Venice

For financial reasons, Venice – city of gondolas and palaces, of decadent wealth and romantic melancholy – was a hard-to-reach holiday destination in the days of the waning Habsburg Monarchy and the newly-founded First Republic despite the well-developed rail link existing between Austria and Italy.

The Director and Scientific Director of the Urania, Government Councillor Friedrich Umlauft, delivered the repertory lecture "The Floating City of Venice (with kinematograms)”, which he compiled himself, over 20 times during the semesters dating between 1907/08 and 1912/13. The repertory lecture entitled “The Fairytale City of Venice” was so popular among the audience that it was delivered over 300 times between 1929/30 and 1933/34 complete with slides, films and music. These lively lectures transported Venice, the city of dreams straight into the Great and Small Lecture Hall of the Urania, which could be easily reached by the population of Vienna.