Fiber optic cable is no newcomer to Venice — we’ve had it at home for years now. But clearly our neighborhood is on track for extreme upgrading to intergalactic ultra-fast ultra-wide broadband. Venice might give the impression (briefly, from afar, with your eyes half-closed) of a city left adrift in the backwash of the Renaissance. Yet men have been hard at work these past few days making Venice ever more modern. And I say thanks, but Venice has always been modern.
Behold the mighty Root Cable 185 from Tratos. The company’s website says that it has been “specifically designed for network and telecommunications uses, and is characterized by a high transmission velocity and low attenuation, making it ideal for long-distance connections and broadband applications.” Impressive, but simpler things also impress me, such as the chance (I missed) to watch the procedure of hoisting this monster onto the fondamenta. It does inspire new admiration for the skill and effort that numberless men dedicated to creating Venice (looking at you, Doge’s Palace, belltower of San Marco, etc.). No motors, hydraulic power, and so on. Of course, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks and Romans didn’t have them either, and they also managed to build phenomenal things, so let’s get over ourselves.All this work to install the means by which we can send our million daily messages and memes and photos to everybody we know. But what I really like right here is how much red is going on.There’s a lot happening under all that stone. At this stage it looks like they’re operating on the city’s deviated septum.Bridges don’t just carry you, they carry cables and wires and ducts. Keep an eye on that loose slab of stone.This is a master-class in bridge-building and -repairing in Venice.Back to the bridge of Sant’Anna. Those four open canal-side windows belong to a charming little apartment for tourists. I’m just wondering if the visitors talked about anything else than how their romantic Venetian vacation turned out. The jackhammers really went at it.The romantic-apartment front door is on the right, just before the pile of mud. I mean the bridge.
Today progress in Venice takes so many forms, though by now they’re not what you might call surprising or original. But over the centuries Venice became rich and powerful in large part because it was alert to innovation of many different sorts.
On the social side, the Venetian government passed a law in 1258 requiring doctors, even the most illustrious, to treat poor patients for free. Shocking then, perhaps still somewhat startling. In 1443 the government guaranteed the services of a lawyer to poor defendants at no charge; the lawyer would be chosen by a judge from among the best lawyers in Venice (no fobbing the case off on your newest recruit) and was required to follow the case with maximum care or risk a large fine. That’s become normal, I think, in concept if not in practice. I don’t know about fines today, though.
On the commercial side, the Venetians established the Patent Statute on March 19, 1474, now considered the earliest codified patent system in the world. These patents were granted for “any new and ingenious device, not previously made,” provided it was useful.
However “useful” may have been defined, suddenly useful was everywhere: Between 1500 and 1600 Venice granted 593 patents. (In the same period the Kingdom of France granted 100.) By 1788, Venice had certified 1896 patents.
Speaking of useful, pharmacists were forbidden to sell their medicines without a doctor’s prescription. If this is normal now, credit goes to the old Venetians to whom quality control was an obsession. Maybe they loved quality for itself, but control ensured that their myriad products were not only good, but reliable, hence valuable. It was always all about money.
A zecchino minted between 1779 – 1789 for Paolo Renier, the next to last doge of Venice. (photo seen on eBay, coin for sale by Giamer Antiques and Collectibles)
No, they didn’t invent money. But the Venetian gold ducat, later called the zecchino, became arguably the closest thing to what you might call a monetary “gold standard” for 500 years. The coin maintained a consistent weight (approximately 24 carats) and high gold purity (99.7 percent) from 1284 to 1797. Venice’s strong trading network ensured the zecchino’s circulation throughout the Mediterranean and beyond, from the Netherlands to India. It is the only coin in the world that retained, for the over five centuries of its uninterrupted existence, the same images, the same epigraphs, the same weight and the same purity of the metal. I sometimes complain that in Venice money is king, but that’s freaking impressive.
Back to fiber optic cables. Ninety percent of Venice and its satellite towns and hamlets are served by FTTC connections, while 79 percent has FTTH and the by-now quaint but still serviceable ADSL covers 99 percent. If you’d like to know more, here’s Open Fiber.
So progress jackhammers on. The bridge has been left with scars from the intervention, because there are rectangles of cement where stone used to be and I cannot understand it. We have ultra-fast broadband, but we also still have people who just carry things off, things that aren’t even theirs. Doesn’t feel like progress to me.
