To my dauntless readers: The situation to which I refer above does not involve Venice, though as you know, every day there are more situations here than anybody has room for.
I know that there has been silence from me the past few days. This silence does not represent either laziness or lack of desire to load you up with all sorts of news and views. Au contraire, as the man said in the Bay of Biscay when asked if he had dined. (Credit to Dorothy Sayers.)
The thing is that I have been hit by a rogue wave of technical issues concerning my blog which have seriously slowed me down. I must resolve at least one or two of them before getting back to posts as before. I may be able to publish something without a photograph — humans did manage to communicate somehow before photographs, I seem to recall — so I may do that to keep you up on at least some of what is going on out here.
In any case, I am on the case, and will be back to you as quickly as the technosphere will allow. I think I must have made it angry somehow. I probably insulted it by acting as if I knew what I was doing.
The papal banner was waving everywhere, including the F. Morosini Naval College. Gold and white were the colors of the entire weekend.
The one and a half days that the Pope spent in and around Venice have left a pleasant glow, it appears, in the hearts of virtually everyone, even the gondoliers. There was a special glow radiating from the Patriarch of Venice, too, which shone, in my opinion, from the eternal flame in his innermost being where his desire to become Pope burns night and day.
But there was no sturm, neither was there any drang. The four gondoliers who rowed His Holiness across the Grand Canal all said they got really emotional; one even said he had goosebumps when it struck him he was rowing the Pope himself.
My goosebumps were also abundant but they were caused less by emotion (sorry) than by the relentless cold wind which was blowing from the east on Saturday afternoon.
Some unidentified official -- there were so many -- helping to spiff up the rope line.
Lino and I, along with about 50 other people, waited outdoors at the Naval College to greet the Pope as he passed from his helicopter to the motor launch. Wind is fine, but we ended up standing for three solid hours out there, drastically underdressed. So I win two extra points for having chills even before the Pope appeared.
A few of my other memories are similarly physical. Speaking of standing for three hours (his helicopter landed at the Naval College 45 minutes late) the wind wasn’t the worst part. It was only the suspense of waiting that smothered the desperate Mayday-Maydays from my feet.
I still love them. I just don't want to wear them. At least not for several whiles.
I can tell you that if the Pope had looked at my feet, he’d have seen two attractive beige pumps with a moderately low heel. If he’d looked at my face, he would have realized that this footwear had been designed by Torquemada, the “hammer of the heretics.” Lino helped me limp home.
The Pope himself, I can confirm from very close range, is very small, very thin, and very old. All those vestments and the magical amplifying effects of television obscure these facts.
I was also musing — as I stood there, resisting hypothermia — on how relatively simple it appears to be Pope, in the sense that his every moment is managed by phalanxes of people of every description. The area was pullulating with important men who couldn’t keep still. They arrived, they departed, singly or in small groups, while we all tried to interpret what significance these movements might have. Naval people, from the Commandant down to the sailor with the bosun’s whistle, mixed with lots of men in dark suits and dark glasses who looked like narcs.
The Guardia di Finanza provided one of several extra-large boats. Perhaps they couldn't find a minesweeper in time.
As for maintaining the safety of the area, there were firemen, divers in wetsuits checking the underwater area where his launch was waiting; State Police, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza, Civil Protection, Capitanerie di Porto. Any entity whose agents are entitled to wear a uniform, or a badge, or carry some communication device, had somebody there.
The college chaplain, Father/Brother Manuel Paganuzzi, and the Commandant, Captain Enrico Pacioni, seem to have just remembered they forgot something.
When the Pope arrived, all these armed people were supplemented by priests and deacons and bishops, assigned to carry things. He doesn’t travel with one large suitcase, he divides his necessities among four or five carry-on bags. And other variously shaped containers. The Pope himself was almost an afterthought to all this entourage. (Suddenly I”m wondering whether in the throes of all these aides, assistants, keepers, hewers of wood and drawers of water, whether His Holiness could just walk away. It might be days before anybody realized he was gone.)
The first wave of bearers and beaters has just arrived; the Pope must be somewhere close by.
Of course all this is necessary. It was already known that the Secret Service had spent days checking every single palace lining the Grand Canal, ringing the doorbells of everybody who had an apartment with a Canal-facing window and asking for names, dates, and serial numbers (so to speak).
Suddenly, the Pope breaks from cover.
Of course this is normal procedure, it’s just that when you think of having to accomplish that little task here, you suddenly realize how many palaces and windows there are along the wettest main street in the world. But it had to be done. No agent wants to be the one who didn’t manage to speak to little old Mrs. Tagliapietra on the fourth floor and find out too late that she let in somebody Sunday morning who claimed to want to read the gas meter.
