Just to show that it’s not all lamentation and garment-rending out here, I’m sharing a glimpse of a blithe little moment in the Piazza San Marco this morning.
Four French women (no, they hadn’t been sent as reparations, or hostages, by Napoleon…) were celebrating the birthday of one of them. It was pretty sweet. I didn’t ask what else the day had in store for them. Any people who are able to come up with this as the centerpiece of a party are capable of just about anything, and I hope they did them all.
This sort of celebratory stegosaurus-tail baguette certainly upstages your ordinary old cupcake. The woman on the left was celebrating her “28th-and-a-half” birthday. I don’t see a half candle, but never mind. I didn’t wait to watch, but trying to light, and keep lit, 28 candles facing into the wind was kind of like trying to keep all those plates spinning on their little sticks. Anyway,I wasn’t there to stage-manage their birthday bread. They were having a great time, and that’s the end of the story.
One of Napoleon’s most famous, and easy to notice, alterations to Venice was the destruction of the church of San Geminiano in the “mouth” of the Piazza San Marco, here shown in a painting by Canaletto. It was designed by Jacopo Sansovino and had been there for several centuries, but the little corporal wanted to build a ballroom and the church was in the way.The result was a homogeneous stretch of building dubbed the “Ala Napoleonica,” or “Napoleonic Wing.” The space is now occupied by the Correr Museum. (Naya Collection).
Talk about Venetian history long enough — say, eight minutes, or even fewer — and you will almost certainly refer at least once to Napoleon Bonaparte. If you are somehow able to avoid mentioning him, you should embed the secret in a cellphone game because I think it would be a challenge.
And why is this? Because on May 12, 1797, his army entered Venice and the Venetian Republic fell forever. That was one day. Then the damage really began.
Napoleon craved Venice for several reasons, one of which was that it was the richest city in Europe. He needed money to pay for his wars, and when he was done, the city was eviscerated of tons of art works, precious metals, and gems. His soldiers spent two weeks carting treasures out of the basilica of San Marco. What he stripped from the “Bucintoro,” the doge’s state barge, was enough to keep most of us in Kobe steak for the rest of our lives.
Even if you didn’t know that, you walk through his handiwork in the course of any ordinary stroll here — through campos named for saints whose churches are nowhere to be found, for example — because the Venice we see today is the result of months of devastation wrought upon the city in the fulfillment of his ideas.
Napoleon decided that the city needed a public garden — Le Bois du Castello? — more than it needed the buildings which occupied the space where the Giardini Pubblici are today. Yes, the trees are nice. So were the church and convent of San Domenico, the church and convent of San Nicolo’ di Bari, the “hospital” of the marinai, or sailors, the church and convent of the Concezione di Maria Vergine , and the church and convent of Sant’Antonio Abate.
If you want to try to imagine the city before it was disemboweled (I often try, and usually fail), here is a partial list of the buildings Napoleon got his hands on. My source is “Storie delle Chiese dei Monasteri delle Scuole di Venezia Rapinate e Distrutte da Napoleone Bonaparte” by Cesare Zangirolami (Filippi Editore – Venezia). Some of these structures were completely demolished, some merely gutted and abandoned, or decommissioned, so to speak, like sinking battleships, and used as warehouses (coal, tobacco, etc.) or assorted other really practical purposes, such as barracks. A few have been restored and resuscitated, but not to their former use — you’ll recognize the names of some you’ll have at least walked past. This list does not include the 80-some palaces he razed. Nor the tombs of doges and patricians which have disappeared. But the book does list each work of art which is gone forever.