Remember that stone slab that was moved aside to allow access to the innards of the bridge? It, and its companions, are obviously gone. I have no idea where, or for what reason. There was stone, now there is only cement. You might suppose that the supervisors decided it was prudent to make future access simpler/cheaper/faster/easier by not bothering with that pesky stone anymore. And yet….And yet, the stones at the summit of the bridge were put back where they belonged. But the others?The same fate befell the stones on the Sant’Anna side of the bridge. True, the steps are still uniformly grayish, so it’s not that they draw undue attention to themselves, and yes, the cement on these steps is smoother and looks less homemade than on the other side. That’s not the point, of course.
I started this post with glowing eyes looking toward the future, and I indulged myself by recalling a smattering of examples of Venetian greatness. But here we are today. You’ve got your interstellar communications cables, and you’ve got steps now made of concrete where a week ago there was stone.
It’s easy to see the seam between stone and concrete. Happily for everyone, you can also see that dogs don’t care. Or was that a lynx?
There used to be a cemetery here, but you’ll never guess why. Our first and only hint is carved onto the lintel of the small door to the left of the big door.
It’s not that I go out looking for trivia, it just seems to drift into my lane. And by the way, I’m not convinced that “trivia” deserves its negative connotations. Mount Everest is made of atoms, after all, and it appears that much of life is composed of trivia.
There once was a cemetery in the campo next to the basilica of Saints Giovanni and Paolo. Plenty of churches here had cemeteries, but these dear departed weren’t Venetians. They were Ledrensi, people from the Ledro valley near Lake Garda. (Not to classify them as trivia.) Six hundred years ago they had become so important to Venice and its Arsenal that they were given many important privileges, up to and including their own burial ground. I can’t tell you why the Ledrensi would have chosen to spend eternity here rather than their home parish up in the mountains, but let’s be impressed that the Venetian government wanted to bestow this honor on them.
This is a pretend door. The lintel, though, is genuine; it was moved here from the wall that used to enclose the cemetery.The cemetery wall is clearly visible on the map of Venice drawn by Jacopo de’ Barbari in 1500. This legendary and inexhaustible fount of knowledge can be seen in the Correr Museum. For private delectation, you can download the map here. Knock yourself out zooming on it.Nothing to see here. The cemetery, which had been in the area behind the tall statue, had been removed by the time Canaletto painted “Il Campo di SS Giovanni e Paolo a Venezia, col monumento di Bartolomeo Colleoni 1736/1740.” (Wikimedia Commons)Just gone.
The people in the Ledro Valley enjoyed a few important advantages — geography, for one thing. The valley offered the fastest route between the area near Lake Garda and Brescia, and this was of huge strategic importance to Venice during the war with the Visconti, the lords of Milan. (Of course you remember the Lombard Wars that went on for an invigorating 31 years from 1423 to 1454.) Furthermore, the Ledrensi fought for Venice in a few important battles up in their valley. As early as 1426 doge Francesco Foscari, in recognition of their valor, granted them various benefits and exemptions that were confirmed in 1440 and 1445. Venetian troops remained in the Ledro valley till 1509.
Google Maps doesn’t realize that the light-blue route is exactly the one that the Venetians were trying to avoid — it’s the western, dark-blue path that took them safely from the northern Veneto to Brescia.The orange area was Venetian territory in the late 1400’s, but if you were at war with Milan you wouldn’t have traveled to the battlefield on the easy straight east-west line we use today on the highway. That would have forced you to cross enemy territory, the Duchy of Mantova. The mountains were safer.Another view of how Lake Garda divided the Venetian territories (green).
But the Ledrensi’s greatest advantage was their forests. Venetian archives show that from the 1200’s there were workers in Venice from the Ledro valley, but by the 1500’s the relationship had evolved. Venice depended on the Ledro valley for the resin tapped from the area’s larch and Scots pine. By the 1600’s the town of Tiarno di Sopra had become famous for its clay ovens that transformed the resin into pitch, essential for caulking the ships in the Arsenal.
More and more men of Ledro — also referred to as the Trentina Nation, as coming from the area near Trento — began to migrate to Venice to work. They were allowed to work as bastasi and cargadori (porters and stevedores) in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the association of the Germanic merchants. Even more important, they worked in the Arsenal as segadori (sawyers reducing tree trunks to planks for building ships), and as ligadori, exclusively responsible for loading and unloading of the ships in the Arsenal. And of course, as caulkers. Some of these men didn’t return to the mountains but stayed in Venice permanently, becoming better-off certainly than they’d been back home.