Sunday morning was the big mass on the mainland for some 300,000 of the faithful. Then he got into his launch and headed back to Venice, and finally the big boat procession in the Grand Canal was on.
I know they're all there to help, but any cardinal who suffers from claustrophobia shouldn't even think about becoming Pope.Captain Pacioni salutes the pontiff as he boards the floating Popemobile. Angelo Cardinal Scola, Patriarch of Venice, awaits his turn. To get on the launch, I mean.Buttoning up to keep out the cold wind. Wish I'd had a couple of vestments, I could really have used them in that wind.And off they go. The lagoon waters for miles around were totally calm -- nobody dared to speed with the flotilla of big official boats standing guard.
We were long since at our assigned place. We tied up the boat at about 11:45. Then we waited. (“Papal Visit” translates into the Real-Life Dialect as “Bring a book and food and a jacket and make sure they leave the light on for you.”)
Finally, at about 1:30, came the long-awaited moment. The sun was shining, the breeze had gone down somewhat, and there were more boats than I’ve seen in a corteo in quite some time. Big, important, glamorous boats. I would never presume to compare the emotion generated by the Pontifex Maximus to that generated by masses of Venetian boats, but I can tell you one thing:
It’s the only procession I’ve participated in that called to mind the emotions experienced by Venetians in centuries past at similar visitations. Because while the procession for the Festa de la Sensa is nice, and the procession for the Regata Storica is just one postcard after another, these are merely re-evocations of a remote event. This was an event in itself; it wasn’t replicating anything. I’m not sure I ever thought this was possible anymore.
My feet have their own thoughts, however, and they are not happy ones. And the shoes have been sent to the corner for a very, very long Time Out.
The results of the two elections held among the gondoliers have come in and now the pope can sleep easier knowing who exactly is going to be rowing him from one shore to the other next Sunday. (One of them won’t be Charon. I presume.)
One can hope that the pope's voyage across the Grand Canal won't bear any resemblance to this little jaunt. ("Charon Carries Souls Across the River Styx," by Alexander Litovchenko.)
And the winners are: Franco and Bruno Dei Rossi, nicknamed “Strigheta” (not much of a surprise there, they were at the head of the pack several days ago), and one each of the two famous battling pairs of racers: From the “Vignottini,” Igor Vignotto; from the other, Giampaolo D’Este.
Comments in the Gazzettino on this outcome were as sardonic as they were swift:
“This is splendid news. In the end, love always triumphs.”
“Since when have gondoliers all become basibanchi (these are those obsessively pious people who are always in church)? Is this the miracle we’ve been waiting for from Giovanni Paolo II?” (who was beatified yesterday, first step on the road to official sainthood).
“Given the well-known diplomatic refinement among these four, it makes one wonder … if they can manage not to swear at each other for ten minutes. It wouldn’t be so bad even if it were to happen. Venice couldn’t present itself worse than what it is, even if it wanted to.”
So everyone has finally calmed down? I know one person who hasn’t: Lino. He is all of the following: Astonished, infuriated, and offended, genuine, incandescent emotions far removed from the Lilliputian self-serving quibbling that has distinguished this whole affair.
Why is Lino so angry? Because of all the people mooted for the Papal Row, he regards Igor Vignotto as the last — actually, far behind the last — gondolier who deserves this honor.
Yes, we remember in the end that rowing the pope is, in fact, an honor, and not just another gig. I realize that “honor” is a word that rarely — well, never — seems to find a seat on the bus of normal conversation regarding gondoliers, but a papal visit is a noteworthy exception and the men who row him ought to have consciences which have been washed at least on the “delicate” cycle.
Igor and Giampaolo have two things in common. One is that they both row in the bow of the gondolino, which means that they, at least technically, can’t be considered guilty of all the skulduggery which has led to the current bitterness because they aren’t the ones responsible for steering the boat. All they’re doing up there in the front is rowing their brains out.
Their other link, unfortunately, is that they both were banished from racing for the entire 2008 season because of their respective crimes in 2007.
In the case of Giampaolo, he was found guilty of having threatened a race judge with serious bodily harm, his way of asserting his innocence regarding an infraction during a race for which the judge had punished him. The infraction is one thing, but stating in the hearing of many people that he would be prepared to settle the score by attacking the judge physically is, as they say here, “another pair of sleeves.” Also, there’s a rule against it.
Giampaolo D'Este.
I note that he only said he wanted to do it, he didn’t actually hurt anybody. This is a good thing, because while privacy laws make it difficult to discover his exact height and weight (I could probably do it eventually, but time is short), I can say that he appears to correspond to the stature of a two-year-old grizzly. One of his nicknames is “The Giant.” But rules are rules, even for midgets, and we can’t have racers going around volunteering to bash the judges.
