Mestre

[Mark Kohut]

Michale Bailey wrote:
706 5 Mestre bridge - Mestre was a suburb but was annexed
to Venice, it's on the mainland shore of the Venice lagoon -
not sure what strategic or symbolic significance this might have
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Pynchon loves Venice, certainly old Venice so perhaps these enmeshed, lost, systematized spies must live in Modern, Ugly Mestre because they are
emblematic of the Modern and morally ugly, so to speak?:
 
Mestre (pronounced May-stray) is the mainland town connected to Venice by rail and road bridges over the lagoon. ... Mestre is everything Venice isn't: modern, ugly, traffic-filled, ordinary. Administratively it is part of Venice (Venezia); a kind of mainland suburb. However it has a history as a separate town, and it has a very different character.
History
Mestre's history goes back to the Middle Ages, though it was always overshadowed by its powerful neighbour Venice. Unlike Venice, it had no lagoon to protect it, and the fortifications here were battled over, conquered, destroyed and rebuilt in the warring and squabbling that went on throughout mainland Italy for centuries. Even after the town was taken over by Venice in the fourteenth century, it was still at the mercy of occasional attacks from Venice's enemies.
In the 1920s Mestre was absorbed into the Comune di Venezia, losing separate status...
                                                                   From: http://www.italyheaven.co.uk/veneto/venice/mestre.html


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