Sir Henry Wotton wrote of “flashing winds. ” All this can be of the character of the ocean. there's a south-westerly wind, too, as soon as known as garbin. it can be of this wind that Saint Bernardino of Siena wrote in 1427. He requested a correspondent, “Were you ever at Venice? occasionally of a night, there comes a bit wind which works over the face of the waves and makes a legitimate upon them, and this is often known as the voice of the waters. yet what it indicates is the grace of God, and the breath breathed forth through Him. ” Even the elements of Venice used to be deemed sacred. however the such a lot celebrated wind is the scirocco, the nice and cozy wind that comes from the south-east and will persist for 3 or 4 days. there's a scirocco di levante and a scirocco di ponente, a sizzling scirocco and a funky scirocco; there's even an elusive wind referred to as the scirocchetto. The scirocco itself has been blamed for the Venetian tendency in the direction of sensuality and indolence; it's been accused of instilling passivity or even effeminacy in the electorate. Why should still humans no longer be moulded as a lot through weather as by way of historical past and culture? The outer climate could make or unmake internal climate. but a few weeks of the iciness could be harsh, a powerful reminder of the Alps and the northern snows. the main widespread climate lament involved the sour chilly. within the wintry weather of 1607–08 those that went fowling within the lagoon have been on events frozen to loss of life, and there have been reviews of visitors being surrounded and killed via packs of ravenous wolves. at first of the eighteenth century got here a well-known “Year of the Ice” within which provisions have been delivered to the frozen urban via sledge. In different winters the lagoon additionally iced up, and the Venetians may possibly stroll over to the mainland. In 1788 nice bonfires have been lit at the Bacino, the basin of water in entrance of the piazzetta; stalls and cubicles have been erected at the ice, within the Venetian an identical of a Frost reasonable. In 1863 nice sheets of ice went up and down the Grand Canal, flowing with the tide, for a month. Venice used to be then actually the frozen international, the ice protecting the homes and palaces in addition to the water. the sunshine was once blinding. Venetian homes weren't equipped for the chilly; the good home windows and the stone flooring of the bigger dwellings made them nearly insupportable through the blizzards of wintry weather. but there's nonetheless whatever inexpressibly pleasant approximately Venice within the snow, the whiteness growing an enchanted state the place what's fluid has turn into crystal; the quiet urban then turns into utterly silent underneath the panoply of snow. yet there are iciness weeks of no longer particularly snow and never really rain. those may possibly develop into the weeks or days of fog. The iridescent mist or haze is then enveloped by way of the myriad fogs that creep in from the ocean. the gray Istrian stone turns into an outpost of the fog, a sentinel of consolidated fog looming out of the gloom. because the Esquimaux have many phrases for ice, so the Venetians have many names for the fog—nebbia, nebbietta, foschia, caligo. in the course of the nebbia, it truly is as though heavy rain-clouds had come to leisure upon the earth and water.