As you know by now, just looking around can be hugely entertaining in Venice. If you don’t come often, everything is worth looking at. For lifers, though, looking really closely as you plod along the same old streets really relieves the monotony. If you keep your eyes and brain coordinated, all sorts of diverting little details jump out. Fun fact: Even Venetians are surprised to suddenly notice something new, even after a lifetime here.
This isn’t what anybody would call a LITTLE detail — you could see this with one eye closed and the other squinting. It’s one of my favorite lions, including his little starter kit of wings. I have no idea what this structure is. I could ask somebody sometime…. Meanwhile, whatever materials the artist “Manu Invisible#” used have held up amazingly well. Still looks as fresh as it did when I first saw it at least 20 years ago.Speaking of felines, one almost imagine this one is sipping through a straw. Impressive eyes. Is he winking?I detect the hand of a different artist here (or at least a different species of cat).To remain in the feline, not to say leonine, mode for another moment, here is a very brave exemplar on the church of the Salute. He’s got the hang of appearing fierce yet dignified, but the teeth perplex me slightly — they must have called in the doge’s dentist to give the sculptor some advice. Evidently the first advice was to extract the fangs.Over the adjacent doorway was this wreck. Either this is the same lion many years later, or after one brief but violent visit to the aforementioned dentist. And who among us has not left the dentist’s office looking, or at least feeling, like this? “Your dentures will be in by next week…..”A national election was held some time ago and the local polling place was bedecked with the requisite signage for the “sections” assigned to this school for voting. They did their best.There are so many reasons to feel sorry for tourists here (I know, we hate them, but we can also feel sorry for them at the same time). They discover all too quickly that what passes for normal here is usually something tiring, confusing, or just generally hard. The fact that you have to walk, sometimes kilometers (and over bridges), means that your feet are the ones who decide what you can and can’t do. It was 5:00 AM that morning on the vaporetto trundling toward the train station, and this woman’s feet were already so unhappy.I really felt for her. First, these are boudoir shoes, not for the granite pavements of the most beautiful city etc. Equally first, even if she were in her boudoir, these shoes are too small. Every woman recognizes that your brain can try every trick to make you ignore the fact that the shoes you couldn’t live without are too small, but that struggle comes at a price charged to your feet and the rest of your body. As you see here, she’s trying to maintain a truce with her feet. I imagine that these shoes were acquired because her boyfriend said he liked them. (Refrain from commenting on latent sexism in that theory. Maybe she got them because she knew he’d like them. Maybe he tried to discourage her and now she regretfully realizes he had her best interest at heart. I’ll never know.) Anyway, he’s the one you can’t see, wearing the comfortable white flat walking shoes. Just looking at this picture hurts me as much as it did to look at the pair of them (the two people, but also I mean feet) all the way up the Grand Canal.
There are shutters on thousands of Venetian windows, and while opening them is universal, there’s a choice of gizmos made to keep them open. A friend revealed one type that is as fabulous as it is common. I’d give anything to know who thought it up, but I love the fact that so many people decided that’s how they wanted to control their shutters.
A very common sight at street level. I’d never given them a thought till their secret was revealed to me.She’s down. She’s resting. Waiting for the day to start and the shutters to need holding. Look closely at her arms. As soon as she is lifted upward on her hidden linchpin they will turn out to be……this guy’s turban. He is up and she is facing the wall upside down.You can see it better this way.Okay fine, so the person who opened the shutters couldn’t be bothered to put this couple to work. And yet, he is up, in holding-shutter position. So many questions.And yet, we know that if something can go wrong, it will. One day the gizmo had to be installed but the installer was — let’s say disoriented. Perhaps it was a Monday morning. Yep, I installed it, boss. Yes, the male figure is supposed to be in the up position. BUT LOOKING OUTWARD, ya nugget!
