If you were looking for a statue of a famous Venetian, it’s unlikely you’d have thought of finding it here. Was this its original position? Because there couldn’t be a more vivid way to express “Nobody cares — we’ll just work around it.”
Sharp-eyed readers, no matter how well-read, probably wouldn’t associate “Modena” (MOH-deh-na) with a man, but rather with the city which is the fountainhead of balsamic vinegar. A slightly curious last name, for someone born in Venice, but there’s a man in Modena with the last name “Venezia.” Seems fair.
Gustavo Modena (1803 – 1861) appears by now to have been consigned to corners — of libraries, of artistic and political discussions, and even of the Giardini Pubblici in Venice. But he was front and center in Italian artistic and political life in the mid-1800s — arguably the premier Italian actor of the 19th century — and active in the secret revolutionary society known as the “carbonari” which was a driving force in the efforts to unify Italy. When he wasn’t acting, he was being followed by the police. Clearly, activist-actors aren’t a recent phenomenon and he was equally amazing in both roles (sorry).
Judging by the pedestal alone, this was quite the man. The statue is by Venetian sculptor Carlo Lorenzetti (1858 – 1945).
“Like so much else in the arts,” the Cambridge Guide to Theatre tells us, “the early 19th-century Italian theatre was dominated by the struggle for national independence and unification, all the more fuelled by the sentiments of the romantic movement which in Italy was a revolt not only against French-oriented classicism, but against foreign domination, political fragmentation, economic retardation, and intellectual obscurantism. More, perhaps, than elsewhere, romanticism too had strong nationalist and popular emphases.”
There is no way for us to experience his acting, unhappily for us, though contemporary reports state that it was powerful and highly naturalistic. His writings may have been equally eloquent, but when read today can’t possibly evoke the same responses as they did when Italy was in turmoil. However effective he may have been in his lifetime, only faint reverberations, if any, reach us today. I have no reason to doubt commentators who state that he achieved “strepitosi successi” — sensational successes — on the stage, but we can’t feel them. The statue looks earnest, nothing more.
The white stain is regrettable.
As for his fervent and unceasing labors to liberate his countrymen from their assorted overlords, I don’t presume to recount all his adventures, because I don’t presume you’d be inclined to read them. That whole historical period requires concentration.
But he isn’t completely forgotten. There are theatres named for him, as well as streets –“via Gustavo Modena”s are scattered across Italy: Rome, Milan, Padua, Florence, Bologna, Treviso, Perugia, Vigonza, and of course in Mori, his father’s home town near Trento. It’s great that he is so honored; it’s just too bad that he now seems as distant as Pharaoh Sneferka of the First Dynasty.
In Venice, though, he’ll always have that plinth.
He’s much less imposing when he’s not on his pedestal (or stage), but much more appealing. Here he looks more like your tenth-grade geometry teacher than either a famous revolutionary or dramatic actor.The inscription reads: GUSTAVO MODENA NELLE TORMENTOSE VIGILIE DELLA PATRIA / L’AUSTERA E LIBERA ANIMA / NUDRI’ DELLA FIEREZZA ANTICA / DA LUI CON INSUPERATO MAGISTERO D’ARTE / RISUSCITATA SULLE SCENE. “Gustavo Modena In the harrowing vigils of the fatherland / the austere and free spirit / nourished by the ancient boldness / with insuperable artistic mastery / revived on the stage.” If I could manage a better translation, I would, but meanwhile just remember the most important words: “boldness,” “insuperable,” “artistic mastery.” It’s an impressive effort to honor his talent in the theatrical as well as political sphere but there’s no question it sounds better in Italian.On the western side of the pedestal is the simple notation NATO A VENEZIA IL 13 FEBBRAIO 1803 MORTO A TORINO IL 20 FEBBRAIO 1861. “Born in Venice 13 February 1803 Died in Torino 20 February 1861.” He died not quite a month before the Kingdom of Italy was declared (March 17, 1861), the fruit of his lifetime of struggle. I can only hope that before expiring he was able to confirm that the nation would finally be founded.Venice wasn’t alone in commemorating him: “To Gustavo Modena Dramatic Artist and Patriot Florence 1903.”On the via Tornabuoni in Florence is another plaque: “In this house Gustavo Modena in the year 1849 directed the journal ‘La Costituente’ (The Constituent). A daily promotion of Republican unity to lift the people of Italy to the dignity of a nation.” The Brotherhood of Artisans of Italy place this in memory on November 22, 1903.”A memorial to Modena in Torino, by Leonardo Bistolfi (1900).A bust of Modena belonging to the Civic Museums of Florence.Modena on the Janiculum Hill in Rome.The Gustavo Modena theatre in Palmanova.
