Venice: I am not making this up

Welcome home, Istanbul

December 3, 2009 5 Comments

Power-walking to the Piazza San Marco two days ago, what should I see but a new mega-piece of publicity covering the facade of the Biblioteca Marciana. And it’s not for Swatch or whoever else has recently benefited from what must be one of the more valuable pieces of billboard space in a major town.

Nope: It’s advertising Istanbul.

In an exceptionally elegant and simple design — with the added allure of a black-and-white photograph that makes the former capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires look like Rita Hayworth swathed in Blackglama mink — the world is being advised not only that Istanbul in 2010 is going to be a European Capital of Culture, but that it is “the most evocative city in the world.” The world. It says so right there.

Not a bad choice of words, considering that Venice seems to have a lock on the phrase “most beautiful city,” though the echo is a little unfortunate. And defining itself as “European” is pretty cool, considering that much of Europe is doing everything it can to make sure only it knows the combination to the lock into the EU. I suppose that the fact that part of Istanbul sits on the European side of the Bosporus could technically make this term admissible. In any case, something worked.

What struck me first as I went striding past was a bracing blast of irony. (I seem to be unusually susceptible to these, like some people are to drafts or mold.) Between 1463 and 1718 Venice was involved in eight major wars with the Ottoman Empire, and a war isn’t some little let’s-agree-to-disagree. Countless Venetians died in all sorts of ways, especially their commanders — Marcantonio Bragadin was flayed alive, Paolo Erizzo was sawn in half — enduring epic sieges, making phenomenal sacrifices, and even achieving one of the great naval victories of history, October 7, 1571, at Lepanto.

And now we have its capital, the Sublime Porte, the epicenter of enmity, looking all sorts of gorgeous and up in the Piazza San Marco, no less.

But on the other hand, what about the Fontego dei Turchi up on the Grand Canal? For centuries there was a thriving Turkish business community right here, which was allowed to have its own headquarters, just like the Germans, Persians, Arabs and many others. This type of establishment was known as a fontego (in Italian, fondaco, from the Arabian fonduk, meaning “inn”) and these establishments usually contained storerooms, strong-rooms for cash, meeting rooms, even bedrooms. (In the case of the Turks, their fontego also contained a hammam and a mosque.)

For a foreign merchant doing business in Venice, having a home base was extremely helpful. It was no less helpful to the Venetian government, considering that keeping ethnic groups corralled simplified surveillance. Simply put, scimitars may have flashed elsewhere, but here Turkish traders were just another part of the immense and complicated commercial reality that sustained Venice’s seemingly effortless glamor.

So that’s what struck me second: That in fact there isn’t any irony at work here at all. Venice had constructed so many trade connections, treaties, and other means of coexistence with the Muslim world — Egyptian Mamluks, Ottoman Turks, and so on — that it’s almost as if the wars occurred on another plane from the daily/yearly business of business. Your Venetian, whether patrician merchant or grimy artisan, was never in doubt as to the need to cultivate and maintain clients; whenever the Pope occasionally placed bans on trade with Them over There, Venice just kept going, trading as usual except by way of Cyprus and Crete.

In fact, Ottoman markets were crucial to Venice’s prosperity, being insatiable customers for Venetian luxury goods: heavy fabrics of silk (especially velvet) and wool, glass, books, and china. Venetians also exported work in gold, especially filigree, which was famous throughout Europe. As one historian puts it, “Without trade with the Muslim world, Venice would not have existed.”

Yes, this is actually how my brain works as I’m cantering around Venice trying to get assorted things done: buying fish, picking up dry cleaning, replacing the battery in my watch, collecting shoes from the man who calls himself a cobbler but who evidently isn’t able or interested in doing anything other than replacing heels. Try to get him to stitch a torn strap on a handbag and he goes all helpless on you, as if the machinery (one hand, one needle, one piece of heavy string) hadn’t been invented.

"Juno" by Paolo Veronese. — "Venice receives from Juno the doge's hat (corno)" by Paolo Veronese, in the Room of the Council of Ten, Doge's Palace. He makes it fairly clear that Venice and gold coins were born for each other.