Well, I waited six months to get a haircut, so I suppose I’m not one to criticize a hedge. But I’m confused. Wouldn’t you think that the so-called most beautiful city in the world would do a little more to keep itself presentable? I know my mother would.
Granted, we all know how you just go along thinking everything is fine… you’ll fix your hair/mop the floor/write that thank-you note just any day now…and then suddenly something snaps and you realize that your hair is a freaking mess, etc. etc. The jig is up.
In the case of this hedge, nobody seems to be responding to the jig. Maybe wild-haired hedges are just the latest trend, or something related to the Biennale which is just through the park ahead. But company’s coming to town (and some is already here — I’ve seen the yachts). Tomorrow is the first day of the Venice Film Festival, and if there were ever a time to trim that hedge, I’d think the time would be now. Actually, yesterday. ACTUALLY, a week ago.
But what, as I often ask myself, do I know? I never trimmed my bangs to suit my mother, so it’s clearly just as well I was never responsible for a hedge.
Oh, did you want to see that statue? Sorry, come back later. No, I don’t know when. Later.It’s clear at the end of this row that somebody with a hedge-clipper, or machete, had made a good start. But they got a day off, or had to take their kid to the dentist, or something broke the momentum (or the tool), and here we are.Or it might have been around the time when the hedge finally realized it was never going to play Hampton Court Palace, or the Redberry Maze, or the Laberinto Katira, and just let everything go.
Generations have made their fortunes, to one degree or another, promoting Venice as a city of mystery, secrets, enigmas. What amazes me, though, is how many discoveries one can make by just looking around. It’s not as if you have to go looking for secrets — there are plenty of extraordinary things sitting right out there in the open, in front of everybody, but that go unnoticed for ages.
I have walked with Venetians, on our way to do something, who have suddenly stopped, looked up at/around/behind/next to some normal thing (a bridge, a window, a door) at something strange or beautiful and said, “I never saw that before.”
So here is something I saw because I looked up. Was it a secret? Only from me until that afternoon.
And the date is the same when read upside down or downside up. A new sort of palindrome? A mystic code opening to another dimension? Somebody’s PIN number?
This fresco isn’t far from San Marco at the intersection of the Rio Tera’ de le Colone and Calle dei Fabbri. Here is a map to clarify.
The garish aqua-tinted circle marks the position of this now-no-longer surprise.
Looking up as I walked west along the columned walkway …
This is the view along the Rio Tera’ de le Colone, for anyone in charge of navigating.
I came upon this, as previously noted:
The passageway was temporarily blocked, as you see, but that’s not important. Just look up.The edited street sign is a relic of a brief but intense period when the populace revolted against the “Italianizing” of the local street names; they had always been in the Venetian language, but an official urban improver in the city administration thought Italian would be better. For a while nocturnal vigilantes took a hand in correcting this cultural vandalism, but don’t let this deviation from the name printed on your map disturb you.
Back to the fresco at hand. My first theory was wrong, of course, but I wasn’t alone in supposing the dice in this design to be a mystic reminder of what may have been a gambling establishment back in 1691. There were plenty of them, but people probably didn’t need signs to show them where to go, mainly because gambling was mostly illegal.
Rummaging through the internet I found that several people had also found it reasonable to suppose that gambling inspired this curious fresco. But then I was even more surprised to discover a much simpler explanation. No need to go any further back than the 1980s and a particularly whimsical artist named Dorino Cioffi (born 1932 in Este, Veneto region), now living and working in Venice.
I could go find him and ask him about all this, and I’m not saying I won’t, but I wanted to get this little tale out into the ether. Whatever his motivations might have been, and however he may have managed to get permission to paint on a public space (“No worries, it’ll be down by Wednesday”), he created this diverting little image. Fooling people is so much fun. Carnival comes to mind.
Starting at the top is a streetlight (feral, in Venetian, pronounced fehr-AHL), sitting atop a cooking pot (pignata, in Venetian), behind three dice (dai, in Venetian). This is important to the story, so read on.