All these monuments in his honor — not bad for a man hardly anyone remembers anymore.
One of the most notable monuments in the Giardini — in its position, and in itself — is of Venetian aviator Pier Luigi Penzo. Like his next-door neighbor, Francesco Querini, he too was involved in Arctic exploration and met a very distressing, unexpected, undeserved, all the “un”s you want, end. Yet somehow his story lacks some crucial element that makes Querini’s so riveting. I think it’s because the real focus of attention was on someone else.
The inscription reads: ACCANTO AL MARMO DI FRANCESCO QUERINI QUI VUOLSI ONORATA E COMPIANTA L’ALA DEL VENEZIANO PIER LUIGI PENZO SORVOLATA SU L’ARTIDE CADUTO NEL RODANO NATO A VENEZIA 5 MAGGIO 1896 MORTO A VALENCE IL 29 SETTEMBRE 1928.” “Beside the marble of Francesco Querini here it is desired to be honored and lamented the wing of Venetian Pier Luigi Penzo Flown above the Arctic Fallen in the Rhone Born in Venice 5 May 1896 Died 29 September 1928.” The eagle and anchor represent his status as a Navy pilot before passing to the Air Force.Although the words don’t exactly soar, one can admire the design of the lettering. On a more modest note, it appears that the encroachment of the shrub is eventually going to cover the words completely if someone doesn’t intervene with the pruning shears.He looks entirely like someone who deserves a monument, though of course monuments tend to do that.
The barest outlines of his tale are that he participated in a massive rescue operation in the vicinity of the North Pole in 1928; on his flight home his plane struck some power lines near Valence, France and broke apart. It fell into the Rhone River, from which his remains were recovered two weeks later some 50 km (31 miles) downstream. I have found surprisingly little to add to that summary; Google searches mercilessly return articles about the Venetian soccer stadium, named — another sort of memorial — for him.
Therefore, and meaning no disrespect, you might be wondering why this person, who admittedly met a premature and unmerited demise, should have been given such an impressive monument. (In fact, two of them — the other is on the cemetery island of San Michele.)
I’m glad you wondered, because while the ill-fated expedition he was sent to rescue is lavishly described in numerous documents, not to mention a film (“The Red Tent,” 1969), Penzo himself seems not to have been the hero, but a team player in the grand sweep of several tragedies. I must describe these tragedies — some technical, some human, some political — in order to clarify why Penzo was literally put on a pedestal. Emotions of all sizes and sorts had been running extremely high.
The Gazzettino, then a weekly, published this portrait of the 32-year-old Penzo a few weeks after his death. He was posthumously awarded the silver medal of the Air Force.
In drastically condensed form, we pick up the tale of Italian efforts to reach the North Pole in the autumn of 1925, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen asked General Umberto Nobile of the Italian Royal Air Force to collaborate with him on a flight to the North Pole; Amundsen wanted to be the first to reach it by air. More to the point, he wanted to fly in a semi-rigid airship, and Nobile was already well-known as an important aeronautical engineer, pilot, and fervent proponent of dirigibles.
Nobile designed and piloted the airship Norge, accomplishing the first verified trip of any kind to reach the North Pole and likely the first verified flight from Europe to North America (Svalbard, Norway to Teller, Alaska) over the polar ice cap. This feat was known as the Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight, so named for Lincoln Ellsworth who, with the Aero Club of Norway, financed the expedition. On May 12, 1926 at 1:30 AM GMT the North Pole was reached (though not actually touched). The flags of Norway, Italy, and the United States were dropped onto the ice and the airship proceeded to Alaska.
