Today is the feast of All Souls, more informally called “I Morti” (the dead). Unlike Mexico and maybe some other countries, celebrating/commemorating the Day of the Dead in Venice is not a big holiday, in a festive sort of sense.
Here, one typically — if one is old-fashioned, as we are — eats a few “fave” on the night of All Saints, i.e. November 1. They’re so intensely sweet that I can manage only one or two before saying good-bye to these morsels for another year.
And this evening, one would typically roast chestnuts and drink torbolino, the first drawing-off of the new wine. (We skip the torbolino because naturally it isn’t as good now as it was in the old days.)
So much for the few remaining traditions observed on this day, but wait! This year a temporary bridge was assembled to connect the Fondamente Nove to the cemetery island of San Michele, reviving a custom that had been abandoned in 1950. It isn’t the old bridge, of course, which used to be set up on massive wooden boats called peate. What impresses me is that enough of these boats were taken out of service back then for a number of days, because 70 years ago they were still hard at work.
The bridge stretched — and still does — for 417 meters (1,359 feet). That is longer than the famous pontoon bridge set up for the feast of the Redentore across the Giudecca Canal (342 meters, or 1,123 feet).Here’s something that’s just as exotic as the boats: no railings or any other protective barriers or devices. People either walked or thought differently back then.
This year, to general amazement, the city (mayor, basically, who is soon up for re-election — I’M NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAS NOTICED THAT) decided to spend 450,000 euros ($502,776) on a pontoon bridge resembling the one set up for the feast of the Redentore in July. The bridge will be up until November 10, so there’s still time if any reader wants to stroll across it to the cemetery. There are vaporettos back to Venice if the gentle rocking motion of the bridge has lost its appeal.
We’re not big cemetery-goers, but we went to pay our respects to some of Lino’s family who have gone ahead, as the Alpine Regiment soldiers refer to their comrades at funerals. Obviously we’ve been before, though of course it was less oppressive going today than it was twice in the last two years, accompanying a coffin. I probably didn’t need to say that. The bridge was appealing, but not our main motive for the excursion.
The city had imposed a rule, enforced by numerous people in various uniforms, that the bridge could be used today and tomorrow only by residents, Venetians or otherwise (showing either their vaporetto pass or their I.D.), or anybody with the vaporetto pass, by which they mean the long-term one which would indicate some more than passing connection with the city. At first we thought this was extremely weird, even though people could certainly go via the free vaporetto today.
They were absolutely checking people’s passes or ID.
But a Venetian friend I met on the bridge explained that one reason for this rule was to squelch tour groups from swarming it (bridge and cemetery) for the novelty of it all, thereby ruining what is a very personal and often emotional experience for people who live here. She said that some tour operators had indeed publicized this event, so let me offer an unsolicited compliment to whoever thought up that rule. Gad. That’s all we need — tourists on the bridge to the cemetery today. They can go on Monday, and every day till next Sunday if they want to.
“The bridge of the saints and the dead” (defuncts).” Here are some rules: Thursday October 31 from 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM and from Friday November 1 to Sunday November 3 from 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM; from November 4-10 from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM.
I was surprised to run into a good number of people we know, either on the traverse or wandering around the plots, looking for their deceased relatives, often holding bouquets or other flower arrangements. The place was absolutely bursting with flowers; it has never looked that good, and the colors were wonderfully welcome in what was a dank, gray, cold, rainy day. Perfect weather for the occasion, true, but after a while one’s thoughts wandered from the past to the very present cold, wet feet.
All told, several hours well spent. And thoughts and emotions dedicated to several exceptional people, starting with Lino’s parents, two sisters and a brother. The rest are interred in the cemetery in Mestre, where I wouldn’t have gone, though I wafted them a number of familial thoughts.
The cemetery as seen from above gives no hint at how maddeningly complicated it is to find the loculi you want amid what are mazes of concrete blocks. The interments aren’t much easier to deal with, either. People were wandering with maps in their hands — no telling what condition the people at the information booth were in at closing time.On the tomb of the Nob. Famiglia Malfer (noble family Malfer). The only lion with a hammer I’ve ever seen — not the Venetian lion, obviously, but still. I’d always thought lions depended on their fangs and claws. More seriously, a quick search reveals that it’s a name to be found in northern Italy in the Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige or Lake Garda areas. In heraldry, the lion represents strength, courage and command; the hammer symbolizes exertion or endeavor, intelligence or ingenuity, and determination or constancy. But we were searching for Lino’s family, so we moved on.Immediately entering the cemetery through the stately official portal (which I’d always seen closed), there was an information booth to the left, and a wooden ramp which I assume was to facilitate the passage of people in wheelchairs (we saw several), as well as strollers.Small children, always so glad to be taken to incomprehensible places for profoundly uninteresting reasons, in the rain. Filial piety flickers faintly, but at least they’re now finally heading for the exit.Astonishing quantities of flowers — the place has never looked this good. I think I heard somebody say that the city had ponied up for a good number of these. Maybe the bridge people said they’d throw in the flowers at cost.