For reasons as yet, if ever, to be discovered, the artist devised this image to refer to the three bridges nearest to the location of the fresco. I don’t know why that spot was chosen, though if you’ve decided you want to paint on an outdoor ceiling, your options are already limited.
The aqua circle is the fresco; the yellow circle to the right is the Ponte dei Ferali, and the red on the upper left is the Ponte de le Pignate.The Ponte dei Dai connects to the Piazza San Marco, as you see.The Ponte de le Pignate, walking toward the Rialto bridge.
Heading toward the Ponte dei Dai.The Sotoportego dei Dai, with the bridge just coming up.Having just crossed the bridge, I look toward the Piazza San Marco. This bridge, like so much of Venice, has been patched and repaired to a Frankensteinian degree. The long strip of lighter-colored material stretching along the right side is undoubtedly the scar left when it was necessary to open that part of the bridge to get at whatever pipe is installed beneath it. Water pipes, cables, or any other tubes that may need repairing and replacing are reached by incisions made in the bridge as needed and then closed up with varying degrees of finesse. I have seen bridges that are held together after numerous dissections by various materials from asphalt patches to leftover concrete. In some cases the only things they haven’t used to put a bridge back together are safety pins, duct tape, chewing gum, and a few staples.This is what bridges look like under the paving stones. Stripping this bridge to its very innards was a drastic move indeed — usually they just remove the bare minimum to resolve whatever little problem may have been bubbling under the surface. I’m guessing it wasn’t the innards that were the problem, but the bridge itself.
The names of the bridges, like the streets, referred to something that was made, or sold, or both, on or near that bridge. As far back as the 1200’s the feraleri, or makers of streetlights (ferali), had set up their shops on nearby streets, as well as on the bridge itself (do not ask me how that worked). The same explanation applies to the pignate (cooking pots).
As for the dai (the original name was dadi, or dice), they were not so much produced as simply sold near their eponymous bridge. This is amusing, considering that gambling with dice was forbidden. You and your friends might call a place the “bridge of crack cocaine” if that’s what makes sense to you, but painting the name on an official street sign would be strange. I think we can agree on that?
You may be awaiting more information on the pots and the dice, which I suppose there is, but the streetlights turn out to be far more interesting than the other two items put together. (Do not recommend.) As I leave the eccentric fresco behind, though, I can say that without it I almost certainly wouldn’t have given a thought to the lamps.
My next post will be shedding plenty of light on the subject.
This is the Ponte dei Ferali, looking east toward the church of San Zulian.
The triangular red notice-boards of the Biennale have returned to their ancestral homes in the neighborhood. Here’s an important one, front and center in via Garibaldi.
If there’s one term (among many) that has become fashionable around here this year it’s ripresa — recovery. (Not to be confused with “Recovery Plan,” which is exactly what Italians call the mega-component financial scheme that will somehow reassemble our dismembered economy. Does saying it in English give it some occult power? Wish I knew somebody I could ask.) I would have suggested “comeback,” like for some devastated boxer staggering back into the ring, but whatever you want to call it, everybody’s trying to get back to normal.
Over the past two weeks or so, there have been tiny but unmistakeable signs of life such as gradual lessening of curfew, gradual increase of shops and restaurants opening, etc. We still have to wear masks, though not everybody does, but the only thing missing from a cartoon version of life here right now is birds swooping around with little hearts floating upward.
So I’ve been enjoying the tiny signs — more every day — that belong to life as we used to know it. And many of them are connected to the imminent reopening of the Biennale on May 22 (canceled last year, along with its millions of euros from the municipal budget).
Being that our neighborhood is the epicenter of Biennale activity, of course I’d be seeing things such as enormous crates on barges with cranes being unloaded in the exhibition zone, unknown people wearing unusual clothes just standing on bridges looking around, a person here or there with lots of video or camera equipment, or the ticket booth for the vaporettos about to start selling tickets again, ever more individuals dressed in black with a lanyard and plastic-sleeved document around his/her neck. Press, I presume. More water taxis. Gondolas with people in them. I saw a woman today walking around with a big paper map of the city. Boy, that takes me back.
