Piazza San Marco | Venice: I am not making this up

Carnival we go again

February 25, 2019 4 Comments

The waves of confetti are the forerunners of the festivizing. You don’t need to see who tossed these handfuls to know that the game is on.

Next stage: Complaints. Sunday morning’s newsstand lists the usual problems: (L to R) “Carnival for 80,000 Today the turnstiles go into operation. Strike at La Fenice Opening night canceled.” “Carnival and nightlife It’s chaos Protests.” “Turnstiles at the openings (on streets) The first time at the Piazza San Marco.”

Sunday morning: The waterfront is lined with the big tourist launches which, after they unload their revelers, wait back here along the Fondamenta Sette Martiri for the return trip to everywhere.

And on up the Riva degli Schiavoni toward San Marco. They’re even double-parking.

Last Saturday (Feb. 23) was the semi-official opening of Carnival, which means tremendous hubbub in deepest Castello. The frittelle and galani are already making inroads on everybody’s glucose levels, and by the look of the calli, confetti appears to be strewing itself.

The centerpiece of Saturday’s inaugural celebrations was the procession of the 12 “Marias” from San Pietro di Castello to the Piazza San Marco. Weather cold but sunny, not much wind — perfect for everybody, especially the Marias who, if the morning bora had lasted, would each have needed a can of hair spray to keep her tresses under control. Perfection comes at a price, and in this case it would either have been a week’s worth of washing with Packer’s Pine Tar shampoo or a visit to the Navy barber for a cut measured in millimeters. People love looking at the girls, but I worry about their hair. It probably comes with age.

These are the Marias from 2017; I didn’t fight my way through the mass of people to chronicle this year’s batch. The dresses change each year, but the hair is eternal. I keep meaning to ask one of them how (or if) if they manage to sleep during this week. I’m imagining those Chinese headrests.

Sunday (Feb. 24) at 11:00 AM was the true official opening of the annual scrum, with the “Volo del Angelo” (flight of the angel) enacted by a lovely girl in magnificent garb who slides down a wire from the campanile of San Marco to terra firma at the stage below. She was followed by another, because why stop at one? In this case I don’t worry about their hair, I worry about their lives. As does everyone. All went well.

The most important innovation was the installation of turnstiles at the entrance to the Piazza; for the first time, the number of festivizers permitted in the Piazza was limited to a modest 23,000, with corridors arranged for easy entry and exit. Modern, intelligent, efficient — it can be done! I don’t know where the rest of the 110,000 people that were counted in the city went, but my tricorn hat with the veil is off to the organizers and the enforcers, all 700 of them: 420 vigili, or municipal police (100 more than last year, between Venice and the mainland), 60 firemen, 120 workers from Vela (transport), 40 of Suem and Croce Verde (ambulances) e 40 of Civil Protection (general assistance and crisis management).

La Nuova Venezia reported that there were many more people than last year. “In spite of some suffocating stretches, some calli transformed into a Stations of the Cross (you can intuit this means slow and extreme suffering), and some campi, such as Santa Maria Formosa, full to overflowing, there weren’t any complications.” They are referring to quantity, not quality, because…..

Turista barbaricus is back! Two young foreigners were nabbed at 10:00 AM on Sunday in the Piazzetta dei Leoncini urinating against the basilica of San Marco. Hey! A wall! Just what we needed! Nabbed by the police, each has been given a fine of 3,330 euros ($3,782). That will certainly make for an interesting conversation when they get home. Just think: For the price of a coffee (1.10 euros) they could have used the bar’s bathroom. Or hey — the canals are free! I realize that Carnival was created for breaking rules, flouting convention, freeing oneself of all those rigid rules that so strangle happiness and frivolity. I even wrote about it. Except that even the Venetian Republic didn’t need much time to recognize that there is a limit to everything, including fun, and to start passing decrees and ordinances to keep total chaos at bay.

Because I don’t venture as far as San Marco — and not even as far as the Arsenale — my view of Carnival is limited to our little lobe of the city, and that’s fine with me.

“To confetti” — evidently it can be a verb. Just ask the dog.

