Description

Do you know when the first flight in a hot air balloon was?
The first documented flight of a hot-air balloon in Europe was conducted by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783.

In 1784, the Zanchi brothers in Venice, on behalf of the knight Francesco Pesaro, procurator of San Marco, built the first prototype of a hot air balloon. They called it a “flammable air balloon globe” and it was launched in the basin of San Marco. No one was present on board and it remained in the air for about two hours falling on the sandbanks of the Lagoon.
This historic event for Venice was then represented by Francesco Guardi in the painting “Ascension in a hot air balloon” today kept in Berlin.