So while I’m involved in the daily drudgery, dealing with all those little tasks that breed in dark corners at night and produce litters of new little tasks every day, I’m also meandering around mazes of history. I really like living in a city that gives you so many centuries and points of view all knotted up together.

And from what I keep noticing about Venice’s history, I think they really hated having to get involved in all those wars (and not just with the Ottomans, either). Put aside the possibility of death or dismemberment; wars with anybody are so bad for business, so distracting, so disrupting. How much more tempting is the clinking of coins, so warm, so musical. Except, of course, that the wars were intended to make more clinkage possible, otherwise there wouldn’t have been much point in bothering.

So here’s my conclusion: What better place than Venice to publicize Istanbul? That huge billboard practically amounts to the Return of the Native.

History, Venetian-ness

PS to the Madonna della Salute

December 1, 2009 No Comments

One of my favorite things to do on November 21, while I’m sitting in the choir behind the high altar after finally managing to consign my candle, is to gaze upon an extraordinary bas-relief on one wall, fairly high up. It is strange and dramatic and full of emotion and I have been unable to discover any information about it except that which is implied in a memorial plaque on the facing wall.

I apologize for the quality of the photograph but was unable to improve on it in the short, crowded time I was there. Here is the carving:

As you see, a triumphant angel hovers above the figure of a half-drowned man being pulled bodily from the water into a gondola. The faint outlines of the nearby palaces can be discerned. The hair on the victim's head is full of dripping water. — As you see, a triumphant angel hovers above the figure of a man being pulled bodily from the water into a gondola. The faint outlines of the nearby palaces can be discerned. The hair on the victim's head is dripping with water.

I always assumed that the man survived. One reason was that the angel seems so powerful and triumphant that it’s hard to interpret in any way except that of victory or success.

The second reason (and this is only slightly cheating) was because of the dedicatory plaque facing it, which to my primitive brain seemed to be an occasion for offering thanks. Then a friend of mine who teaches Latin translated it for me. It’s not happy.

It says: “That which Pietro Nicola F. Michiel, torn from life by a mournful destiny, had begun to do [or make] on the first of January 1824 , Anna Badoer, who survived her husband, carried to completion according to the terms of his will.”

This only raises so many questions I have to remain calm. Why was he making this? I seriously doubt he was carving his own tombstone. Or perhaps he was making the stone for someone else and he died of an entirely different cause, like appendicitis or cirrhosis or gout. (Can you die from gout?) The incident itself: Who is the man and how did he end up in the water? Diabetic crisis? Suicide? Who was it that pulled him out and — who knows — attempted to administer CPR? I can’t stand not knowing the answers.

What I can tell you, by merely looking at their surnames, is that they were both from old (extremely old) patrician Venetian families. The Michiel came to the primordial Venice in the year 822, and were recorded as one of the 12 “apostolic families” of the city, as was the Badoer family, whose original surname was Partecipazio. It’s easy to find barrels of information on their families, but hardly anything about them. It’s conceivable that he was old enough to have lived during the Venetian Republic and to have gone through its fall and reincarnation as an Austrian colony, which would be enough to make me throw myself into the canal, anyway.

What little more I have been able to learn about Anna Badoer is that an oratory dedicated to her is one of four in the church of San Giorgio in a small village called Maserada sul Piave, 12 km [7 miles] northeast of Treviso. Or it was there in 1838, date of the survey document that listed the church and its possessions. This oratory would presumably not be there because she had achieved any level of sainthood, but she probably paid for it to encourage people to pray for her soul.

And, as we see, we also know that she was faithful in fulfilling her husband’s wishes, whatever or whyever they were, and that’s something worth remembering any day.

Nature, Water

Acqua alta: some snaps

December 1, 2009 No Comments

I will eventually be organizing a Gallery page, but meanwhile here are a few additional views of the water-on-the-ground of yesterday. They are not intended to be sensational, but instructive. There is an important difference in the two concepts, especially where issues involving Venice are concerned.

As you see, the streets of Venice are neither perfectly flat, nor a uniform height above sea level. Therefore reports of Venice being FLOODED are not very helpful. Is this street flooded?

