The change is subtle, and if you did not notice the sign change from across the street you probably could not otherwise tell. The two branches of Caffe del Doge Venezia (95 University Avenue in the Caltrain station and 419 University Avenue downtown) have broken off from their Caffe del Doge Italian parent. I’m sure there is some intrigue in the change, but the formula stays the same, as does all the contact information.

Now the cool part: where does this word “Venetia” come from? We know that Venezia is the name in Italian of the city we call Venice, and the region is Veneto. Is Venetia just one of those variations necessary to capture a unique URL? The answer is no. Venetia is indeed the name of Venice, but in Latin.

This reminds me of our experience in Switzerland, where my son was born. Switzerland has four national languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansch (an obscure Romance Language). The official name of the country could not be in one of those four languages (though Switzerland does have a name in each of them) to avoid showing favoritism to one ethnic group. Therefore the name you see on their coins is Confederatio Helvetica, which is Latin.