With the success of this exploit Nobile then planned another polar overflight, this time with an all-Italian crew in a dirigible named Italia. The project, however, met strong headwinds from his many enemies in the Fascist government, some of whom were also enemies of airships but huge fans of rigid aircraft. After grudgingly approving the expedition, Captain Italo Balbo, then-Secretary of State for the Air Force (later Minister of the Air Force), wished him a special bon voyage: “Let him go,” he is reported to have said, “for he cannot possibly come back to bother us anymore.”
The expedition went splendidly for a while. On May 23, 1928, after a 69-hour flight to the Siberian group of Arctic islands, the Italia began its flight to the North Pole with Nobile as both pilot and expedition leader. On May 24, the airship reached the Pole and began its homeward trip to Svalbard when it ran into a storm.
Rapidly losing altitude in the struggle against real headwinds, the next day the Italia crashed onto the pack ice fewer than 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Nordaustlandet (astern part of Svalbard).
Of the 16 men in the crew, ten were thrown onto the ice as the gondola was smashed; without the weight of the gondola, the buoyant superstructure began to float away with six crewmen still inside it who, as they drifted skyward, threw all the supplies they could manage out onto the ice, which saved the lives of their severely injured comrades. The six were never seen again.
The disaster’s horror was intensified, if such a thing were possible, by the desperation of the month-long search for the survivors.
The men on the ice sent calls for help via a radio transceiver salvaged from the shattered gondola, but 30 days passed with no response. While a variety of the usual Arctic horrors were befalling them, an international rescue operation was seeking them — Soviet Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Italy, not to mention privately owned ships which had been chartered by polar scientists and explorers. Even Roald Amundsen put aside his bad feelings toward Nobile and boarded a French seaplane to aid in the rescue efforts. The plane disappeared between Tromsø and Svalbard, and though a pontoon from the craft was later found, the bodies of Amundsen and all aboard were not.
Enter Major Pier Luigi Penzo, joining the search on June 23, 1928 in his Marina II, an SM55-Dornier Wal hydroplane. Born in Malamocco, he had enrolled in the Italian Royal Navy at the age of 20, and earned his hydroplane pilot’s license at the seaplane base at Sant’ Andrea, just across from the Lido. He distinguished himself in combat on the Piave front in World War 1, and had become one of the most requested aerial rescue pilots then active. He was also well-known to Italo Balbo — I suppose you could say he was a friend — with whom he had flown on several occasions.
The “idroscalo,” or seaplane base, at Sant’ Andrea was where Penzo earned his hydroplane pilot’s license. There was a flourishing waterborne airmail route between Torino and Trieste in the Twenties, mostly following the rivers (Ticino, Po) till reaching Venice.
In the end, the survivors’ signals were picked up by a Russian ham radio operator who alerted the search teams, and it wasn’t even Penzo who spotted them for the first time, but fellow pilot Umberto Maddalena. And the first rescue plane to land was a Swedish Air Force Fokker ski plane piloted by Lieutenant Einar Lundborg.
Nobile had prepared a detailed evacuation plan, with the most seriously wounded man (the heavily built mechanic Natale Cecioni) at the top of the list and himself as number 4. But Lundborg refused to take anyone but Nobile, who also had been injured. Lundborg argued that the plane could only take one passenger, and Cecioni was so heavy the pilot was unsure he could take off. So Nobile was airlifted to safety, a captain who, it can’t be denied, had clearly not chosen to go down with his ship (so to speak). When Nobile boarded the Italian ship that served as expedition headquarters, he was arrested.
Worse still, when Lundborg returned alone to pick up the next survivor his plane crashed on landing, and he was left on the ice with the other five.
Meanwhile, Penzo and his crew (as well as another hydroplane) undertook a series of flights over the icepack dropping supplies and instruments to the marooned men. I can’t give any details on whether he took any survivors back to base.
After 48 days on the ice, the last five men of his crew were picked up by the Soviet icebreaker Krasin.