I suppose it’s not strange that they’d have wanted to be interred in Venice, which had been for some a sort of Promised Land. At least we still have the lintel.
“Cemetery of the Nation of the Valley of Ledro.”
This hidden jewel of Venetian history was carefully explained on a site I discovered by chance, and I offer sincere admiration to its creator. His name is Alfonso Bussolin and his life’s work is Conoscere Venezia (know Venice). If you read Italian you’re going to have a fabulous time wandering around this man’s research.
Too much is going on in the world, things that involve life and death — I’m sure you’ve noticed that — so news from Venice is almost forced to verge on the frivolous.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that here in the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world we don’t have our problems. Big ones, small ones, transient, permanent, easily resolvable if one wanted to, of all shapes and sizes and relative atomic masses. It’s very hard to keep track of them all, much less grasp their true importance. They’re all important!
Example: The imminent wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez here sometime next week, by most reports. The date is being changed secretly, or something, for some reason. I think it’s to avoid protesters, a group of which has already made its views known. There are people who object to everything, and now they’ve got this wedding in their sights. I have to say that although I tend to have an opinion on almost everything, this is one subject that defeats me. Unless “Why should I care?” is an opinion.
Stay with me. As you know, those who objected to the big cruise ships passing in the bacino of San Marco to the Zona Marittima finally succeeded in banishing them. Peace, joy and tranquility has reigned, except among the 5,000 families or so who lost their employment in the managing and supplying of these ships. But fine. No ships. You’d think the protesters would be happy. You’d think.
More atmosphere.
Now Bezos and Sanchez heave to on the horizon, and millions of dollars are going to be spent here over the course of a few undefined days to get the lovebirds hitched. The “No Bezos” contingent is strenuously opposed to this. (I can understand objecting to him as him, if you like, but I can’t see why his wedding deserves dissent.) I do recall there was justifiable anger from the citizens during last year’s Film Festival, for which all of the taxis had been booked over the course of several days. All. The. Taxis. The mayor has reassured the apprehensive citizens that this would not be repeated during the nuptial festivities.
Fun Fact: The Gazzettino reports that some 80 private planes are expected to arrive for the big event. Let’s see, 200 guests divided by 80 makes 2.5 people per plane. So how are the entourages expected to get here? Or maybe the 80 planes are for the stylists and equerries and the Mistress of the Robes and the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and the Master of the Revels and the rest of the swarm? The happy soon-to-be-newlyweds may well be ensconced on Bezos’ 500-million-dollar yacht, which is already here.
Now the objectors are clamoring against the luxury yachts. A number of luxury yachts are also expected — just look at (or imagine) the guest list. But ever since Covid hardly any big yachts stop by anymore. The Riva degli Schiavoni used to be lined with them, but only a few have tentatively returned, briefly. But the protesters are in full sail. First it was No Big Ships! Now it’s No Yachts! Jeez, people. Are you against literally everything?
I love the yachts, I’ll just say it. I could bury you with photos I’ve made. Here’s some more atmosphere:
So you get the idea. Maybe these yachts make you want to protest; I could easily protest that I don’t have one, but I can’t figure out how to object to you having one. Still, it seems clear that the world is in big trouble whether or not the yachts and/or their oligarchs/celebrities come to Venice or anywhere else. So in whatever time is left to us in the apocalyptic period we’re going through, it seems to me that serious complaints should not be wasted on yachts. By all means get out your bedsheets and markers but I hope you won’t be writing “No Yachts.” Because a real oligarch will just get something else, and it still won’t be yours.
“Preparing the days of common resistence where everyone can say ‘No Space for Bezos!'” And up in the right-hand corner somebody who objects to the objectors has scribbled “Rammollitti andate a lavorare!” (“Wimps! Go to work!”).“Wedding of Bezos in Venice? Also no! Jeff Bezos thinks he can buy the entire city. Let’s organize the party!” That sounds kind of menacing. At the bottom a strip has been torn off that said “No space for oligarchs.” I think we’ve gotten to the root of the problem.Another famous and important group of protesters has joined the chat. I mean, the celebrations.Quick promotion of the boat moored nearby and the film they projected aboard last night. They did get the tape-up-the-flags job done quickly and that’s important. This little slip could happen to anybody.
