Mountain Landscape with Five Bridges

The Dolomite Mountains form a curtain backdrop to the city of Venice. Here Canaletto takes us up into their rugged terrain. Is there really a spot with such a complex of bridges and cascades? We don’t know, but something inspired the artist to populate this scene with a range of social status from the rich occupants of a fine coach at left, to the workers transporting heavy loads on a horse cart and in baskets on their backs, to an executed man hanging from a gallows at the far right.