Abbey of San Cipriano
Churches:
Dell’Anconeta. Sant’Agnese, Sant’Agostino, Sant’Anna, Sant’Antonio Abate, Sant’Anzolo, Sant’Apollonia, Sant’Aponal, dell’Ascensione, San Basegio, San Basso, San Bernardo, San Biagio, San Biagio e Cataldo, San Boldo, San Bonaventura, Cavalieri di Malta, della Celestia, delle Convertite, del Corpus Domini, della Croce, della Croce alla Zuecca, San Cataldo, Santa Chiara, Santa Chiara di Murano, Santi Cosma e Damiano, San Daniele, San Domenico, Sant’Elena, Santi Filippo e Giacomo, San Geminiano, San Giacomo di Rialto, San Giacomo della Zuecca, San Giovanni Battista, San Giovanni Battista dei Battuti, San Giovanni dei Furlani, San Giovanni Laterano, San Girolamo, San Giuseppe di Murano, Santa Giustina, della Grazia, San Gregorio, Santa Lena, San Leonardo, San Lorenzo, Santi Marco e Andrea, Santa Margarita (sic), Santa Maria Annunziata, Santa Maria Celeste, Santa Maria degli Angeli, Santa Maria della Carita’, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Santa Maria delle Vergini, Santa Maria del Pianto, Santa Maria Maddalena, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Maria Nova, Santa Marina, Santa Marta, San Martino Vescovo, San Matteo Apostolo, San Matteo di Murano, San Mattia, San Maurizio, San Michele Arcangelo, San Nicoletto della Lattuga, San Nicolo’ di Bari, Ognissanti, San Paternian, San Pietro Martire, San Provolo, del Santo Sepolcro, dello Spirito Santo, San Salvador di Murano, Santa Scolastica, San Sebastiano, San Severo, Santa Sofia, San Stefano di Murano, San Stin, Santa Ternita, della Trasfigurazione, della Santissima Trinita’, dell’Umilta’, San Vio.
Islands (not the islands themselves but the edifices upon them):
Sant’Andrea, la Certosa, San Cristoforo della Pace, San Giorgio in Alga, della Grazia, San Secondo.
Monasteries: (in some cases the structures remain and are even in use, but he dismembered their congregations, some of which were admittedly small, but still. I’ve been to many offices which are housed in former convents and cloisters).
Sant’Anna, Sant’Antonio Abate, San Bernardo, Santi Biagio e Cataldo, Santa Chiara di Murano, Santi Cosma e Damiano, della Croce, San Daniele, delle Dimesse, San Domenico, San Francesco della Vigna, San Giacomo, San Giovanni Battista, San Giovanni Laterano, San Giuseppe, San Lorenzo, Santi Marco e Andrea, Santa Maria degli Angeli, Santa Maria dei Servi, Santa Maria delle Vergini, Santa Maria del Pianto, Santa Maria Maddalena, San Martino Vescovo, San Matteo, San Mattia, San Michele di Murano, San Pietro Martire, del Santo Sepolcro.
The Scuola degli Albanesi in Calle del Piovan. It’s really hard to notice, let alone appreciate, this wonderful image in such a narrow street. (Photo: John Dall’Orco)
Oratorio della Concezione, Oratorio di Sant’Orsola.
Ospitale degli Incurabili, Ospitale dei Marinai.
Patriarcato (at San Pietro di Castello, the palace of the Patriarch of Venice till 1807, when San Marco was made the city’s cathedral).
Priorato (Priory) di Malta
Scuole (headquarters of the many guilds and confraternities):
degli Albanesi, della Carita’, San Francesco, San Girolamo, San Giovanni dei Battuti, San Giovanni Evangelista, della Madonna della Pace, San Marco, Santa Maria e Cristoforo, dei Mercanti, della Misericordia, del Nome di Gesu’, dei Pittori, della Santissima Trinita’, dei Stampatori e Librai, San Stefano, San Teodoro, dei Varoteri.
And people talk about Attila.
One of my favorite hidden-in-plain-sight monuments is this plaque (1531) above the door of what used to be the Scuola di Santa Maria degli Albanesi, or scuola of St. Mary of the Albanians. It is in the Calle del Piovan, which leads from Campo San Maurizio to Campo Santo Stefano. The scene depicts Sultan Mehmed II (his Grand Vizier in low relief behind him) who is observing the castle of Scutari (today Shkoder), which fell to the Turks in 1479, after which there was an influx of Albanians into Venice.