The story of the “Marias”: From the 9th century it was the custom in Venice, on the Feast of the Purification of Mary (Feb. 2, or “Candelora”), to bless all the couples who were planning to marry that year. For the ceremony, which was held in the bishop’s palace, the 12 poorest damsels were dressed in splendid garments and jewels lent by the main churches of the city. They didn’t have to be beautiful (as required by today’s pageant), they just had to be poverty-stricken.

In 973 (or maybe 948), the ceremony was interrupted by the arrival of a band of wild Slavic pirates from the Croatian coast, who stole the girls and, of course, their expensive garb and jewelry. Doge Pietro Candiani III organized a posse, caught up with them at Caorle, slew the pirates and brought the girls and their stuff home safe and — one hopes — still sound. To thank the Madonna for her intercession in this happy outcome, the Feast of the Marias was instituted.

But something had changed. Instead of choosing merely the 12 poorest girls, now they had to be the most beautiful of the poorest. Each girl was assigned to a wealthy family which donated clothes, jewels, and a dowry to help her marriage chances.

Wikipedia (in Italian, translated by me) tells us that “In the following days there was a series of civil and religious ceremonies that culminated in a boat procession on the Grand Canal, during which the “Marias” displayed their beauty and their jewels. The ceremonies were accompanied by balls, banquets and other extravagances; furthermore, to see the Marias was considered a sign of good luck, beyond being a festival for the eyes of the masculine public. And so the festivities extended over many days (even two weeks) and attracted many people from other countries.”

Sound good? Not really. Because now there were 12 poor — literally and figuratively — girls involved in what amounted to a struggle to the death among 12 patrician families. “The feast of the Marias created not a few problems; it often happened that the girls who were about to be married were courted, and in the worst cases violated, by the men who went to see them. Furthermore, the competition of the Marias caused bitter conflicts between the families, those that were poor (who, in the case of losing, protested the lost victory) as much as those who were rich (who didn’t want to take on the costs involved).

“So the flesh-and-blood girls were gradually replaced by statues of wood, called Marione or Marie de tola (wooden Marias). These were dressed and bedecked with jewels, but unlike their human counterparts weren’t furnished with dowries, and at the end of the feast the trappings were returned to their legitimate owners. But this new version of the festa lost a lot of its original sense, and along with it the favor of the Venetians, who reacted with anger and scorn, even going so far as to attempt to sabotage the festa.

This is the current version of the “wooden Marias.” Even the jewels are gone.

“In 1349 the Republic of Venice had to pass a law stating that anybody who threw vegetables at the procession of the wooden Marias would be sent to the galleys; this, though, only made the festa lose even more of its prestige, and only 30 years later it was definitively suppressed.”

Fun fact: “It seems that the term “marionette” is derived from the Marione. And even today it’s common to hear Venetians call a woman who is particularly dull and inexpressive a Maria de tola.” Even though I’ve never heard Lino use this expression, he confirms that it’s a common saying. Maybe we just don’t know any women who answer to that description.

The procession goes up via Garibaldi (something of a comedown from the Grand Canal of yore), but the girls are wonderful to look at.

Leave us behind, we’re happier in the background. She’s part of a strolling musical troupe from Switzerland, which also included a tuba and a glockenspiel. Nice hat.

Somebody just invented the wheel. Didn’t figure on finding bridges when he got that great flash of genius, but he persevered.

You don’t need much to get the Carnival look. This appears to be the newest variation of face painting.

Jugglers and makers of balloon animals are all the littlest Castello denizens need to feel Carnival.

There are also four trampolines, one inflated slide in the shape of the “Titanic” going down (two orange smokestacks in the background), and also a cotton-candy maker. All the best to revelers in the Piazza San Marco, but I’m perfectly happy here.

Good night, via Garibaldi. Keep the confetti warm till tomorrow.

Venetian Curiosities

Hidden well in plain sight

July 2, 2018 2 Comments

And before I leave the subject of water in Venice……

If one is compelled to cross the Piazza San Marco — and from Easter till the first hard frost one crosses only under compulsion — one doesn’t expect to see anything beyond the daily disarray. On a recent afternoon Lino and I (under compulsion) were crossing, and because the crowds were swarming momentarily in another part of the piazza, we discovered something new. Old, of course, but new to us.