But this is just temporary tumult. They’ll be here, with their military security personnel blocking off streets and canals — it will be annoying as all get-out even while the couple assures everybody that they love Venice. But it won’t last long and then it’ll be over.
Moving on! Let’s talk about trees instead. They’ve suddenly become more important than yachts because of a tragedy that struck at Piazzale Roma, a place more banal than which it would be difficult to find. But tragedies — or in this case, trees — don’t have much awareness of banality.
You have to watch out for pickpockets and now you have to also watch out for 50-foot (15 meters) trees. (La Nuova Venezia)
I doubt any visitors have given much thought to Venice, City of Trees, but on June 2 a majestic holm oak at Piazzale Roma was heard creaking (wind was not exceptional that afternoon) and then it suddenly keeled over onto a group of 12 people who were hanging around. Two of the victims were seriously injured, one of them a woman with a fractured spine.
June 2 is a national holiday, so of course there were plenty of people everywhere. But it was also the wedding day (weddings again) of a couple waiting at Palazzo Cavalli for their guests to arrive. Some of the tree’s victims had been heading to the ceremony, which was naturally called off.
So now the city is frantically monitoring the trees and in the Giardini, and undoubtedly elsewhere, we see stumps and cut-up branches waiting to be taken away. But hold on: Some concerned citizens are objecting to all this. They maintain that suddenly the trees are in at least as much danger as the people who walk near them.
Of course it’s wrong to leave trees wobbling with fungus-ridden roots (one hypothesis for the disaster), but there is a case being made that it is just as wrong to remove trees that, according to a new group of protesters, never showed the smallest defect. Obviously we don’t want trees that are going to fall on us, but which ones are we saving? Are honest, law-abiding, tax-paying trees going to be sacrificed because of a few rotten ones? That’s what it looks like to those who are now protesting what suddenly appears to be the the wholesale slaughter of Venetian trees. A group has formed, of course, and the other evening on the Giudecca I passed a table set up by persons collecting signatures on a petition entitled “Save the Trees.”
If Venice is now in the hands of lumberjacks working overtime, all I can say is that clearly it was long past time to have checked the condition of the city’s trees and the city should be ashamed. And I’m sorry that people had to suffer in order for this admittedly pretty important task to finally get bumped way up near the top of the city’s “DO TODAY ASAP URGENT PRIORITY” to-do list.
This statue of Francesco Querini at the “Giardini Pubblici” vaporetto stop has stood for more than a century in the shade of ever-growing trees.Everything looked fine. But appearance are so deceiving.Turns out he was in mortal danger. Now he’s baking in the sun after the potentially dangerous trees have been excised. Even half of a magnolia was ready to strike.Suddenly there’s wood everywhere. The newspaper said that at least seven trees had been earmarked for removal in the viale Garibaldi alone, that long shady stretch between via Garibaldi and the vaporetto stop at the Giardini. Seven. And we just kept traipsing along as if everything was fine.
I can see how this tree was harboring a secret.
Hey, stop for a minute. While everybody’s losing sleep about dangerous trees, it seems that nobody’s interested in objecting to the blatant neglect of simple things that make a city look decent. Thousands of locals and tourists walk through the Giardini Pubblici every day. Why do the benches have to look like they’ve been salvaged from some shipwreck? This didn’t happen overnight. There’s no money for paint? This is just dumb. Yes, I object.Even my sainted mother would have objected to this. First, that this misfortune occurred, and second, that it has been left like that for weeks. It looks stupid. This is how “Save the Benches” groups (I made that up) get organized.
Some protests, however, are about things that are more important than weddings and forestry. I’m thinking about the proposed re-routing of the 4.1 and 4.2 vaporettos. There are two objections to this notion. One is convenience (sudden lack of), and the other is probable damage to the fondamente of the Arsenal canal. Plenty of people are now up in arms and collecting signatures against this potential change.
This route used to exist; I remember passing this way back in the mid-Eighties — it was convenient and a heck of a way to see a glimpse of the city that’s closed to the public.
But then it was decided to send the boats the long way around Sant’ Elena on their path from the Arsenale stop to the Fondamente Nove, as a clear and wonderful service to the semi-isolated residents of the area who needed more than just one line.
