Cats of Venice

PHOTOS: Cats sun themselves in Venice's public gardens, a few steps from St. Mark's Square.

The Lion of St. Mark is Venice's mascot, at least among sculptors and decorators. In real life, the closest lion is probably at the Parco Natura Viva just outside Verona, 74 miles (118 km) away.

With no living lions to reign over Venice, the local feline population has taken on a surrogate leonine role. Cats are seen everywhere in the city: sunning themselves on park benches, perched on bridges, wandering the streets, and dining on leftovers at the Rialto fish market.

In a delightful book titled A Venetian Bestiary, Jan Morris writes:

"The cat has always been an essential scavenger in a city that depends on the tides for its hygiene, and has periodically been decimated by rat-borne plagues. It was Shylock the Venetian who declared the cat to be 'both necessary and harmless,' and when from time to time the municipality has tried to reduce the teeming feline population, the citizenry has always been up in arms in protest. Your Venetian cats are not like others. Sometimes of course they live in the bosoms of families, and are fed on canned horsemeat, and prettied up with bows: but far more often they survive half-wild, in feral gangs or covens of cats, and not infrequently some cherished household pet, observing the lives of such lucky ruffians from the kitchen window, will abandon the comforts of basket and fireside rug, and take to the streets himself."

Stray or not, the cats aren't necessarily forced to scavenge for their dinners. Many Venetians (including local volunteer groups) are in the habit of placing food out for the neighborhood cats at night, and it isn't uncommon to see a local version of Garfield savoring remants of the evening's lasagne or fish stew from a plate in a quiet alley.

The colonies of cats that live in the various neighborhoods around town are protected by law--and my friend Juli Van Zyverden reports that, a few years ago, one of the small islands between Venice and the Lido was designated as a shelter for homeless cats and kittens.

Are the cats dangerous? Some worry-warts might think so, for it's doubtful that many of the cats wandering the streets of Venice have had rabies shots. Still, if you leave them alone, they'll probably leave you alone--unless, of course, you're a fish or a rat, in which case all bets are off.

Related articles

Venice's Oldest Cat?
A tribute to Neno, a Venetian cat who enjoyed boats and swimming until the age of 22.

The Cats of Venice
Shin Otani celebrates the feline citizens of La Serenissima in an inexpensive book with 80 color photos.

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