aphra

I have always wanted to nail the location for the Pension Fiorini from David Lean’s SUMMERTIME. The Pensione Academia in the Dorsodura has often been cited as the place where Katharine Hepburn stayed, (and it has been impossible to get a booking there ever since!), but to anybody who has been there it obviously was not the location. I have just returned from Venice and took with me a few screen shots. I have finally been able to find the location. The pensione terrace shown in the film was specially erected on the Campo San Vio on the south side of the Grand Canal and can clearly be identified from the buildings visible on the opposite side of the canal. Kevin Brownlow in his book on Lean does not give the location of the set, but tells an amusing story about how the pensione terrace was dismantled by workmen immediately after the last day of shooting, but before the rushes had been viewed. Somebody played a joke on Lean, telling him in a panic next morning that a number of workmen could be seen in the final shots…





The first picture is of the terrace looking north to the Grand Canal. Campo San Vio below
The second shows the background as it is today
The third is a reverse shot looking south from the terrace made by Lean