the war, these beautiful photos from gbfernie5 show what Venice looked like in the early 1950s.

On the Grand Canal, Venice, Italy, early 1950s

Bridge of Sighs, Rio de Palazzo, Venice, Italy, early 1950s

Bridge of Sighs, Rio de Palazzo, Venice, Italy, early 1950s

Gondolier, Venice, Italy, early 1950s

Grand Canal, Venice, Italy, early 1950s

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Photograph of Buffalo Bill and Wild West Cast Members in a Gondola in Venice, ca. 1890s

William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody sitting in a gondola with a group of four Native American men while touring in Venice, Italy.

(Denver Public Library Special Collections)

Sioux (Dakota) Chief Rocky Bear sits to the right of Cody wearing a feather headdress. Sioux (Dakota) Chief Black Heart, also wearing a feather headdress, sits on the ledge of the gondola. The other two Sioux men wear feathers on the back of their heads. All four Sioux men wear hairpipe bead breastplates. Cody wears a Stetson hat and striped pants. He has long gray hair and a goatee and mustache.

Two gondoliers, one in front and one in back, push the gondola with long poles. Another man stands in the back of the boat pointing toward something in the distance. Numerous city buildings line the shore of the river in the background in Venice.

Here’s a Bible-Gun That Belonged to Francesco Morosini, Doge of Venice. It Could Be Fired Without Opening the Book!

This is a Bible with a compartment for a gun filled by a gun. Made in Venice for Doge Francesco Morosini in the second half of the 17th century. The owner of the bible could pull the silk bookmark to shoot while the book was still closed. Now on display at the Museo Correr in Venice.

In his book, Venise, L’hiver Et L’ete, De Pres Et De Loin, Lorenzo Cittone talks about this incredible gun-book: “I’ve found in a display case (of the Correr museum, in Venice), Morosini’s prayers book that I used to love so much as a kid. This wonderful book, apart from a few prayers, contains a buttless gun. The binding, of course, is gorgeous. And once the book closed, it is impossible to make the gun out.” 

Francesco Morosini (February 26, 1619 – January 16, 1694) was the Doge of Venice from 1688 to 1694, at the height of the Great Turkish War. He was a member of a famous noble Venetian family (the Morosini family) which produced several Doges and generals. He “dressed always in red from top to toe and never went into action without his cat beside him.”

Morosini first rose to prominence as Captain-General of the Venetian forces on Crete during the siege of Candia by the Ottoman Empire. He was eventually forced to surrender the city, and was accused of cowardice and treason on his return to Venice; however, he was acquitted after a brief trial.

In 1685, at the outbreak of the Morean War, Morosini took command of a fleet against the Ottomans. Over the next several years, he captured the Morea with the help of Otto Wilhelm Königsmarck, as well as Lefkada and parts of western Greece. He also briefly captured Athens but was unable to hold it, and attempted a failed siege of the former Venetian fortress of Negroponte. His fame reached such heights that he was given the victory title Peloponnesiacus, and was the first Venetian citizen to have a bronze bust placed during his own lifetime in the Great Hall, with the inscription Francisco Morosini Peloponnesiaco, adhuc viventi, Senatus.

During the siege of Athens in 1687 at the Morean War, his artillery turned the Parthenon from a functioning building to a simple ruin, and he personally oversaw the looting of some of the surviving sculptures. The Parthenon was used as a powder magazine by the Ottomans when on September 26, 1687, Morosini’s cannon scored a direct hit on the edifice. An attaché of the Swedish field commander General Otto Wilhelm Königsmarck wrote later: “How it dismayed His Excellency to destroy the beautiful temple which had existed three thousand years!” By contrast Morosini, who was the commander in chief of the operation, described it in his report to the Venetian government as a “fortunate shot.”

When he conquered Acropolis in early 1688, Morosini tried to loot Athena’s and Poseidon’s horses and chariots from the west pediment of the Parthenon but the sculptures fell on the ground and smashed. This was the first documented attempt to remove sculptures from the pediments. The Ottoman Empire regained possession of the monument in the following year and having noticed the demand began to sell souvenirs to Westerners.

Morosini also looted from the port of Piraeus the famous Piraeus Lion which is on display at the Venetian Arsenal.

In the summer of 1688, Morosini, now having been proclaimed Doge of Venice, attacked Negropont but was unable to capture it and was forced to return to Venice when plague broke out among his troops. He embarked on a final campaign in 1693, but was again unsuccessful in taking Negropont, and returned to Venice after sacking some minor coastal towns. After his death in 1694, a large marble arch was placed in his honor at the Doge’s Palace, and his cat, of which Morosini was notably fond, was embalmed and taken to the Museo Correr.

Pictures of Sophia Loren at the Venice Film Festival in 1958

The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival is the world’s oldest film festival and one of the “Big Three” film festivals, alongside the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival. The Big Three are internationally acclaimed for giving creators the artistic freedom to express themselves through film. In 1951, FIAPF formally accredited the festival.

Founded in Venice, Italy in August 1932, the festival is part of the Venice Biennale, one of the world’s oldest exhibitions of art, created by the Venice City Council on 19 April 1893. The range of work at the Venice Biennale now covers Italian and international art, architecture, dance, music, theatre, and cinema.

The festival is held in late August or early September on the island of the Lido in the Venice Lagoon. Screenings take place in the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi. The festival continues to be one of the world's most popular and fastest-growing.

These vintage photos captured a young and beautiful Sophia Loren at the 19th annual Venice International Film Festival which was held from 24 August to 7 September 1958.