Like Greek temples and Gothic cathedrals, back in the great days, many (if not most) Venetian palaces were painted — frescoed, that is — usually by the best painters around (Titian, Giorgione, Tintoretto, etc.). Palazzo Barbarigo alla Maddalena on the Grand Canal is one of the few that retains even slight traces of what once was sumptuous and ubiquitous decoration. As far as I know, it’s not for rent even for the tiniest little party.
The latest overheard comment has left me floating, becalmed, in a pool of perplexity.
I was walking along toward the vaporetto stop at the Giardini, a route which is very heavily traveled, as you might imagine. Excellent territory for hearing bits of conversation (as in “Is Paris beautiful?”).
A young man overtook me. He was dressed in a sort of TriBeCa way with a long blond ponytail, but didn’t seem especially eccentric in any noticeable way.
He was talking on his cell phone, and what I heard, in English with a light British accent as he went by was:
“In any case, it will probably be cheaper to rent a palace on the Grand Canal.”
Cheaper than what? Buying an island in the Maldives? Building an F-16? Platinum-plating your armored Bugatti Veyron Super Sports car?
A person for whom renting a palace on the Grand Canal is cheaper than anything is a person … I don’t know how to finish this. All I know is that renting a palace on the Grand Canal would not be the solution to any financial conundrum that I have now, or probably ever will have. But should I ever win the lottery (which I intend to do, just as soon as I find the time), at least now I know how to evaluate my relative expenses.
But comes the dawn: I mentioned this remark to my faithful computer necromancer on via Garibaldi and he wasn’t perplexed for even an instant.
“I think he was talking about where to hold a big party,” he said. “My brother works as a freelance waiter, and on one occasion he asked if I wanted to work an event with him.” The costs of organizing a major party in a big hotel, he went on to explain, get to be pretty high. According to the numbers he cited at random, the package put together by an A-list hotel can reach an amazing total. If I understood him correctly, putting the event together on your own — venue, then catering from somewhere else, then something else from somewhere else, and on down the list of components — can actually turn out to be less.
I’m not commenting, I’m merely reporting. You see? If I carried hotel advertising on my blog, I couldn’t have written that. But then again, I’d have been swamped by links to palaces, catering services, musicians, ventriloquists, florists, purveyors of candles and the occasional epergne, renters of chairs and tables, and on and on till daybreak.
The peak tide forecast for last night at 11:20 PM was 130 cm.
At around 8:30 we heard the siren, with three tones. Not a happy sound, but one that does not portend water in our house.
About an hour later, sirens again, with four tones. Not happy at all, though we still have a chance of staying dry. Evidently the scirocco had gotten stronger. In fact, we could (as usual in these cases) hear it making its customary deep roar out along the Lido’s Adriatic beaches.
At 10:00 PM, a look out the window revealed water ambling inland. It had just gone past our first step, which is fine because as long as it’s moving forward it’s not moving upward (at least, not much).
At 10:30 PM, another look showed that the water wasn’t ambling inland anymore. It was just sitting there, with a few little ripples here and there. And no longer did we hear the wind roaring, which meant the wind had either dropped or changed direction.
Reprieved! Because the fact that the tide was due to turn in less than an hour (an imprecise prediction, but that’s what we were going by) meant that at 10:30 the tide was already entering the phase known to us as “stanca,” or “tired.” Slowing down. Losing headway. Coasting in neutral. However you want to think of it.
Therefore the tide wouldn’t be rising much more, if at all, before it began to go out.
At 11:00 PM, the tide was visibly receding. Early! I’ll take it!
So, instead of getting water nearly up to our top step, as per the warning sirens, it didn’t even make it halfway up the first step. My guess is that it would have been a two-siren height, at best.
The traditional conundrum: Which is worse? When the Tide Center’s prediction turns out to be right? Or when it’s wrong?
If you saw this, would your first instinct be to call some city office to find out if it might be going to rain?
