scenes of the Queen’s Birthday Reception and the Consulate’s former premises in Venice

[*] A short history of the British Consulate in Venice

Venice was an independent state until 1797, when it fell to Napoleon; the Most Serene Republic had been one of the leading world powers for many centuries. Britain's relations with Venice, therefore, were conducted by Ambassadors or Ministers, either resident or temporarily in the city while on special missions.

Perhaps one of the earliest recorded missions to the Serenissima was conducted by Friar Richard, an Englishman who was Bishop of Bisaccia and a chaplain in the household of the Norman King Robert of Naples, in 1340. Friar Robert's difficult tasks were to ask the Doge if England could hire 40 or more Venetian galleys for use in the wars against the French, and also to pray the Republic in any case to abstain from taking sides in the conflict. Friar Robert, unfortunately, was not granted the galleys because the Doge said that Venice needed all the ships it could build to defend itself against the Turks; he was also given a non-committal response to the second request.

The first resident Ambassador to Venice was a man of court who was also a poet, Sir Henry Wotton. Sir Henry presented his credentials to the Signoria in 1604 and was to have three tours of duty in the Republic, finally leaving in 1623. Apart from having three poems in The Oxford Book of English Verse , Wotton is well-known for a witticism he wrote in the scrapbook of a young man who asked him what an ambassador's duties were: "An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country". This description reached the ears of King James I, who was not pleased.

The last British Ambassador to Venice was Sir Richard Worsley, who was given a safe conduct to leave the city by the French authorities on 12 May 1797.

Consular work may be said to have begun when the ancient Greek city states made arrangements for citizens resident in a state other than their own to select one of their number to represent them in their dealings with the host state. Moving nearer to our own time, the Venetians were the first to make a practice of appointing Consuls to protect their merchants and trade interests abroad; the practice became widespread in Europe from the sixteenth century onwards. The first British Consul in Venice was appointed by English merchants in Venice in 1608, but his name does not appear to be known. A certain Thomas Gunter was appointed as Consul by Sir Henry Wotton in 1620, and since then the sequence of Consuls has been nearly unbroken.

The most famous British Consul in Venice was undoubtedly Joseph Smith, a banker, merchant, dealer in manuscripts, publisher, bookshop owner and art collector, appointed by George II in 1744, who was responsible for introducing Canaletto to wealthy British visitors on their Grand Tour, and who sold his own collection of Canaletto paintings to George III in 1762.

Before moving to its present premises in the centre of Mestre in 2004, the British Consulate was to be found on the piano nobile of Palazzo Querini, an eighteenth century building on the corner of Campo della Carità, known as Campo dell'Accademia. The palace itself is unassuming but it has a splendid terrace overlooking the Accademia Bridge with a view embracing Palazzo Balbi, seat of the Veneto Regional Council, in one direction and the Baroque domes and statues of the Basilica della Salute in the other.

By Mr Michael Gluckstern, former British Consul in Venice.