We can intuit victory, but who? Where? Why? And there are also several “when”s to keep track of.
This imposing pillar presides over the entrance to the Giardini, studded with curious protrusions. It’s big, it’s slightly forbidding, and although one can interpret certain components, the whole calls for some explanation. That’s my cue.
Part 1: The monument itself. Part 2: Some context on what it signifies. Be warned, there is a great deal of fascinating (to me) information ahead.
The column we see today is a trophy of the Italian victory in World War 1, installed here to honor the then-Royal Navy. It had been commissioned by the Austro-Hungarian navy in honor of Vice Admiral Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, and inaugurated on October 29, 1876. The column stood proudly in Pula (formerly Pola) Croatia, Austria’s primary military naval base in the Adriatic from 1853 until 1918, and a mere 84 miles (134 km) from Venice.
Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary on November 4, 1918, Italy occupied the Istrian peninsula, where Pula sits. In the grand tradition of victors, on February 1, 1919 admiral Umberto Cagni offered this bit of booty to someone on his side — specifically, the city of Genova, though this idea seems to have evaporated somehow. So the column was taken down and sent to Venice, a city which in any case had more shared history with Istria than Genova did. It was installed where we see it today, then modified in a few noteworthy ways.
This archival photograph shows how the column appeared in its original setting. Notice the medallion in the base, which carried the profile of Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian. That space now contains the lion of San Marco.Our guy.
As for why the column was designed this way, all the world knows that Pula is extremely famous for its many Roman relics, including one of the largest Roman amphitheatres still extant. Perhaps wishing to imply a connection between imperial Rome and Austria-Hungary, the creators of this monument may well have remembered the impressive column of Gaio Duilio.
This reconstruction of the “Colonna Duilia” of Gaio Duilio is displayed in the Museum of Roman Civilization in Rome. He was the first Roman commander to win a naval victory (over the Carthaginians in 260 B.C.), which established Roman domination of the Mediterranean. The obvious points of similarity with the column in Venice are the nautical symbols in the center and the reproductions of the rostra along the sides.These rostra represent the articles removed as trophies from captured enemy ships. Attaching a bronze spur to the bow of the warship at the waterline — a stroke of genius first attributable to the Greeks — was what gave the term “ramming speed” real meaning.A rostrum recovered from an ancient shipwreck near Messina (Aqualadroni).“Olympias” is a reproduction of a Greek trireme; the bronze rostrum is a copy of one in the Piraeus archaeological museum and weighs 440 pounds (200 kilos).So why do we say that someone giving a lecture is speaking from the rostrum? That was the name of the large platform in the Roman Forum from which orators spoke to the people; it was originally bedecked with the six rostra taken from the enemy ships at the Battle of Antium (Anzio) in 338 B.C. Shown here is a rendering of how the space looked at that time, and today. (researchgate.net)On the left side of the base of the column as you face it is: “Erzherzog Ferdinand Maximilian von Osterreich K.K. ViceAdmiral.” Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria Imperial and Royal Vice Admiral.On the right side of the base as you face the column is this message: “Questa colonna rostrata, eretta a Pola dalla Marina Austriaca, per onorare Massimiliano Arciduca, la flotta Italiana, vindice di Lissa, porto’ come pegno di vittoria a Venezia. Oggi e’ simbolico dono dei Marinai d’Italia alla Regina dell’Adriatico a ricordo dei compagni caduti per la redenzione del nostro mare. 4 novembre 1918 4 novembre 1929 A.VII.” (Translated by me): “This column with the rostra, erected at Pula by the Austrian Navy to honor Archduke Maximilian, the Italian fleet, avenging Lissa, took as a token of victory to Venice. Today it is a symbolic gift of the Seamen of Italy to the Queen of the Adriatic in memory of their companions fallen for the redemption of our sea. 4 november 1918 – 4 November 1929 Anno VII (Fascist Year VII).” The Battle of Lissa (July 20, 1866) was fought by the Austrian and Italian navies in one of the first great naval battles between steam-powered warships, and the last in which ramming was used. It was also, as you might have gathered, a major Italian defeat. Touches of irony: The Italian flagship was rammed by the Austrian flagship named “Erzherzog Ferdinand Max” (he of the column), and commanded by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff. “Tegetthoff” was a dreadnought named in his honor (1912) that was assigned to the Italians as spoils of war in 1919, and demolished in 1924. So we’re even?