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40 Beautiful Photos of Venice in the Early 1970s

Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile).

Venice has been known as “La Dominante”, “La Serenissima”, “Queen of the Adriatic”, “City of Water”, “City of Masks”, “City of Bridges”, “The Floating City”, and “City of Canals”. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, and artwork.

Venice is known for several important artistic movements—especially during the Renaissance period—has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.

Venice is a very popular tourist destination, a major cultural centre, and has been ranked many times the most beautiful city in the world. It has been described by the Times Online as one of Europe’s most romantic cities and by The New York Times as “undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man”.

These vintage photos were taken by waitingfortrain that show beautiful Venice in 1972.

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Beautiful Vintage Color Photos of Life in Venice in the 1960s

Take a look at life in Venice during the 1960s through 20 stunning vintage color photographs taken by Italian photographer Giulio Corinaldi:

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November 4, 1966: Flood in Venice Was an Unprecedented Acqua Alta, With Waters Reaching Up to 194 cm

On November 4, 1966, the city of Venice woke up in the middle of its biggest nightmare. The largest flood in its history reached a level of 194 cm (or 6 ft 4 in) above median sea level and covered almost the entire city. The tide remained for 22 hours above 110 cm and for about 40 hours over 50 cm. It created a lot of damage in the historical center and on the lagoon islands.

Although Venice is known for its acque alte or high waters which often flood the streets, this flood left thousands of residents without homes and caused over six million dollars worth of damage to the various works of art throughout Venice, making it the worst flood in the history of the city.

After being neglected and quietly deteriorating ever since the defeat of the Venetian Republic by Napoleon about a century and a half prior, Venice was suddenly recognized as a city in urgent need of restoration.

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Life in Italy in 1948 Through Ivan Dmitri’s Beautiful Shots

Ivan Dmitri (1900-1968), or Levon West, was well-known for his portrayals in color photography, watercolors and etchings. Dmitri developed an interest in art, but he chose to major in business administration at his father’s insistence. It was the New York Times’ publication of his etching of The Spirit of St. Louis upon Charles Lindbergh’s arrival in Paris that boosted his career as an artist. As one of the first artists to work with color photography, his interest brought recognition in the new medium, and to keep his two artistic fields apart, West used the name Ivan Dmitri for his photographic work. An ardent advocate for photography, Dmitri assisted in establishing one of the first photography exhibits at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and founded Photography in the Fine Arts in 1959 to gain acceptance of photography as an art medium.

Let’s take a look at Italy in 1948 captured by Dmitri:

Couples walk at dusk in Florence, Italy, 1948.

A street view taken from a car in Florence, Italy, 1948.

A man riding a Vespa in Florence, Italy, 1948.

A couple on a Vespa in Florence, Italy, 1948.

People ride their bikes in Florence, Italy, 1948.

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Candid Photographs of Alain Delon Encountered Some Pigeons in Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1962

Alain Delon (born November 8, 1935) is a French film actor whose striking good looks helped make him one of the principal male stars of the French cinema in the 1960s and ’70s.

During France’s war with Indochina, Delon was posted to Saigon and saw active service, an experience which he later stated was immensely beneficial to him in teaching him discipline and building his character.

In 1956, he returned to France and found work as a porter and waiter in Paris. It was during this period that he was befriended by some aspiring young actors (notably Jean-Claude Brialy), through whom he would get to meet the film director Yves Allegret. It was Allegret who gave Delon his first acting job, a walk-on part in the 1957 film Quand la femme s'en mele. This led Marc Allegret to cast him in the comedy-thriller Sois belle et tais-toi (1958), where he appeared alongside another promising young actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, whose popularity would rival Delon’s in the following two decades.

The actor’s breakthrough came in 1958 when director Pierre Gaspard-Huit gave him his first leading role, in the historical romance Christine, in which he starred opposite the well-known Austrian actress Romy Schneider. Whilst making this film, the 22 year old actor and Schneider fell in love and soon after became engaged. Naturally, the world’s press made a great deal of the fairytale romance but the engagement ended five years later when Delon fell for another young actress, Nathalie Canovas, whom he married in 1964. The couple had a son, Anthony but divorced in 1968 when the actor began his 15-year long affair with actress Mireille Darc. In 1969, Delon and Romy Schneider appeared together for a second time in Jacques Deray’s classic thriller La Piscine.

Below are some candid photographs of Alain Delon encountered some pigeons in Piazza San Marco, Venice in 1962. The photos were taken by Jack Garofalo.

16 Glamorous Vintage Photographs That Show Celebrities Enjoying Venice, Italy From Between the 1950s and 1970s

These vintage photographs, dating from the 1950s to the 1970s, showed everyone from actors to painters enjoying Venice, Italy. The city was host to the world's first film festival and long attracted the rich and famous to its renowned waterways. Some like Salvador Dali enjoyed a relaxing gondola ride while American actress Gene Tierney tried rowing instead.

Gene Tierney, wearing a striped short-sleeved nautical-style shirt, donning a hat, tries her hand at rowing a gondola, Venice, 1951.

Kirk Douglas, wearing a swimming suit and a necklace chainlet, signing on the thigh of the paintress Novella Parigini, wearing a strapless bikini and round earrings, a woman wearing a strapless polka-dotted bikini, Lido Beach, Venice 1953.

Ernest Hemingway, wearing a short sleeves shirt over a plaid shirt, his hurted arm bendaged, drinking vodka from the bottle, Venice 1954.

Gary Cooper, on a venitian gondola, Venice 1955.

Sophia Loren at the Venice Film Festival, 1955

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