Lines on the stones. Significant lines bearing a message to somebody somewhere in the future, if anybody were to notice. Or care. That would be me.

These two concentric circles don’t exactly leap out at you.

They’re not tremendously more obvious from this angle, either.

But whoever incised those lines left a clue. More than a clue, positive identification. I couldn’t fit the entire very helpful inscription into one frame and make it readable at the same time, so here’s the first panel. It says “POZZO INTERRATO NEL…” “Well filled with earth in…”

“XVII,” or “17th.” Note that here the “17th century” doesn’t mean the 1600s, but the 1700’s.

I haven’t succeeded in finding much more information than that, so kudos to Walter Fano on his blog L’altra Venezia for supplying at least the following bits (translated by me): “In the ancient Piazza San Marco there were wellheads, but how many isn’t very clear. In 1283 one was located at the entrance to the Mercerie (N.B., under the clock tower), while in 1494 the historian Marin Sanudo speaks of two wellheads. In successive epochs, anyway, all the histories speak of only one well located at the bottom of the piazza, near the church of San Geminiano (a church which Napoleon wanted demolished at the beginning of the 1800’s, who caused the so-called “Ala Napoleonica” (Napoleonic Wing) to be built in its place which today closes the piazza at the side opposite the basilica).”

Paintings by Giovanni Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Antonio Vicentini, all working in the late 1600’s/early 1700’s do not reveal anything resembling a wellhead in the Piazza San Marco, and considering their mania for accuracy, I’m going to accept that it was already gone when they began sketching. I had hopes of glimpsing a well in Gentile Bellini’s “Procession in Piazza San Marco” (1496), but he cleverly composed the scene to as to obscure the area in question. I give up.

This is the Piazza San Marco in 1500, delineated by Jacopo de’ Barbari with his customary insane attention to detail in the “View of Venice.” I don’t know what the numbers indicate, but I can’t say there’s a well there.

But there is this: An undated image of the uncovering of an earthed-in well in the Piazza San Marco, essentially where the concentric circles are now drawn. Why it would have been closed — and why in the 17th century — will have to remain in the “I’ll get to the bottom of this someday” file.

Events

bring on the laurels

November 26, 2017 No Comments

Let’s see…1,124 graduates were allowed at least two people (let’s say their parents) — that means 3,372 people in the Guests enclosure. There was still room outside the barriers for plenty of unofficially invited friends, relatives, and the curious to mill around, which was pleasant until the sun began to go down. Then a chilly breeze began to make the event feel more like waiting for an overdue bus in Buffalo.

Two wonderful young women who have rowed with us over the past three years (when their studies would permit) graduated from Ca’ Foscari, the University of Venice, last Friday: The middle of the Piazza San Marco was awash in diplomas, theirs along with 1,122 other exuberant “doctors” of whatever their subject was.

This was the 20th year that a mass graduation ceremony has been held here for students from Venice and Treviso. The typical procedure, as we have seen in the case of some other friends, is that the candidate confronts a panel of professors and is interrogated on the subject of their thesis, nerve-wracking for the candidate and just wracking for the friends and family sitting behind him/her because there are no microphones. It’s like watching a closed-circuit television with the sound off, except you’re right there.

But for whatever administrative reason there may be, the November group was rounded up and given the graduation ceremony all’ americana, complete with mortarboards crowning their heads (though some received their more traditional laurel wreath afterwards). Clearly one reason why it was held in the piazza was because there isn’t anywhere else, except maybe the soccer stadium, that would hold three thousand people.

Anyone getting their degree is said to have received their laurea (LAOW-rey-ah). Or, as Toto’, the immortal Neapolitan comic, earnestly termed it in a film, their laura (LOW-ra), which cracks me up because that’s just Laura.