Time to leave? Nobile insisted that he wanted to stay to continue the search for the six men who were swept away in the airship when it disintegrated, but was ordered back to Rome with the others. He was to discover that the Arctic catastrophe wasn’t over, because it had given his enemies their chance to eliminate him.
When he and his men arrived in Rome on July 31, they were greeted by 200,000 cheering Italians. The popular exultation at the happy ending of the agonizing drama momentarily baffled Balbo and his allies, who had been seeding the foreign and domestic press with accusations against Nobile, claiming that agreeing to be evacuated first was an obvious sign of cowardice. (Pause to wonder why, in fact, Lundborg had insisted on taking him off before everybody else.) The official inquiry gave them the chance to place the blame for the disaster entirely on his shoulders. He was accused of abandoning his men, and Balbo went so far as to call for his execution by firing squad for treason and cowardice. Instead, Nobile resigned his commission and went to the United States, returning only in 1943 when Balbo was dead.
Here is a fuller, though still concise, account of the Italia disaster.
Italians of Lino’s vintage were raised with the conviction that Umberto Nobile was a craven poltroon, but this stamp commemorating the 90th anniversary of the expedition shows the “Italia” proudly aloft.
So, as I mentioned, there were tragedies: The technical tragedy was the crash of the “Italia”; the human tragedy was the loss of life; the political tragedy, as I see it, was the destruction of Nobile’s reputation. I don’t say he was right to be evacuated first, but the fact that the attacks on him were politically motivated is revolting.
In the months between the departure of the survivors in July and his own departure in September, Penzo remained at King’s Bay to continue the search for Amundsen, as well as for the six men lost in the envelope that floated away. In these flights he didn’t use his usual hydroplane, but a Macchi 18 biplane hydro-bomber (I throw that in for any aviation fans who might be reading). Unsuccessful in both cases, he was finally ordered back to Italy.
On September 27 (Thursday) he sent a telegram to his family that he was on his way home, and his brothers left Venice for Pisa, where his plane was expected to land on Friday. But it did not.
On Sunday morning a functionary of City Hall delivered the bad news to his wife. Two of his crew had survived the crash and been saved by fishermen, but Penzo and another two crewmen drowned. His remains were interred on the cemetery island of San Michele, under a honking big monument.
The memorial to Penzo is located in the section dedicated to the military. The eagles appear to want to be artichokes.The inscription in Latin identifies Petrus Alojsius Penzo April 6 1896 September 29 1928. Following his date of death is inscribed “E.F. VI,” for the sixth year of the Era Fascista (Fascist Era). The oak leaves above his head typically symbolize power, endurance and strength (also humble beginnings, which would certainly be apt for Malamocco); they’re often seen on military tombs.This interesting device is easy enough to decipher: The propellers and compass rose for aviation, the bear symbolizes the Arctic, and the corpse floating on the water would represent the victim.The other side of the monument isn’t much less impressive.“ASSUMENT PENNAS UT AQUILAE VOLABUNT ET NON DEFICIENT.” “They shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be faint.” Here the famous phrase from the book of Isaiah 40:31 is attributed simply to the “prophets.”“VIVENT MORTUI TUI + INTERFECTI TUI RESURGENT.” ‘Thy dead men shall live; thy slain men shall be raised.” (The Book of Wisdom).
But wasn’t enough; another memorial, in a more public place, was seen as desirable, and it was unveiled at an inauguration ceremony on June 1, 1932 by — of course! — Italo Balbo, then Minister of the Air Force. He had organized an international aviation conference in Rome, and added Venice to the program.
It was obviously correct for him, in his official capacity, to honor a fallen comrade, but he must have enjoyed the chance to castigate Nobile once again by glorifying a man who had lost his life in the effort, more or less, to save him. At least that’s how I interpret this extravagant conclusion to Penzo’s life.
The monument was designed by Venetian sculptor Francesco Scarpabolla (1902-1999). “Oh sure,” said Lino when I shared this information. “I knew him, he lived just down the street from me near San Vio.” We were all expecting that by now, naturally.