Victory! It’s an event, obviously, but you might not have known that she was also a goddess, analogous to the Greek Nike. A major difference, however, was that while Nike represented victory and triumph, she did not grant victory, but only confirmed it by placing the laurel wreath on the victor’s head. She was depicted hovering over the winner of an athletic or poetry competition; the obverse of every Olympic medal bears Nike’s figure, with palm frond and laurel wreath. An altar and statue dedicated to Victory was placed in the Roman Senate by Augustus in 29 B.C. to commemorate the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. Defending this altar was the last great conflict between paganism and Christianity in Rome.
This is the fully-equipped Roman divinity: Wreath of braided laurel, symbolizing wisdom and glory, and olive representing peace and victory. A palm frond (or sometimes a staff) in the left hand, and wings. Over time, Victory became a symbol of victory over death, and was understood to determine who would be successful in war. Over time she came to symbolize political victory, until the time of Augustus when she was seen as the base of the emperor’s military power. The assembled Senate made a sacrifice to her statue of solid gold every morning.
Winged figures representing victory, and referred to as “victories”, were common in Roman official iconography, and represented the spirit of victory rather than the goddess herself. They were depicted on silver coins of varying value, generally called vittoriato. After the Christianization of the Roman Empire they slowly were transformed into Christian angels.
Figure of Nike excavated at Vani, Republic of Georgia. The Kingdom of Colchis, in today’s southwest Georgia, had extensive contacts with Greek culture through trade. Colchis began to be settled in the 8th century B.C.The Berlin Victory Column commemorates the Prussian victory in three wars in the mid-19th century; the gilded bronze figure of Victory was added in 1873.Of course I like ours better.
Part 2 will relate a few of the Italian Navy’s feats in the Adriatic during World War 1, in order to clarify why this monument is somewhat more than just a towering granite cylinder.
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.
Today is Martedi’ Grasso (Mardi Gras) and Carnival is wrapping up. It wrapped up a few days ago in via Garibaldi, not with a bang, not with anything. On Giovedi’ Grasso, the stage, inflatable slide and trampolines were going full tilt, overrun by swarms of unchained children. The day after, nothing. Everything was just … gone.
There are still frittelle and galani on sale and the streets are still speckled with confetti, yet the revelers are nowhere to be seen. I think whoever’s still around has migrated to the Piazza San Marco, where the big closing events take place. I won’t be there. I’ll be sitting at home in the dark, like some addict, secretly eating the last of the galani.
Galani, the last batch. They are doomed and so am I.Frittelle veneziane are somewhat difficult to find; lately everybody seems to want them filled with pastry cream or zabaglione. I stick with the traditional solid balls of fried dough. I bought this one not because I’m so crazy about frittelle, but because I couldn’t resist the chance to break off all those little stick-out bits. I’m so easy to entertain.“Today there are mammaluchi.” Readers may remember that the Pasticceria Targa near the Rialto market is the only place I’ve found that offers a special Carnival sweet called “mammaluchi.” Not the knightly military caste drawn from the ranks of slave warriors (thanks, Wikipedia), but an equally dangerous pastry.The Mamluks had a special sword, but I think this could have be just as effective in your average skirmish. It would just take a little longer for your adversary to collapse. The filling is dough, but of a moisture and density that make you take them seriously. Two is actually too many, but I didn’t let that stop me.I receive absolutely no compensation for this mention, they don’t even know who I am. Just that wild-eyed foreigner who comes in every year asking if the mammaluchi are ready yet.I didn’t go on a hunt for costumes to photograph, mainly because so many of them are so trite. I don’t judge, I know the people concealed within are having a wonderful time. I just feel embarrassed taking pictures that everybody else is taking, especially of something so unimaginative. Here, a group of massive costumes was disembarking from the #1 vaporetto.I kind of liked these dudes, even if they had rented the garb. I was fascinated by the fact that all of them had 12 white dots. I have no idea how you play a game of dominos if all the tiles have the same number of dots, but at least they were being whimsical. I award points for whimsy.And speaking of whimsy, this was the scene in via Garibaldi on Fat Thursday. The munchkins from the local nursery school are dressed up as either little pigs (the girls) or wolves (boys). The masks were handmade of the ever-reliable construction paper.The pigs were especially adorable, not only because they were scarfing up frittelle and fruit juice but because they had to move their masks aside to make way for the food. The mask itself is a small masterpiece, held on by a circlet of pink construction paper.This was an exceptional minimalist costume. The mask was a small cardboard carton just sitting on his shoulders, and he must have had fun making a sword that wants to be a Mamluk bread knife.Seen at the Rialto market: A couple wearing chef’s toques, the father carrying their little girl on his back, disguised as a ….…lobster. That’s what I always say, never leave home without a clean handkerchief and a lobster.Yes, I know you want to stay out past dark, but it’s time to go home. Pack it up till next year.