Apart from the amazing setting, the experience was Classic Graduation: There was confusion, emotion, and the boilerplate commencement address(es) focusing on their future and the need to continue to nurture their dreams and not to ever let the world beat them down. “Yours is not a point of arrival, but of departure,” said Paola Mar, councilor for Tourism representing the city administration. “Be passionately curious and ask yourselves every day the ‘why’ of things. Curiosity can guide you into new paths.” There was praise for their perseverance and their talents and collective hopes for whatever comes next in their lives. I have no idea how a graduation can be considered official without the majestic soundtrack of “Pomp and Circumstance,” or at least the Triumphal March from Aida, but graduate they did.

I have no pictures of our friends together because I never saw them, being on the outside of the sacred enclosure where parents and close relatives were huddled, shivering as the sun slid behind the Ala Napoleonica. Everyone was listening to the names as they were called — the list was so long that the university divided it into half at the letter “M,” and called out the names in pairs. Happily for me, Marta and Camilla’s last names begin with “C” and “D,” so I went home (by now I was shivering too) as soon as I heard them called. I missed seeing the jubilant thousand fling their mortarboards into the air, so no photo of the peak moment. I’m happy enough just to be warm and imagine it.

The entrance for guests was on the east side of the Piazza, facing the basilica of San Marco. The sun and anticipation made everybody happy.

Security was definitely checking tickets at the entrance. No “I’m with the band” dodges here.

Speaking of security, there was a certain amount around.

And there was plenty of this, of course.

The crush and confusion was even greater on the “Entrance Students” side, because each graduate seemed to come with an entourage of friends and admirers.

But why so many in black? Isn’t this supposed to be a happy occasion?

Though black was clearly not always to be taken seriously. I think.

Not black at all! Who is this free spirit who has burst his way into the spectrum?

And this personage in a suit and tie. This ensemble is shocking in its perfection, not to mention originality. I hope he wasn’t being ironic.

I’d consider going back to school if this guy would bring me a bouquet.

I could have dedicated this entire post to bouquets, now that I think of it.

One family said it with balloons. As each name was announced there would be scattered bursts of cheers from the reaches of the piazza, like little fireworks of happiness.

As the names dragged on, and the air got cooler and people got more tired, the edges of the piazza began to take on a “Just get it over with” atmosphere.

Still, if you were to need two official witnesses, who better than the Venetian Republic represented as Justice, and the archangel Gabriel covered with gold leaf? They’ve got your back, graduates, at least for today.

Events

Is Venice that way?

October 24, 2017 5 Comments

The Venice Marathon finishes in the most beautiful city in the world. Or maybe not.

The classic foot race known as a marathon is generally predictable, from the distance (26 miles/385 yards or 42 km/195 meters) to the winner (so often an athlete from Kenya or Ethiopia or Eritrea). And why should the 32nd Venice Marathon, which was run last Sunday, October 22, have been any different?

Why indeed? That’s what people would really like to know.

Because in 31 years here no competitors in the lead have ever somehow taken the wrong road at the 16-mile point. And yet on Sunday there was a little peloton of East Africans who were some distance ahead of the 5,962 other runners. Abdulahl Dawud, Gilbert Kipleting Chumba, Kipkemei Mutai and David Kiprono Metto were following the motorcycle at the head of the race, as per normal, and when it turned right, going up the ramp onto the overpass leading to Venice, naturally they followed. Except that they were supposed to be on the highway below the overpass.

The drone — or helicopter — showed this scene in real time. Unbelievable. (itv.com)

Of course there’s nothing strange about seeing the front runners on an empty road. It just turned out to be the wrong empty road. (Sports Illustrated)

As two precious minutes ticked by, somebody else on a motorcycle caught up with them, yelling (I imagine) “What the hell, you guys? You’re supposed to be down there!” I imagine this because Lino and I were watching the live broadcast and you could easily see the men begin to turn around and trot back the way they came, no longer in the lead although still all by themselves, race essentially over. In fact, it was literally over; they withdrew immediately. One doesn’t run 26 miles/385 yards, or at that point one hour and 15 minutes, for the sheer euphoric joy of it. Who was responsible for that wrong turn? If you know, the world would like to hear from you. And so would the four runners.