I haven’t read today’s newspaper’s account of all this because they become pretty monotonous. One truly monotonous component is the assortment of complaints from people about how inaccurate the forecast was, and the weary reply from the Tide Center that with the few coins a year they’re allotted as financing, it’s a wonder they get anything done at all.
I’d like to add another viewpoint in support of the Tide Center, run by the exemplary Paolo Canestrelli, who has been dealing with this for decades. (I would bet money that when he retires — the prospect of which must be the one thing that keeps him going — he is going to go live in a yurt on the steppes of Outer Mongolia.)
Here is my viewpoint: Why cast blame on the Tide Center? It was established in the early Seventies in order to alert the city to possible exceptional high tides — a decision clearly inspired by the Infamous Acqua Alta (IAA, to me) of 1966.
But there had been plenty of high waters up until then. Venetians had grown up with it, and most of them could recognize the signs of impending high water. They didn’t need a siren to tell them what was going on.
Or did they?
I said “most of them.” Lino’s brother-in-law, Roberto, for some reason, seems to have been born government-tropic, leaning instinctively toward what officials say and not what his eyes transmitted to his very own brain. This was unfortunate, because Roberto lived on the ground floor below Lino’s apartment.
Lino remembers that on that fateful November 4 there had been heavy weather all day (wind, higher-than-usual tide, all the usual markers). He knew when the tide was supposed to turn, therefore he noticed immediately that it had not, in fact, turned. Which meant that six hours later, when it was supposed to rise again, it was going to begin rising from a much higher level than usual.
While he was evaluating all this, he looked up at the cable (phone? electricity?) strung high up across his street. He saw a rat running along it.
That’s when he knew it was time to start preparing for serious water.
So he went to his brother-in-law and said, “Hey Roberto, we’re in for really high water — we’ve skipped a tide turn and the water’s not going down. I’ll help you get your furniture upstairs.”
To which Roberto replied, “No no, nothing’s going to happen. The city (I don’t know what office that would have been back then) says that blah blah we’re going to be okay blah blah.”
To which Lino said, “Listen, it’s not looking good AT ALL. I will help you carry your things upstairs! Let’s get on it!”
To which Robert replied, “No no, blah blah they said nothing’s going to happen blah blah.”
To which Lino replied, “Suit yourself.”
And so, two days later, Roberto had to throw out virtually all of his furniture, which was so full of lagoon water it would never be usable again.
I wasn’t there, but I knew him years after this event, and he was still not the type to say, “Boy, did I ever screw up. Why didn’t I listen to you?” He was the type, of which there is now an over-supply, who would have blamed the city for having erred in its prediction.
It strikes me that people nowadays have come to use the Tide Center as a crutch. By which I don’t mean everybody should take a course in meteorology, or that the Tide Center is incompetent, because it isn’t.
What I mean is that there are too many variables in the weather (such as the wind suddenly dropping) for the Tide Center to keep up with, minute by minute, to ensure that every single person in Venice is going to know, every single minute, what to do.
There was a life before the Tide Center, and when there was acqua alta most people were well aware it was on the way. When Lino was a boy, people didn’t even wear rubber boots. Who had money to spend on boots? You went barefoot, as I occasionally have done.
Now there’s a Tide Center, and instead of helping people act more intelligently (its fundamental purpose), its mere existence seems to have given people an excuse to behave like quivering bewildered rabbits.
The Tide Center isn’t there to save you, people. Only you can do that.
If the Tide Center is predicting high water, why do so many people put their garbage bags out on the street? Does that mean they don’t believe the forecast? Or do they just not care? If they don’t care, then I think that pretty much closes the discussion on how distressing acqua alta is. This event was December 1, 2008, but nothing has changed except the varying heights of the water.This is a man willing to brave the ferocity of the elements to get the serum through to Nome. Sorry, I mean to get the boots somewhere to people who are evidently stranded. Funny thing is, by the time he gets home and they get the boots on, the water will be gone.These people are dangerously irresponsible. Don’t they know they’re supposed to be frantic with worry and indignation?
