Venice:
The Venice City Hall said on Friday that Giorgia Boscolo had passed the practical exam to become a gondolier. (
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She is the first woman to pass this test, considered the most difficult of those required to pilot a boat on Venice's canals.
Boscolo must pass one further test, a written, multiple-choice exam, in order to join the guild of official gondoliers.
Her success breaks 900 years of male dominance in the profession, according to Deputy Mayor Sandro Simionato. Boscolo said that becoming a gondolier has been a life-long dream of hers, a passion that was passed down from her father. It was her father who taught her how to handle the 11-metre-long, 500kg boat.
The profession has traditionally been passed down from father to son until 2007, when the city council established a school for gondoliers.
In June 2009 Boscolo passed the entry exam to a special course and started ferrying residents and tourists from one side of the Grand Canal to the other, under the supervision of a licensed gondolier.
She can now ask for a gondolier's license and in the meantime can work as substitute.
There are 40 places available on the gondolier course, which lasts six months. It includes 400 hours of instruction in using the oar.
The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat that started as private transportation for wealthy people.
Nowadays gondolas still have a role in the public transport of the city, serving as 'traghetti' (ferries) over the Grand Canal. It is estimated that there were eight to ten thousand gondolas during the 17th and 18th century.
There are just over four hundred in active service today, virtually all of them used for hire by tourists.
Gondolas are hand made using eight different types of wood (fir, oak, cherry, walnut, elm, mahogany, larch and lime) and are composed of 280 pieces.
The left side of the gondola is longer than the right side, helping the gondola to resist the tendency of turning towards the left when making a forward stroke.