The waves of confetti are the forerunners of the festivizing. You don’t need to see who tossed these handfuls to know that the game is on.Next stage: Complaints. Sunday morning’s newsstand lists the usual problems: (L to R) “Carnival for 80,000 Today the turnstiles go into operation. Strike at La Fenice Opening night canceled.” “Carnival and nightlife It’s chaos Protests.” “Turnstiles at the openings (on streets) The first time at the Piazza San Marco.”Sunday morning: The waterfront is lined with the big tourist launches which, after they unload their revelers, wait back here along the Fondamenta Sette Martiri for the return trip to everywhere.And on up the Riva degli Schiavoni toward San Marco. They’re even double-parking.
Last Saturday (Feb. 23) was the semi-official opening of Carnival, which means tremendous hubbub in deepest Castello. The frittelle and galani are already making inroads on everybody’s glucose levels, and by the look of the calli, confetti appears to be strewing itself.
The centerpiece of Saturday’s inaugural celebrations was the procession of the 12 “Marias” from San Pietro di Castello to the Piazza San Marco. Weather cold but sunny, not much wind — perfect for everybody, especially the Marias who, if the morning bora had lasted, would each have needed a can of hair spray to keep her tresses under control. Perfection comes at a price, and in this case it would either have been a week’s worth of washing with Packer’s Pine Tar shampoo or a visit to the Navy barber for a cut measured in millimeters. People love looking at the girls, but I worry about their hair. It probably comes with age.
These are the Marias from 2017; I didn’t fight my way through the mass of people to chronicle this year’s batch. The dresses change each year, but the hair is eternal. I keep meaning to ask one of them how (or if) if they manage to sleep during this week. I’m imagining those Chinese headrests.
Sunday (Feb. 24) at 11:00 AM was the true official opening of the annual scrum, with the “Volo del Angelo” (flight of the angel) enacted by a lovely girl in magnificent garb who slides down a wire from the campanile of San Marco to terra firma at the stage below. She was followed by another, because why stop at one? In this case I don’t worry about their hair, I worry about their lives. As does everyone. All went well.
The most important innovation was the installation of turnstiles at the entrance to the Piazza; for the first time, the number of festivizers permitted in the Piazza was limited to a modest 23,000, with corridors arranged for easy entry and exit. Modern, intelligent, efficient — it can be done! I don’t know where the rest of the 110,000 people that were counted in the city went, but my tricorn hat with the veil is off to the organizers and the enforcers, all 700 of them: 420 vigili, or municipal police (100 more than last year, between Venice and the mainland), 60 firemen, 120 workers from Vela (transport), 40 of Suem and Croce Verde (ambulances) e 40 of Civil Protection (general assistance and crisis management).
La Nuova Venezia reported that there were many more people than last year. “In spite of some suffocating stretches, some calli transformed into a Stations of the Cross (you can intuit this means slow and extreme suffering), and some campi, such as Santa Maria Formosa, full to overflowing, there weren’t any complications.” They are referring to quantity, not quality, because…..
Turista barbaricus is back! Two young foreigners were nabbed at 10:00 AM on Sunday in the Piazzetta dei Leoncini urinating against the basilica of San Marco. Hey! A wall! Just what we needed! Nabbed by the police, each has been given a fine of 3,330 euros ($3,782). That will certainly make for an interesting conversation when they get home. Just think: For the price of a coffee (1.10 euros) they could have used the bar’s bathroom. Or hey — the canals are free! I realize that Carnival was created for breaking rules, flouting convention, freeing oneself of all those rigid rules that so strangle happiness and frivolity. I even wrote about it. Except that even the Venetian Republic didn’t need much time to recognize that there is a limit to everything, including fun, and to start passing decrees and ordinances to keep total chaos at bay.