In the section reserved for military graves — most of them ranging from old to extremely old — I was surprised to find two women putting flowers on a tomb. I didn’t ask them anything, although I was curious. But I did make a point of reading the tombstone.BERTUZZI ALDO (typically, the family name is written first): “Tragico e fatale destino stroncava la giovine e generosa esistenza nel compiere un generoso atto altruistico inteso al salvataggio di due persone in procinto di annegare in fiume vi trovava tragica fine.” “Tragic and fatal destiny cut off the young and generous existence in executing a generous and altruistic act intended to save two persons in danger of drowning in a river there he found his tragic end.” (August 9 1946). Being in the military section, he was clearly a soldier who had made it through World War II, and then that.This is something you don’t usually expect to see in a cemetery. It’s not new land, it’s recycled land. After ten years, Lino tells me, they dig you up. If you have relatives that will come take an interest in your remains, your bones (if that’s all that’s left) will be placed in a box and re-filed in a space in a columbarium. Otherwise, bones, tombstones, it all goes. The bones, I’ve been told, are burned; the marble, etc., is disposed of in some way. I don’t know if I’ll spend any time researching this further; I’m sure it’s quite fascinating but at the moment I’m aghast. PS: If nobody comes to account for you, you just disappear. If somebody comes looking for you later, for some reason, oh well. The weak link in this extraordinary system seems to be the postal system. If you move and change your address, the notice the cemetery administration sends you will never reach you. It happened to more than one person I know. I realize that this earth is not our home, but this is a bit much.Walking back over the bridge toward the Fondamente Nove, hot drinks, home.This is what the late morning looked like once we’d left the yellow chrysanthemums behind.The ascent of the raised part of the bridge was only slightly demanding.Homeward bound on the 4.2. Traffic lights on both sides of the bridge managed the two-way traffic, seeing that the boats have to alternate in order to pass through. Somewhat like those picturesque but slightly terrifying one-lane bridges leading to blind corners.
Spring in Venice doesn’t usually come wafting across the lagoon in warm breezes to caress your newly-bare arms. Judging by the riotous amount of flowering trees to be seen the past few days, which all suddenly seem to be in a race toward something, spring has come more or less all at once. The chilly nights and rambunctious windy days and the unreliable sun don’t appear to add up to what I’d imagine that a flowering tree would call “spring,” but that statement just proves I’m not a tree.
So in honor of today, feast your eyes on some of the splendor to be seen here in merely mid-March. If you ever thought you might want to celebrate spring in Venice in May, all the best parts will be long over by then. So I will share some of them now (I’m sure there are many, many more which I haven’t discovered, and tomorrow may well be too late). Let the vernals begin!
The more resplendent trees seem to be found on streets which have no other redeeming characteristic. I wonder if they’re there because somebody else noticed that.These small but intrepid trees are another example of wonderful contrast to one of the most nondescript pockets in deepest Castello.I discovered them for the first time as I was coming around the corner from the other side of the grassy campo. It was quite the little surprise.This tree, on the other hand, is a faithful harbinger which I watch for every year about this time. Too bad you have to go into the hospital to see it, but it certainly gladdens the atmosphere there. I’m sorry its delicate pinkness doesn’t come through as well as I’d have wanted, but that’s just the way it is with ephemeral things. And with my cell phone camera.As my eyes were gorging on the flowers, Lino immediately noticed the bird. He called it a type of pigeon (white-collared, in translation), but it looks more like a dove to me, with a broad band of white around its neck. Any ornithological experts, please make yourselves heard.
I’ve walked countless times through this odd little stretch of structures behind the closed-up church of Sant’ Anna, so I was well acquainted with the jauntiest graffito lion in the city (the little wing is the best). But the tree was just a tree until yesterday, when it became a sort of botanical fountain-firework. I was in no way prepared for it!
They’re only hints, mind you, but they brighten my outlook considerably.
You might not notice them if you weren’t looking for them, but I was. Violets are one of the earliest, rashest signs of spring. They ask no questions about long-term commitment from the first rays of warmth, they just bloom.Leaves on the trees at Sant’ Elena are equally irrepressible, thank heaven.At this fleeting stage they seem more like flowers than leaves, though of course I know that’s totally wrong, botanically speaking. But they aren’t going to be outdone by any mere blossoms.Peach blossoms. They’re not from around here, but they are just as dependable a sign of primavera as some of the fish in the nearby market.Ditto the pussy willows (Salix cinerea). The silvery sheath on each bud is at least as beautiful as sterling. When they bloom, these flowers — which don’t even look like flowers — are rock-star providers of nectar. And to think I always treated them as a curiosity that was just fun to play with.An old German card shows the pussy-willow tradition at Easter and/or Palm Sunday in northern and eastern Europe, as well as Ukraine, Russia, and among the Ruthenian and Kashubian Catholics (I just threw that in.) Here in the sunny Mediterranean the pussy willows are long gone by Easter, but it’s a lovely thought.This year the ever-faithful and -predictable forsythia has just been replaced in my pantheon by this bewitching shrub at the entrance to the Morosini Naval School. Its perfume captured me before I had even noticed its flowers.If any reader can identify this marvel, I’d be grateful. Otherwise I’m just going to have to invent a name for it myself, and it will probably be a long one, like a champion dog. (The pink buds are just on their way to opening into cream-colored flowers, a magical moment which will undoubtedly occur tonight when nobody’s looking.)I imagine it happening not long after sunset, which shades into night much too quickly. Tomorrow will almost certainly reveal some new wonder.
We complain — justifiably — about tourists who take up too much space on the vaporettos with their steamer trunks and expedition backpacks, though I have to say that Venetians with children in strollers the size of tanks is becoming an even more annoying, and even dangerous, problem.
But the other day I encountered a new twist on the “I’m here, deal with it” mentality as evidenced by an exhausted Venetian mother. (Perhaps “exhausted mother” is redundant.) In any case, she was evidently in “standby” mode, mentally speaking. But she was sufficiently alert to have offered me her seat as I passed by, which surprised me.
She wasn’t sufficiently alert, though, to register that she wasn’t at home in her living room, where clearly chaos reigns. I sympathize with that, considering that her little boy, sitting on her lap, appeared to be about two years old. The fountainhead and source of chaos, in other words.
But I am helpless to further interpret her spatial awareness. So I will say no more.
The little boy helpfully clutched it. People walked around it. I failed geometry in high school but even I understood the nature of 90 degrees. I’m not sure what planet we’re living on.
