Wide view of Venice: Piazza San Marco - Riva degli Schiavoni

LOTTO ALLA VENTURINA

Venturina Lottery - Simple Money Betting for all classes

Giovanni Grevembroch: "Lotto alla Venturina"
pen, ink & watercolor
Giovanni Grevembroch: "Lotto alla Venturina"
pen, ink & watercolor (18th century)
Museo Correr, Venezia
One curiosity here: the young kid has 5 parallel fingers,
meaning that adding the thumb, they add up to six ...
How easy it is to make small mistakes in art ;-)

The "Lotto alla Venturina" was quite common in Venice, and it was a poor people game, allowed only during the holidays.

The win was usually simple things, very often houseware, but enough to create interest.

Simpler (not noble!) men were going around the shabbier neighborhoods, proposing the game to the girls peeking from the half-closed windows challenging them to choose one of the 90 numbers, same rules as the Biribis.

The persons would throw their betting money from the window, and when the organizer had sold all the numbers, a blindfolded kid would extract the winner.

There is a song made in the XVII century being part of the Furlana dances, which goes like this:

"Quele de Santa Marta
Le va vestíe de carta
De carta bergamina
Le zioga 'l loto a la venturina"

"The women living in Santa Marta
Go around dressed in paper
In paper coming from Bergamo
They play the Lotto alla Venturina"


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