The immediate point of pumping is not to empty your place of water; it's to keep it from getting any higher while the tide is still rising. (Then you pump to get it all out.) One theory of what is making the liquid white is that it is detergent. The theory of my nose leads me to suspect something more primeval. — The immediate point of pumping is not to empty your place of water; it's to keep the level from increasing while the tide is still rising. (Then you pump to get it all out.) One theory of what is making the liquid white is that it is detergent. The theory of my nose leads me to suspect something more primeval.

Sorry, your prescription isn't going to be ready till the pharmacists finish bailing out the store.

No special drama here, they keep the vegetables up off the floor all the time anyway.

Now here's a solution: Get your stuff up off the floor before the water comes in. Simple, cheap, effective -- I welcome explanations of why so many merchants prefer to beg for sympathy as well as contributions from the city to pay for damages. — Now here's a solution: Get your stuff up off the floor before the water comes in. Simple, cheap, effective. I welcome explanations of why so many merchants prefer to beg for sympathy as well as handouts from the city to pay for damage. Why should there be damage in the first place? And by the way, the city doesn't own your shop, you do.

What often contributes to high water occurring is an insistent southeast wind, as you see blowing across the water here.

High-water etiquette requires you to slow down when approaching and passing anyone with knee-high boots. If you are sloshing along you will splash them, and they are already desperately trying to keep their clothes dry.

A very humble but crucial byproduct of high water is that it makes it impossible to pass under most normal bridges. Gondolas, taxis, and especially barges have to either find an alternate route or just wait till the tide falls. Even some vaporetto lines are sent up the Grand Canal because they can't pass under the bridge near Piazzale Roma. — A very humble but crucial side effect of high water is that it makes it impossible to pass under most normal bridges. Gondolas, taxis, and especially barges have to either find an alternate route or just wait till the tide falls. Even some vaporetto lines are sent up the Grand Canal because they can't pass under the bridge near Piazzale Roma.

Oh gosh -- we couldn't get to work on time because there was acqua alta. Here are some men who are looking desperately concerned and distressed by this. I imagine at least one of them is trying to think of the nearest cafe that is on dry ground.

Or maybe it's a guy thing and not related to having boots at all, the need to stop in groups to analyze, compare, contrast, discuss, and otherwise dissect the moment.

I am fascinated by the problem-solving approach taken by the man on the left. His knee-high socks were drenched (see wet footprints) and he is rolling up his trousers. I'm hoping he had the sense at least to have taken off his shoes before he stepped into the water. But why didn't he take off his socks as well?

One has heard of a bridge to nowhere. I offer the passarella, or walkway, to -- well, not exactly nowhere. Right to the water from which it has been placed to defend you. Maybe they ran out of boards.

Venetian-ness, Water

Acqua alta: business as usual

November 30, 2009 3 Comments

As you may already have noticed, the world didn’t end last night.

First, it didn’t rain. So much for the Deluge from Hell. This is also a Good Thing because when there’s lots of rain it not only irritates me, it can also aggravate the acqua alta — not so much because of precipitation precipitating into the lagoon directly, but into the streams and rivers which then, overloaded, empty into the lagoon.

Our street as seen from across the canal at 7:45 AM. The tide is still rising but there is still an island (shrinking) of dry pavement. — Our street as seen from across the canal at 7:45 AM. The tide is still rising but there is an island (shrinking) of dry pavement.

At 5:00 AM the sirens sounded, and I waited to count the tones. There were three. I enjoyed two seconds of relief, then checked myself because of the clearly demonstrated unreliability of the forecast. (It hasn’t rained yet.) But where the sirens are concerned, it wouldn’t have been the first time that one message arrived, to be followed by a revision. It’s better not to be too quick to heave those sighs of relief.

So I lay there in the dark, listening for clues to the water’s progress. I heard someone walking by the window: Normal footsteps. No water yet. Before long, I heard someone else pass making plk-plk-plk noises: Water only an inch or two. Not long after that, I began to hear sloosh-SLOOSH-sloosh-SLOOSH. Water deep enough to require shuffling instead of stepping. Oh well.

This is a beautiful thing to see: water that hasn't risen beyond our first step.

At 7:45 the water was still rising, which was to have been expected. I went out to get the newspaper. At 8:30 it had peaked and was still well within manageable limits. Excellent! What would I have called this on the official warning scale? Code Mauve? Code Robin’s-Egg Blue?

