Treasures from Our West: photograph, Buffalo Bill and Wild West cast members in Venice

Originally published in Points West magazine in Spring 2012

Buffalo Bill and Wild West cast members in a gondola in Venice

As our Buffalo Bill Museum makes clear, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was a “Man of the West, Man of the World.” In his travels with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, Cody took his own vast knowledge and experience of the American West to the world, which received it enthusiastically. In this colorized photograph by Paolo Salviati, Cody is seated in a gondola along with four unidentified American Indians of the cast of the show, which performed in Venice, Italy, for two weeks in 1890.

Perhaps touring the local sites, Cody appears not in the beaded buckskin and fringe that mark his western persona, but in a suit. While “bringing the West to the world,” Cody is seen here experiencing the world in turn. This stop in Venice was part of an extended European tour that ran from 1889 – 1892 and included locations in France, Spain, other cities in Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and the British Isles. “Man of the World” indeed.

Hand-colored photograph by Paolo Salviati of Buffalo Bill and Indian members of the Wild West cast in Venice, April 1890. MS 6 William F. Cody Collection. P.69.822

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