But Igor’s case was worse, because what he did not only offended the rules and the judges, but all the other racers — those present as well as the hundreds stretching back into history — and the entire world of racing and, in a sense, the city of Venice itself.
It happened at the end of the culminating race of the Regata Storica three years ago (September 2007), in what then was a notorious altercation but which now seems to have been totally forgotten (which also adds to Lino’s indignation),
It’s true that the race had been unusually fierce, even by the standards of the searing rivalry pitting him and his cousin against the D’Este-Tezzat pair, and it’s true that the finish was so close that the judges had to check the video to determine the winner. But when Igor heard that they had given him second place, he kind of lost his mind.
Igor Vignotto exultant after passing D'Este to win the race at Murano in 2009, the year they both returned from exile.
Not only did he engage in a volcanic exchange with the mayor, Igor grabbed the prize pennants and threw them into the Grand Canal.
Not just the two pennants destined for him and his cousin, but all eight pennants waiting to be awarded to the rowers of the first four boats to finish.
Of the many things which, in the view of various people, would have been much better thrown into the water (the “Boy with the Frog” being one of them), pennants have never, and should never, be treated in this manner. Set aside the fact that not all of them got fished out in time; or the fact that those that were fished out were essentially D.O.A., thanks to the salt water. It’s not even a question of whether the city made replacements. It’s not even a question. He shouldn’t have done it, and however good it may have made him feel at the moment, that’s how bad it made everybody else feel.
Not much is sacred to your average Venetian racer, but the prize pennant comes pretty close. Red for first place, white for second, green for third, blue for fourth. The remaining five teams just have to smile and look ahead to next time.
So when Lino heard that Igor was one of the Papal Rowers, it was Too Much, even in a city where things that are Too Much happen every day.
Bruno Dei Rossi "Strigheta," the only man ever to have won all the official races, rowing in the bow or the stern.
First a rower allows himself to essentially spit in the collective eye of the city, the race, the other racers, and history, and now he gets a reward? Of all the people who could have been chosen, they chose a person who had committed an outrage that had never been committed by anyone, not even “Mad Dog” Sullivan. And, strange to say, so far Lino is the only person who has expressed any opinion on this.
There’s a sprightly ditty in the second act of “The Gondoliers,” by Gilbert and Sullivan. It’s called “Here we are at the risk of our lives.”
Franco Dei Rossi "Strigheta." Oddly, for two such great racers, his seasons rowing with his brother were not their best.
I think it should be played in the background all day next Sunday.
Perhaps your local gazette hasn’t mentioned it yet, but Pope Benedict XVI is planning a big trip soon. He’ll be touring Northeast Italy, and will be in or around Venice on May 7 and 8.
"King Henri III of France visiting Venice in 1574, escorted by Doge Alvise Mocenigo and met by the Patriarch Giovanni Trevisan," by Andrea Micheli "Vicentino." This is the kind of welcome everyone had come to expect.
Venice has a long and prodigious history of state visits — King Henry III of France and Poland, in 1574, was one of the more famous guests, just one of a seemingly infinite procession of princes, ambassadors, potentates, emperors and, of course, popes coming to see the sights, visit the doge, and usually ask for some favor, like money or soldiers. Reading the list of deluxe visitors over the centuries gives the impression that the main business of Venice was hosting foreign notables, while other activities such as running an empire filled the random empty moments, kind of like a hobby.
Yet His Imminence has aroused not only joy and excitement among the faithful, but tension and recrimination and a series of increasingly regrettable remarks among the city’s gondoliers concerning who is going to get to row him the approximately five minutes it takes to row from San Marco to the church of the Salute, and in what boat. By a mystic coincidence, gondoliers are also known as pope (POH-peh), because they row on the stern (poppa) of the gondola. I have no idea what this might portend.
"The reception of Cardinal Cesar d'Estrees 1726," by Luca Carlevaris. Just all part of a normal day.
Don’t suppose that the battle to transport the pontiff is any particular evidence that gondoliers are so pious. A pious gondolier would be a distant cousin to a pious illegal-clam fisherman, or a pious doctor of a cycling champion. I’m not saying it’s impossible, just kind of unusual. But they do like to be the center of attention and, in fact, they’re used to being regarded as some sort of star. At least to the damsels they may be so fortunate as to row around the canals.
Popes aren’t supposed to cause dissension, they’re supposed to resolve it. But Benedict has unwittingly set off a sort of collective seizure.
Pope John Paul II being rowed in the city's balotina by four "re del remo" in 1985; high astern is the legendary Gigio "Strigheta."