Let’s also notice the soundtrack: The scrapey clatter of rolling suitcases outside the window, the constant low rumble of motors everywhere. All you need is a barge with three cement mixers aboard trying to get somewhere against the tide and you’ll hear what I mean, but the noise from even smaller motors gets to be big, when there are enough of them. This is one part of the Sound of Venice I did NOT miss during quarantine. But here we are.
So generally speaking non-Venetians are returning to their Venice, and we are sliding back into ours, invisible again. We are all side by side, but we are not in the same city. I’ve commented elsewhere on these parallel tracks of life here that never meet, and so that’s a part of normal that is ineluctable.
Not only is the day after tomorrow Opening Day for the Biennale; the following Saturday will be the opening of the week-long Salone Nautico, or Boat Show, in the Arsenal. So bring on the people. I guess we’re ready.
I’ve really missed the yachts; I look them up online to see what they’re like inside. Monsters such as this are moored here, not for their voyagers (this babe costs 238,000 euros per week) but as the perfect venues for really important Opening Weekend parties. It — or perhaps Plan A? — will probably be back for the same reason at the end of August for the film festival.This restaurant was created a year ago February in what was the only shoe store in via Garibaldi. As soon as lockdown hit, it closed up and has never opened since then until this week. Getting all spiffed up and ready for hungry art-lovers. I think basil plants instead of flowers is an outstanding idea. Also, they say green is the color of hope.This Eastern European man is a staple at the entrance to the Giardini, playing the old favorites (including “My Way,” my oldest unfavorite, but also the tango music from “Scent of a Woman”) to a modest recorded accompaniment. He had disappeared for a year, because who was around to give him money? The fact that he’s back is a huge sign of better things on the way.Shapeless whimsy is seeking fame and fortune — the Biennale’s back and boy, is Venice glad.You start with a plinth of some sort and work up. No way of guessing what might be due to be put here, we’ll just have to wait and be surprised.The meaning of this will be revealed in due course, though perhaps not by me. At the moment, it’s sitting there in its perfect shape, though its relevance to “How will we live together?” is not immediately evident.I have no way of knowing whether bags of mulch are a work of art — it’s a little hard to know where to look in these areas or what to appreciate. So I’ll appreciate the mulch.
One entirely unexpected discovery, beyond the fields of the Biennale, was a collateral effect of the city’s revival: The opening of the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti to the public. I have only ever seen this church open for funerals, not infrequently because it was built in 1634 as part of the city hospital. (Hospitals and funerals are unfortunate companions.) We came upon this on a random afternoon wander, and seized the chance to see the church without mourners and memorial wreaths.
The church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti is inserted into the city hospital, and is usually shut up tight, as you see here. (Foto: Abxbay on Wikipedia).
Enter the church and this is what you discover is filling the space over the front door. Meet Alvise Mocenigo (known in Italian as Luigi Leonardo Mocenigo), Admiral of the Venetian navy in the 25-year War of Candia during 1648-51 and 1653-4.You already have grasped that he was a Capitano da Mar because of his very particular hat, and his baton of command. He defeated the perennial Turkish foe at Paros and Naxos, but his qualities as a commander and as a man were evidently so remarkable that when he died even the Turks bedecked their ships with tokens of mourning for their worthy adversary.The Battle of Paros (1651).The Battle of Naxos. That rearing horse must have been the sculptor’s absolutely favorite part of the whole thing. The obelisks bear medallions representing the four medals struck in Crete to commemorate Mocenigo’s victories (Civica, Rostrale, Murale, Graminea. This will not be on the final exam.)
So modern art brings tourists, which leads to opening some spaces to lovers of old art. I might like this new normal.