But the best monument to Penzo, to my way of thinking, isn’t either one of the statues, nor even the soccer stadium (sorry). It’s the elementary school at Malamocco, which bears his name. Latin quotations and oak leaves are all very well, but the school is dedicated to a local boy, and it’s there that his name will truly be kept alive.
I will trek down to Malamocco one of these days and make some photographs of the school. Meanwhile, here is map evidence that it exists.
The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, as viewed from the Rialto Bridge. “Fondaco” is Italian, “fontego” is Venetian, either one describes a building assigned to merchants of a specific nationality. This enormous structure accommodated not only the Germans, but Hungarians, Bohemians, and Poles. The walls we see here date from the 13th century, but the interior was reconstructed in 1508 after a catastrophic fire reduced it to cinders.
I’ve always had an aversion to the word “lifestyle,” not because I don’t believe that lives can have style, but because I do believe that it isn’t something you can buy. Somebody will say “Oh but you can buy the components,” so fine — but you can’t buy the result. There is a difference between style and stuff.
What brought this on? Assorted publicity distributed around the city for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, which once was a palace, then became a fontego, which was a designated place in which the Venetian government required foreign merchants to deposit their goods, and which also could comprise bedrooms, counting and meeting rooms, and other conveniences. (The Turkish fontego contained a mosque and a hammam.) At some point in the 20th century it became the main post office.
I remember that phase — the palace seemed impressively maladapted to being a main post office, with lots of small rooms and way too many stairs. But I liked it. I liked going into a majestic, dusty, rumpsprung palace to buy stamps or deal with packages. The fontego seemed still connected in some way to its past. It was a piece of Venice.
Then it was closed for several years while undergoing vast and spectacular alterations under the world-famous hand of rockstar architect Rem Koolhaas on behalf of the Benetton Group. This project transformed the building into a — well, I would have called it a shopping center, somebody else might have called it a souk, but they decided to call it “A lifestyle department store.”
Department store — how quaint. I didn’t know people still used that term. But Venice already had one: COIN, the immemorial high-class department store that was forced to close last month because the building owner raised the annual rent to just beyond reach. The owner wanted 3,000,000 euros a year, while the longstanding lessee could only offer 2,100,000. So for 900,000 euros difference per year, the store has closed.
Now that I think about it, COIN was just over the bridge from the Fondaco. I don’t suppose that means anything.
Anyway, maybe you’re thinking: “This is great! Finally there will be high-class stores in Venice where we can go to shop! Because Prada and Gucci and Tiffany don’t have their own stores right out there on the street!” (Of course they do. It’s just that they’re not all jammed together and linked by escalators.)
The posters on the vaporetto stops promote the Fondaco as being for travelers, written in English. These factors seem not to be directed toward the average Venetian.The long corridor at Marco Polo airport leading from the waterfront to the terminal is lined with these trumpet fanfares of “shopping, food and culture.” It’s interesting that the view isn’t of the interior, but the splendid panorama from the roof terrace. That must be the “culture” part. Again, written entirely in English in order to attract more Venetians?
Posters for the Fondaco have been on the vaporetto docks for a few weeks now, and I recently discovered even fancier publicity for it in the airport. This makes sense, because the fondaco is totally geared to tourists. I seem to recall reading, during the renovation phase, that specific tours were going to be organized to visit it, like Mall of America. Water taxis would bring customers in big batches to the water entrance, let the customers roam and spend and take pictures, then take them away again.
Whether or not that particular scheme has worked out, there are indeed many, many people who go there every day to roam and spend and take pictures. Or take pictures, anyway. And that ought to be making the owner/manager happy. But he wants more.
He wants Venetians.
Headline in the Gazzettino: “Fontego has 8,000 visitors a day, but ‘We wish Venetians would come to shop.'” Why? Aren’t 8,000 people a day enough? Any Venetian reading this would hear “Please come to our extremely upscale multilevel shopping mall full of thousands of strangers to look at useless things that cost too much.”