But no longer. The residents of farthest Castello and their needs/desires have dropped off the list of municipal priorities (I’m beginning to wonder if there even is such a list), and the people aren’t happy. Yes, the 5.1 and 5.2 will continue to serve San Pietro di Castello, but there is also that pervasive sensation that tourists take precedence over the locals (let’s speed up the trip to Murano and not waste time going around the touristic dead-end of Sant’ Elena). And, as I say, there’s also the likelihood that waves will damage the walls of the canal, which somebody ought to be thinking about in whatever time is left over from felling lumber.
Without the 4.1, anyone at Sant’ Elena that needs to go to the hospital will have to take the 5.1 to the Lido and change there for the 4.1. Anyone at San Pietro di Castello who needs to go to San Zaccaria will have to take the 5.1 and go to the Lido and change there for the 5.2. Does that sound like anybody at the ACTV Planning Office and Marching and Chowder Society is particularly interested in life at the local level?The rio dell’Arsenale leads from the lagoon toward the Arsenal. One hopes the schedule will ensure that the northbound and southbound vaporettos don’t meet here. The more serious consideration is the effect of the waves on the fondamente lining the canal.I realize that, as I mentioned, the vaporettos managed to pass through here several decades ago. I just have a different outlook on the procedure this time. Looks kind of tight here between the pilings and the footbridge. Both of which can be adjusted. Somewhat. Looking at you, high tide.I see four tricky little points to get through, but I know there won’t be any problems. The vaporetto captains are fine. Not sure about the waves hitting the fondamente in what is still an area belonging to the Navy, but I suspect the city is working to resolve that issue. Navy proprietorship, I mean, not the waves. The city doesn’t care about waves.I can tell you from experience that the force of the tide through this very narrow space is something to take into consideration. But the vaporettos have motors, so no worries.Looking at the entrance into the Arsenal from the northern lagoon. The hole in the wall was made years ago for the express purpose of creating a space for the vaporettos to pass through, so why am I wasting time thinking about all this? What really matters is the enormous inconvenience this new plan would impose on the locals. But, like the waves, that doesn’t seem to matter.
In conclusion, let me bring up a genuine problem. There is a desperate need to find and keep enough family doctors to care for the admittedly dwindling population. They are called “medici di base,” or basic doctors, and under the national health system you have to have one. Whatever procedure you may require has to start with an official request (I call it a work order) from your assigned doctor, and some doctors have up to 1,000 assigned patients. The older doctors retire, the younger doctors don’t stick around. You can wake up and find yourself literally without an assigned doctor, it has happened to us more than once. This will never make international, news (celebrity weddings are so much more engrossing), but I can assure you it’s one of the most important problems that eastern Castello, if not Venetians everywhere, is worried about.
A few days ago a big public meeting was held in via Garibaldi at which various citizens’ groups expressed their complaints — and not for the first time — to assorted official representatives (politicians and representatives of the health system). Their thoughts were clear from the home-made banners, and I expect that these banners are stored close at hand for the next inevitable outcry from the struggling locals. Note: AULSS stands for Azienda Unita’ Locale Socio Sanitaria, or Unified Local Social Health Agency. Venice’s section is #3.
(L to R, translated by me): The family doctor is a right. AULSS 3 less propaganda and more territorial services. AULSS we’re fed up. We want family doctors. AULSS We’re fed up. Family doctors an adequate number at Castello and Sant’ Elena. We’re indignant!!
I sometimes think the city is just waiting us out, considering that the population is falling by 1,500 per year.
So problems! There are plenty to choose from, and these aren’t even all of them. I’m beginning to suspect that the city government has become desensitized. Maybe all this is just background noise to them by now.
Meanwhile, all these annoying little issues will be swamped for the next week by the drama and glamor of Bezos/Sanchez. We should be glad of a little change of pace?
Venice’s defenders may seem to be mere shadows, but they’re still there.
Remember the mysterious girls on the vaporetto and their extraordinary hair? I’ll remind you:
They seemed not even to know each other, but the odds on their all meeting up on the morning school vaporetto run are incalculable.
But not many days later, we came upon extravagant tresses again. Who are these people?
The similarities between these damsels are too obvious to need comment, but I’m fascinated by the rebel in the middle. Not dressed in black! Short hair! She is clearly impervious to whatever strange force is directing the other girls. Lino, on the other hand, can’t stop marveling at the fact that they didn’t move over to make room for everybody to sit comfortably. Four people obviously together who all are fine with one of them just perching on the corner?
By all means, come to Venice to look at palaces and canals. But occasional glimpses of people here are sometimes more extraordinary than almost everything else.