First: Luciano Pelliccioli, vice-president of the gondola station heads (and a gondolier) offered to join Aldo Reato, president of the gondola station heads (and a gondolier) to row His Sanctity in Luciano’s extremely elaborate and glamorous gondola.
No!! The cry went up. Why should those two men profit by their position and crowd out equally (I mean, more) deserving gondoliers? Why, indeed?
Furthermore!! Champion racer Roberto Busetto, never at a loss for an opinion (he isn’t a gondolier, but that’s a detail), objected on the grounds that if Luciano should ever think of selling his gondola, he could easily make a huge profit by marketing it as the gondola that had carried the pope. Busetto gets five bonus points for crassness, though that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
Anyway, Luciano withdrew his offer of his gondola and himself. Reato also withdrew, but the incessant calls have continued. There are 425 gondoliers and by now probably each of the remaining 423 has called him at least once. Some of them have fantastic reasons to be chosen: “Padre Pio came to me in a dream and said you should pick me,” said one. Another person suggested Giorgia Boscolo, the first woman gondolier. That idea burnt up on reentry into reality.
Then somebody suggested the “Strigheta” brothers, Franco and Bruno, sons and heirs (and gondoliers) of one of the greatest racers/gondoliers of all time, Albino “Gigio” Dei Rossi, known as “Strigheta.” (He rowed not only one, but four popes in his day.) They’re loaded with credentials and nobody hates them, which helps.
Then somebody suggested a four-rower gondola, rowed by the current racing champions, the Vignottini and D’Este and Tezzat. I think the idea was that rowing the pope could somehow magically bring peace to these two savagely feuding pairs, though somebody else opined that it wasn’t appropriate to expect the Holy Father to resolve every little neighborhood squabble. In any case, the four men have declared their willingness to row the Pontifex Maximus together, which is already a big step forward.
Then somebody asked: Why should it be a gondola? Excellent question, considering that the city of Venice owns a more capacious gondola-type boat called a balotina, on which Pope John Paul II was borne along the Grand Canal in 1985.
Then some daring person suggested using the “disdotona,” or 18-oar gondola, which belongs to the Querini rowing club, and which in my opinion is not only the most spectacular boat in the city, by far, but would provide 18 men the chance to Row for Holiness.
Naturally, this idea got nowhere, because nobody thought one club should be given preference over another. We’ve all got great boats, the thinking goes — why them and not us?
Even when it's not doing anything, the "disdotona" is impressive. I think the pope would look splendid seated in the bow, what with the velvet drapery trailing in the water and all.
I’m surprised nobody has yet suggested using the “Serenissima,” the huge decorated bissona with a raised stern, making the pope easy to see plus providing space for his entourage and some trumpeters, if that seemed appropriate. But so far no mention of this little coracle.
Which brought up the next question: Why should the rowers be gondoliers? Another useful point. In the olden days, a visiting potentate — such as John Paul II — would be rowed by the necessary number of “re del remo,” men who had won the Regata Storica five years in succession. There aren’t many of them, because it’s fiendishly hard to do. That would instantly reduce the number of candidates to something manageable.
And by now there has been at least one practical joke. Someone purporting to be Aldo Reato (president of the gondola station heads) called the Gazzettino and said the matter had been settled: Luciano’s fancy gondola was going to be used after all, rowed by Franco Girardello, a retired gondolier who goes by the nickname “Magna e dormi” (eat and sleep). This fantasy was quickly dispelled by all concerned except the anonymous prankster.
The "Serenissima" was born for this kind of event. Odd that so far nobody has suggested it.
The most recent bulletin is that the matter will be put to a secret vote among the gondoliers. The mind rather reels. Busetto thinks the papal gondola is going to cost the moon at resale? How much is a gondolier’s vote going to be worth, at this point? No checks, no credit cards.
Comments from bemused readers of the Gazzettino run from “The pope doesn’t care who rows him” to “What a farce” to”Actually, Padre Pio came to ME in a dream and said I should do it.”
A certain Riccardo made the following suggestion:
“Requirements for candidacy:
Never to have blasphemed; Never to have used foul language; Never to have spoken in a coarse tone of voice. In the case of more than one valid candidate (doubtful), preference will be given to the one who has a good knowledge of the principles of Catholicism, and/or who has read at least one of the 16 chapters of the Gospel of St. Mark, patron saint of our city.”
This pastoral visit has been in the planning stages for at least three months — probably more — and yet here we are, at the last minute, dealing with the frenzied bleating of the flock.
Meaning no disrespect, I think it would have been better for everybody if they had given a crash course in rowing to a Rastafarian and a dervish. I can’t think of a gondolier who could possibly be cooler than that.