I don’t suppose you’d call a cashmere sweater useless, but your average Venetian who needs a really good sweater doesn’t think of going somewhere that has 8,000 visitors a day when he or she can just as easily go to the Duca d’Aosta and also have air to breathe. If he or she wanted to see 8,000 foreigners crammed together, wandering aimlessly, taking pictures, he or she could just as easily go to the Piazza San Marco, which doesn’t cost anything.
The central courtyard used to still be paved with herringbone brick, with the old wellhead in the center, as it had been for centuries. But this is so much more lifestyle-y.
A small further point, which has not occurred to the “We want Venetians” gentleman, is: Who are these Venetians? As in happening in a number of Italian cities, Venice’s population is aging, and living on a pension is a situation that doesn’t leave much room for frippery. Certainly there are some people with pensions paid in gold doubloons, but the largest percentage of the retired people here are living on 1,000 euros or so a month; Lino’s cousin has 750 euros a month, and many others are somehow surviving on 500 euros a month. You can understand that Murano glass and Carnival masks and custom-concocted perfumes are nowhere to be found on their shopping lists.
So the Venetian visitors that are so earnestly desired and dreamed of can’t be pensioners. They probably aren’t working couples, either, because work. Children, maybe? Well, they’d have to come with some adult — could be a grandparent or aunt or uncle — but the adult would need to have money, so we’re back to pensioners.
Who could resist an offer like this for little bags of fancy cookies? Nobody who can read English or Chinese.
There is another element to the general Venetian aversion to stopping by the Fondaco, and it’s not financial. It’s cultural and emotional. Does the word “dispossessed” mean something? It means “It was ours, and now it’s not,” and this now applies to many historic places that have been transformed (often by Benetton, but not always) under the pretext of being saved from ruin when they are essentially large commercial speculations. I suspect that the person who said that he wishes Venetians would come to shop secretly knows that Venetians are never going to do it, and he knows why. Because it was theirs, and now it’s not.
Venetians love beauty and recognize quality — it’s in their blood. But while you might be able to fake quality, it’s impossible to fake class.
Is tourism to blame? I suppose so. But as long as non-Venetians keep ranting about the dire effects on local life of renting apartments to tourists, the reality of foreign commercial interventions on a massive scale goes unremarked. Big opening-day articles analyzing the architectural skill of the Fondaco transformation sidestepped the fundamental reality that another exceptional piece of Venetian history had been surgically removed from the city’s battered body.
As anyone can say who has been in, or witnessed, an abusive relationship, there are some similarities between the Venetian government and its relationship with the city’s history and its present, not to mention future, if there is one. But the primary point that strikes me (sorry) is that an abused person tends, always hopefully, to see each episode of damage as somehow excusable, and this only leads to more, and finally the victim loses the big picture and sinks into apathy, helplessness and depression. It seems to me that many Venetians have reached this point.
So I would suggest to the owner/manager not to press the point of how tempting and wondrous the Fondaco is. Believe me: If Venetians had wanted to, they already would have come. You’re going to have to be satisfied just harvesting tourists who are seeking a lifestyle.
Here’s a Venetian lifestyle. It would be hard to furnish at the Fondaco.
I mentioned in my last post that the duke of the Abruzzi also caused a memorial to be made to Felice Ollier, one of the two men lost with Querini.
A friend who often goes to Courmayeur has sent me this photograph of the statue, so I add this to our communal fund of knowledge. I’m struck by the difference between this monument and the one of Querini. Here we have a cross, and the dog is center stage — there’s no man at all. Yet each seems correctly attuned to its setting and culture, if you will.
Memorial to Felice Ollier in Courmayeur. (Photo: Giorgio Scattola)The dog is excellent. (Scattola)The plaque reads: A FELICE OLLIER / GUIDA ALPINA / SCOMPARSO SUI GHIACCI DELL’OCEANO GLACIALE ARTICO / NELLA SPEDIZIONE COLLE SLITTE DIRETTA AL POLO NORD / MARZO 1900 / LUIGI DI SAVOIA “To Felice Ollier / Alpine guide / lost on the ice of the glacial Arctic ocean / in the expedition with the sleds to the North Pole / March 1900 / Luigi di Savoia.” (rete comuni italiani)
