The Italian government designated the safeguarding of Venice a national problem. The possibility was mooted of a barrier against the sea (something that had initially been suggested as early as the 17th century), and a "competition of ideas" was instituted. The winner was an underwater barrier, which would be invisible most of the time but could be lifted to resist the tide as necessary. Then, in 1984, a group of Italian construction and engineering companies was amalgamated into the Corsorzio Venezia Nuova (CVN), or Consortium for a New Venice, and charged with planning and executing the project.

CVN is the organization for which Brotto works. Depending on your point of view, it is either (as the Italian government insists, and the European competition commission appeared to accept in May of this year) the only body capable of managing such a complicated scheme or a private-sector monopoly whose responsibility for planning the solution is in conflict with its role in carrying it out.

Opposition to the barriers divides broadly into three camps. Some Venetians consider the gates unnecessary and believe that other, less radical measures could prevent most of the flooding. Others argue that the "softer" measures should at least be tried first. And some, who are not necessarily against a barrier in theory, are nevertheless opposed to the way in which the current barrier system has been handled. "The safeguarding of Venice was handed over to a private group with a monopoly," says Ortalli. "They are legal interests, not bandits, but they are working for themselves. And they have come up with a solution that is enormously expensive. If it had been possible to find a more expensive solution, they would have done it. The expense is part of the attraction."

Many share Professor Ortalli's view that Venice is "no longer a self-determining town." (CVN, Brotto is quick to point out, is not a law unto itself but comes under the jurisdiction of the Venice Water Authority, the local branch of the Ministry of Public Works. Its opponents argue that this group of private companies is so wealthy, is so powerful and has so much leeway to act that this nominal local control is more or less irrelevant.) For Venetians, with their history as a glittering, world-dominating republic, the sense that matters are out of their hands is particularly painful. Venetian politicians have always had an uneasy relationship with Rome, not helped at present by the fact that Venice is center-left, and the government, under Silvio Berlusconi, is not.

The following morning I take a boat out to the northernmost of the three inlets through which the lagoon flushes into the sea, and the sea washes back into the lagoon. The Lido inlet is the closest to Venice, and the largest; it's so large, in fact, that it will be divided into two when the barriers are built, with a man-made island in the middle. Work was given the go-ahead in April 2003, but there still isn't much to see: a small cement batching plant on the island in the distance, a caterpillar truck moving stones along one of the groines. We bob about in the motorboat near where the man-made island will be. Brotto has told me that three different architectural teams at the University of Venice are working on schemes to make the island attractive. But to some locals, that isn't good enough. The island will be built over a sandbank where, traditionally, Venetians like to come on weekends in summer and fish for razor clams. That this ancient tradition in the lagoon is about to disappear symbolizes for many Venetians the way that they are being discounted. "None of those people in the Consorzio is Venetian," one local told me. "I don't suppose they've ever been out there. They have no idea of the real pleasures of the lagoon: They aren't connected to Venetian culture."

The barrier design features 78 hinged gates that will normally lie flat on the seabed, filled with water. When required -- when Venice is about to experience a flood tide -- they will be pumped full of air and rise to an angle of 30 degrees to hold back the sea. Figures for the cost of this change all the time, but Brotto told me the scheme is currently budgeted at $5.3 billion. It is estimated the barrier will cost $10.6 million a year to maintain. This is an enormous amount of money, and many in Venice are suspicious of such a large investment in something that has never been tried before, that poses enormous engineering challenges and that cannot be modified. Giorgio Sarto is a Green Party politician who represented the Venice metropolitan area as a senator in Rome from 1996 to 2001. "First," he says, "we should have had medicine, then surgery."

In his view, there were simpler strategies that could have been explored first, such as making the three inlets to the Adriatic shallower; positioning breakwaters against the sirocco wind, often a major factor in flooding; and strengthening groines. This, he argues, would have reduced the water level by 20 cm, so buying time for Venice to explore alternative schemes that were adjustable and reversible. (One much-discussed option would be ships moored at the inlets, which could be filled with water and sunk when flooding threatened.)

Environmentalists are worried about the effect that closing the gates might have on the lagoon. They fear that raising the barriers (in a 1966-type event, they would be shut for about 20 hours) will reduce the tidal flushing system and damage a complex ecology. More commonly, the barriers would be shut for four to five hours, which most scientists agree would have around the same impact as a low tide in summer -- in other words, not much. But some scientists take a gloomier view and, until it happens, no one can be completely sure. The barrier, meanwhile, will be embedded in concrete, and irreversible.

There is no doubt that the engineering challenges are formidable. No other barrier scheme like this has been tried anywhere in the world. CVN has experimented with a prototype gate and is constantly working on refining the design in the laboratory. Brotto is entirely confident that the barriers will work, but not everyone agrees.

In 1996, the Italian government commissioned two reports on the project: one from the Environmental Impact Study and a shadow report from an "International College of Experts," including scientists from Brussels, the Netherlands and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I happen to be reading the EIS report when Andreina Zitelli, associate professor of environmental evaluation at Venice University, and a key member of the study, joins me at a table by the Grand Canal. She turns up her nose. "This College of Experts represented nothing in terms of legal procedure," she says. "On the national commission, we had 40 members, of whom 10 dedicated two years to evaluating all the points. We read about 11,000 pages and wrote 400 pages. This is the judgment." It thuds down in front of me like a telephone directory.

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