Because I don’t venture as far as San Marco — and not even as far as the Arsenale — my view of Carnival is limited to our little lobe of the city, and that’s fine with me.
“To confetti” — evidently it can be a verb. Just ask the dog.
The story of the “Marias”: From the 9th century it was the custom in Venice, on the Feast of the Purification of Mary (Feb. 2, or “Candelora”), to bless all the couples who were planning to marry that year. For the ceremony, which was held in the bishop’s palace, the 12 poorest damsels were dressed in splendid garments and jewels lent by the main churches of the city. They didn’t have to be beautiful (as required by today’s pageant), they just had to be poverty-stricken.
In 973 (or maybe 948), the ceremony was interrupted by the arrival of a band of wild Slavic pirates from the Croatian coast, who stole the girls and, of course, their expensive garb and jewelry. Doge Pietro Candiani III organized a posse, caught up with them at Caorle, slew the pirates and brought the girls and their stuff home safe and — one hopes — still sound. To thank the Madonna for her intercession in this happy outcome, the Feast of the Marias was instituted.
But something had changed. Instead of choosing merely the 12 poorest girls, now they had to be the most beautiful of the poorest. Each girl was assigned to a wealthy family which donated clothes, jewels, and a dowry to help her marriage chances.
Wikipedia (in Italian, translated by me) tells us that “In the following days there was a series of civil and religious ceremonies that culminated in a boat procession on the Grand Canal, during which the “Marias” displayed their beauty and their jewels. The ceremonies were accompanied by balls, banquets and other extravagances; furthermore, to see the Marias was considered a sign of good luck, beyond being a festival for the eyes of the masculine public. And so the festivities extended over many days (even two weeks) and attracted many people from other countries.”
Sound good? Not really. Because now there were 12 poor — literally and figuratively — girls involved in what amounted to a struggle to the death among 12 patrician families. “The feast of the Marias created not a few problems; it often happened that the girls who were about to be married were courted, and in the worst cases violated, by the men who went to see them. Furthermore, the competition of the Marias caused bitter conflicts between the families, those that were poor (who, in the case of losing, protested the lost victory) as much as those who were rich (who didn’t want to take on the costs involved).
“So the flesh-and-blood girls were gradually replaced by statues of wood, called Marione or Marie de tola (wooden Marias). These were dressed and bedecked with jewels, but unlike their human counterparts weren’t furnished with dowries, and at the end of the feast the trappings were returned to their legitimate owners. But this new version of the festa lost a lot of its original sense, and along with it the favor of the Venetians, who reacted with anger and scorn, even going so far as to attempt to sabotage the festa.
This is the current version of the “wooden Marias.” Even the jewels are gone.
“In 1349 the Republic of Venice had to pass a law stating that anybody who threw vegetables at the procession of the wooden Marias would be sent to the galleys; this, though, only made the festa lose even more of its prestige, and only 30 years later it was definitively suppressed.”
Fun fact: “It seems that the term “marionette” is derived from the Marione. And even today it’s common to hear Venetians call a woman who is particularly dull and inexpressive a Maria de tola.” Even though I’ve never heard Lino use this expression, he confirms that it’s a common saying. Maybe we just don’t know any women who answer to that description.
The procession goes up via Garibaldi (something of a comedown from the Grand Canal of yore), but the girls are wonderful to look at.
On to San Marco, alive or wooden!Leave us behind, we’re happier in the background. She’s part of a strolling musical troupe from Switzerland, which also included a tuba and a glockenspiel. Nice hat.Somebody just invented the wheel. Didn’t figure on finding bridges when he got that great flash of genius, but he persevered.You don’t need much to get the Carnival look. This appears to be the newest variation of face painting.Jugglers and makers of balloon animals are all the littlest Castello denizens need to feel Carnival.There are also four trampolines, one inflated slide in the shape of the “Titanic” going down (two orange smokestacks in the background), and also a cotton-candy maker. All the best to revelers in the Piazza San Marco, but I’m perfectly happy here.Good night, via Garibaldi. Keep the confetti warm till tomorrow.