Water all gone. Now let's think about lunch.

At 10:00 the tide was noticeably falling, and by 11:00 the streets were no longer, in Benchley’s famous phrase, full of water.

The scirocco wind, however, has been fairly strong (they said “moderate”) all day, and is predicted to increase to “strong” right about now. Then we’re supposed to have a thunderstorm, then everything should return to normal.

Speaking of normal, one thing which always happens here with acqua alta is that various people put out their bags of garbage for the garbagemen to collect, even though they must know that the men are not going to be collecting because they’re all supposed to be working like crazed beavers setting up and taking down the temporary walkways. So the bags sit there until the rising water lifts them from the pavement and eventually floats them away, out to sea.

Floating bags of garbage: Just one of many unsung aspects of acqua alta.

Floating bags of garbage are NOT acts of God, no matter what their owners may think. Oh wait — the bags don’t have owners. As soon as a bag is on public soil, it suddenly becomes mystically orphaned, anonymous, invisible. Except to me, the maniac foreigner, who watches these plastic spheroids bobbing around and sees a big neon sign above each one flashing
“BRAIN DEAD.”

The show -- the bread, the detergent, the whatever -- must go on. And someone must go with it.

The people out on the street were pretty much moving along with Monday morning as usual. Shops which are likely to be awash were indeed awash; their owners were pumping them out. Some others, like two different butchers, were letting nature to take its course while they got on with business. Evidently neither snow nor rain nor dead of night nor high water can stay these men from the swift completion of their appointed pork chops.

The floor is ankle-deep in brackish water and he is cleaning the plexiglass covering the case of meat. I didn't ask.

I ran into Paolo, the bank teller, out on via Garibaldi.

“No work today,” he told me. “Those idiots from Bergamo [owners of the bank] didn’t listen to us when they were designing the interior. We told them, ‘Put the electric outlets up high.’ They said, “What the hell do you guys know?’ So now all the electric outlets are under water and if we turn on the computers, everything will go poof. All they needed to do was put the outlets higher, but nooooooo…”

For the record, his plan for the day wasn’t altered all that much, because I went past a few hours later when the water had begun to subside and there he was at his teller’s window, working away. High water — unfortunately, if you really want the day off — does not last forever.

Like virtually all Venetians, he took it all in stride. If he has time to think about the street, he clearly isn't worried about his house.

Walking back to the house, I passed a man who was sweeping the water toward the canal. I paused. He was sweeping the pavement of a large street which was still very much under water — hence the water was not being removed, only shifted. This required investigation.

“Dogs,” he said briskly, smiling. “High water is really a good thing for Venice. It doesn’t hurt anybody. And it takes away the smell so dogs don’t go looking for someplace where another dog has ever pooped.”

I recalled having heard a similar comment from Arrigo Cipriani (of Harry’s Bar) when I interviewed him years ago. A native Venetian, he too wasn’t especially impressed by high water. “It’s a great way to get the streets clean,” he declared.

Back in the old days nobody's mother would have carried any child who could walk. Here's a woman thanking God that she stopped at having two. — Back in the old days no mother would have carried any child who could walk. Here's a woman thanking God that she stopped at having two.

“High water was a delight for us when we were kids,” Lino has told me more than once. “But it never made any sense — we’d be in school and the teachers would say ‘There’s high water! Everybody go home!’ And so we’d walk home in the high water; you can imagine what kind of state we were in by the time we got there. Soaking wet right up to here.” (He indicates his collarbone.) “What sense did that make, sending us home because there was high water? In just another hour, the water went down anyway.”

No boots in the old days, either. “Boots? Who had boots? Boots are a newfangled thing that began to come in after 1966. We went home barefoot, carrying our shoes.”

Clearly a few people can still figure out how to get where they're going without boots.

I too, may I note, have walked home barefoot in high water. More than once. I can’t understand people who stand there at the water’s edge looking trapped and helpless like lemurs on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Just take your shoes off and get going! Besides, I can attest that the water is virtually always warm (if that helps to convince you.) The scirocco wind is warm, and we haven’t even had a real cold snap yet. How cold could the water be? Get a grip, people.

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