Since March 2025, an image diverges in social networks, supposedly illustrating the device of the underwater part of the Italian city. We checked the authenticity of this picture.
The image spread widely over the network on March 12. It was often accompanied by explanatory text: “Venice: a city floating in a flooded forest. Since 421 of our era, Venice has stands on millions of trees stamped into the clay bottom of the lagoon. Not steel or concrete, but mainly alder with several oaks support the whole city. In salty water, these wooden pillars were petrified over time, becoming solid as a stone. <...> being at a depth of 1.6 m below the waterline, this extraordinary achievement of medieval engineering continues to maintain one of the most exciting cities in the world after 1500 years. " The authors of such posts refer to unnamed architectural research, historical and archaeological documents of the University of Florida.
Similar records have become especially popular among users Facebook And XWhere hundreds of thousands of views were scored. There are also publications in Instagram, Threads And Telegram.
Due to the features of the geographical position of the city of the building in Venice, Built According to unusual technology: to stabilize the foundation in the silt or clay, wooden piles, reaching dense soil layers. Most often, wood rocks resistant to moisture, such as larch, oak or alder, were used. On top of the piles Layed Stone platforms that served as the basis for buildings. According to the common versions, the wooden pile constantly located in the water not only did not rot, but over time even became stronger. However, some modern research Show: wood still decomposes under the influence of anaerobic bacteria, although this happens more slowly. The exact number of piles on which Venice stands is certainly unknown, there is only information on individual buildings. For example, at the base of the Rialto bridge Installed About 14,000 wooden pillars.
The viral image shows one of the main attractions of Venice-San Marko Square. However, some elements indicate that the picture is created using artificial intelligence or photo editor. Firstly, in the upper part of the image, where the city itself is located, near the building on the right, reminiscent of the Cathedral of St. Mark, the dome is deformed. Secondly, the bell tower on the left side of the picture is unnaturally curved. Thirdly, below the wooden pillars merge.
Such features are characteristic of images created using artificial intelligence. "Verified" analyzed the viral picture with the help of AI detector from the company HIVE. He appreciated the likelihood that the image created a neural network at 99.6%. Similar tools give out a similar result.
Although Internet users call scientific works, published by the employees of the University of Florida as an image source, it first appeared on the network only in March 2025. The picture was especially popular in the English -language segment of the social network X, where some tweets We scored more than a million views. The text of the viral posts is probably for the first time Published There, on March 12, the user @pierpi13 in Italian. He illustrated his words with a generated image of Venice. Further, the text of the post spread to other languages, including Russian.
The idea of how the underwater part of Venice looks like, can be obtained from preserved archival photographs and numerous documentaries on this subject. Massive wooden pillars, immersed in or -free soil, are placed close to each other and thereby form a strong base, strengthened at the edges with boards and supports.
Thus, although Venice is really built on hundreds of thousands of wooden piles, the viral image of this city, standing on the flooded pile of logs, is generated by artificial intelligence.
Photo on the cover: social networks
- BBC. Muder and Wood: The System that Kept a 1604-Year-Land City Afloat
- Snopes. AI-Generated Image Supposedly Shows Underwater Foundation of Venice
- Is it true that this photo depicts a real house in Liege?
- Is this a truthful image of the Sydney Opera Theater?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please inform us of this, highlighting the text with an error and by pressing Ctrl+Enter.