As if we needed another problem, here it is: The winner, Eyob Faniel — who finished with an amazing two-minute lead over the rest of the pack — was born in Eritrea but is a naturalized Italian citizen and runs for the Venicemarathon Club. Fun fact: It has been 22 years since an Italian won the Venice Marathon. About time, you say? Somebody else might have been thinking the same thought. I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories, but the optics here, as the current expression has it, are not attractive.

Here is what Lorenzo Cortesi, general secretary of the Venice Marathon, has said (translated by me): “We need to evaluate if this was an error by the vigili urbani (a sort of local police), or by us. The service autos exited the barriers and the local police didn’t close the street. The motorcycles, then, weren’t able to transit the underpass.” (I totally do not understand this last bit. You want the people to run on a road that the motorcycle is forbidden to take?) “But I wouldn’t want the significance of this race to be limited only to this.” Of course you wouldn’t. Neither would I, if I were in charge.

But enough unpleasantness! Backpats generously administered by Signor Cortesi to the 2,000 volunteers involved, not to mention to everyone involved in the successful completion of all the unusual elements which the Venice Marathon requires: “Just think of the fact that we have to transport from the mainland to the arrival area, with 12 big trucks and 12 boats, the sacks of all the personal effects of the athletes.”

I can confirm that the organization was impressive as seen from ground level, from the chemical toilets to the bags of snacks to the massage tables with massagers waiting for massaggees.

But although the scaffolding and some bridges and the bleachers have all been removed, the questions refuse to go away. It used to be that everybody would be talking about how people ran. Now the only thing they’re talking about is where.

On Thursday, things began to be done on the Riva dei Sette Martiri. Unusual things for the Riva, normal things for the marathon, which is held on the fourth (and usually also the last) Sunday in October.

This spacious area in the Giardini Pubblici was soon to be revised to accommodate the immediate needs of thousands of exhausted and sweaty people.

The accommodation was, first of all, big tents for changing your clothes. Smaller tents were for medical attention of various sorts.

Masses of runners downshifting after the 10K race, which preceded the main event by a few hours. The brown-paper bags contained cartons of fruit juice, cookies, fruit and something else — I only got a glimpse inside one. The broad plastic wrappers were temporary blankets doing double duty as large posters for the main sponsor, Huawei Technologies. I should have mentioned that the official name of the event, as announced by the speaker in virtually every sentence, is “Huawei Venice Marathon.”

Yes, there will be garbage. Let’s see…thousands of plastic blankets and paper bags of food and busted shoelaces and fistfuls of used tissues, or whatever runners throw away when the party’s over, all have to be collected and carried off by the hardy trashmen and women of Veritas.

Three of the 12 enormous boats loaded with bags which contain the bags of runners’ personal effects trundled toward the Giardini to wherever the pickup point was organized. If you’ve ever had any reason to inquire about the cost of renting one of these boats, you won’t have to ask why there are so many sponsors for this event.

As you see: Sponsors. Job lots of them, which is the only way these affairs can exist.

We sat in the bleachers watching the overjoyed 10K runners cross the finish line. The sky threw down some gobbets of rain but it didn’t last long.

The jumbotron was a great way to watch the big race as the runners coasted along the Brenta river. It all seemed so peaceful and normal…

A few sections of the temporary bridge used for the feast of the Redentore bring the runners from the Zattere across the Grand Canal to San Marco.

There was a little soupcon of acqua alta in the Piazza, but the higher stretch in the center of the square meant the runners kept their feet dry (which was not the case on one memorable day some years ago when “sloshing” entered the event’s description).

The fabulous finish by Eyob Faniel was pretty exciting. I don’t want the backstory to discolor what was a great moment for the spectators anyway. Nobody had truly grasped the whole situation at this point, and a guy running with nobody to be seen behind him is irresistibly thrilling.

And of course, crossing the finish line was a huge experience for the myriad unsung runners racing against themselves.

And after the glory come the showers. Follow the helpful hand-drawn arrows to hot water and soap, the happy ending after the happy ending.

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