Bells at 4:00

Bells at 4:00

“Nuovo Trionfo,” the only extant trabaccolo I’m aware of, decked out with the mast dressed or, as they say it in Italian, with the gran pavese. There’s a story behind that expression, but not right now.
The trabaccolo was for centuries the everyday cargo-transport workhorse of the upper Adriatic; Lino remembers them still working when he was a boy.

There ought to have been colossal festivities on March 25; after all, a city doesn’t turn 1,600 years old every day. Or millennium.

But 1600-year birthday parties are impossible to pull off in the middle of a big fat Red Zone, so what we had on Thursday (as mentioned in my last) was a solemn mass in the basilica, and bells at 4:00. Thousands of greetings and messages inundated social media, and any official you could name seized his or her chance to offer trite yet heartfelt remarks on the city’s age, beauty, fragility, grandeur, historic importance, and the need to protect, love, honor and cherish Venice forever, like some wonderful marriage vow.

Word was that church bells would be ringing everywhere in the city at 4:00, but we headed to the Piazza San Marco. The atmosphere was so low-key you might almost have missed it — no sense of accumulated emotion, only scatterings of people in what I’m now used to seeing as a vast empty box. Critical mass is beyond our capability these days, though it is years since we’ve seen all three flags flying in front of the basilica.

Here is my very amateur (yet heartfelt) video of the event. Because of space limitations on such files here, I have had to stop the video before the bells stopped ringing. I wish I could have cut out those very irksome episodes of shaky hands, but just put it down to emotion this time. I hope you feel the moment in spite of it.

The three worthy men who stroll in are Francesco Moraglia, the Patriarch of Venice (black cassock), with Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor, on his left and Vittorio Zappalorto, the Prefect, on his right.

For anyone who prefers still photographs, here are a few snaps.

Half an hour before bell-tolling time, not everybody in the Piazza periphery was interested in the ringing. These moms have been instructed to tend the scooters while their tiny ladyships proceed. They’re walking away from the Piazza, so bells evidently have lost their power to entice.

Further along the edge of the Piazza we find a private security guard standing watch, so to speak, over the corralled chairs of the Caffe Todaro. I wouldn’t have thought a guard would be necessary, but there he is.

I can hear this little girl telling her great-grandchildren “Yes, I was in the Piazza San Marco on the city’s 1600th birthday. It was the first time I managed to pick up my red ball.” History — it’s everywhere.

The mayor has put on his ceremonial sash, and the three stand there with the rest of us, all listening to the bells.

Hope to see more people here on the 1,601st birthday.

7 Comments

Frances Starn says:

March 27, 2021 at 5:53 pm

Thank you dear Erla, for the wonderful record. On March 25 we were out of town celebrating our own anniversary and would have missed the bells but for you. Tanti auguri, Frances and Randy

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bob fusilo says:

March 27, 2021 at 8:10 pm

I cried. I shall never see her again.

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Gina Buonaguro says:

March 28, 2021 at 9:18 am

Thank you so much for recording this for all of us far away!

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Kathleen Carroll says:

March 28, 2021 at 9:19 am

As ever, your love for Venice serves as a beacon for all of us. Your writing is truly poetic and warm.
Bless you always for giving us such a wonderful periscope into your world.

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Ella B says:

March 28, 2021 at 9:30 am

Brilliant, as always – and aren’t some folk really pushy, bobbing in front for no very good reason? We almost felt as if we were there, right by you (guarding your back, perhaps?)

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Caroline Gaudy says:

March 28, 2021 at 10:37 am

Thanks so much for sharing this. I hope you’ll be ok in this shutdown. again.

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Mark says:

March 28, 2021 at 12:17 pm

Thank you for this post. It brought a great wave of sentiment and nostalgia. I happened to be visiting Venice on Sunday in Ascension, and after mass visited the top of the campanile on a day so clear we could see snow on the distant mountains. That’s when the bells started to ring. (Having just read Dorothy Sayers’ “The Nine Tailors” I knew enough to stop my ears tightly with my fingers, but the roar was still thunderous, palpable throughout my frame, and certainly glorious.) Happy anniversary to Venice, and may there be many and more prosperous ones ahead.

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