Arsenale | Venice: I am not making this up

everything should be objected to

June 22, 2025 19 Comments

Too much is going on in the world, things that involve life and death — I’m sure you’ve noticed that — so news from Venice is almost forced to verge on the frivolous.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that here in the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world we don’t have our problems. Big ones, small ones, transient, permanent, easily resolvable if one wanted to, of all shapes and sizes and relative atomic masses. It’s very hard to keep track of them all, much less grasp their true importance. They’re all important!

Example: The imminent wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez here sometime next week, by most reports. The date is being changed secretly, or something, for some reason. I think it’s to avoid protesters, a group of which has already made its views known. There are people who object to everything, and now they’ve got this wedding in their sights. I have to say that although I tend to have an opinion on almost everything, this is one subject that defeats me. Unless “Why should I care?” is an opinion.

Stay with me. As you know, those who objected to the big cruise ships passing in the bacino of San Marco to the Zona Marittima finally succeeded in banishing them. Peace, joy and tranquility has reigned, except among the 5,000 families or so who lost their employment in the managing and supplying of these ships. But fine. No ships. You’d think the protesters would be happy. You’d think.

Now Bezos and Sanchez heave to on the horizon, and millions of dollars are going to be spent here over the course of a few undefined days to get the lovebirds hitched. The “No Bezos” contingent is strenuously opposed to this. (I can understand objecting to him as him, if you like, but I can’t see why his wedding deserves dissent.) I do recall there was justifiable anger from the citizens during last year’s Film Festival, for which all of the taxis had been booked over the course of several days. All. The. Taxis. The mayor has reassured the apprehensive citizens that this would not be repeated during the nuptial festivities.

Fun Fact: The Gazzettino reports that some 80 private planes are expected to arrive for the big event. Let’s see, 200 guests divided by 80 makes 2.5 people per plane. So how are the entourages expected to get here? Or maybe the 80 planes are for the stylists and equerries and the Mistress of the Robes and the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and the Master of the Revels and the rest of the swarm? The happy soon-to-be-newlyweds may well be ensconced on Bezos’ 500-million-dollar yacht, which is already here.

Now the objectors are clamoring against the luxury yachts. A number of luxury yachts are also expected — just look at (or imagine) the guest list. But ever since Covid hardly any big yachts stop by anymore. The Riva degli Schiavoni used to be lined with them, but only a few have tentatively returned, briefly. But the protesters are in full sail. First it was No Big Ships! Now it’s No Yachts! Jeez, people. Are you against literally everything?

I love the yachts, I’ll just say it. I could bury you with photos I’ve made. Here’s some more atmosphere:

So you get the idea. Maybe these yachts make you want to protest; I could easily protest that I don’t have one, but I can’t figure out how to object to you having one. Still, it seems clear that the world is in big trouble whether or not the yachts and/or their oligarchs/celebrities come to Venice or anywhere else. So in whatever time is left to us in the apocalyptic period we’re going through, it seems to me that serious complaints should not be wasted on yachts. By all means get out your bedsheets and markers but I hope you won’t be writing “No Yachts.” Because a real oligarch will just get something else, and it still won’t be yours.

“Preparing the days of common resistence where everyone can say ‘No Space for Bezos!'” And up in the right-hand corner somebody who objects to the objectors has scribbled “Rammollitti andate a lavorare!” (“Wimps! Go to work!”).

“Wedding of Bezos in Venice? Also no! Jeff Bezos thinks he can buy the entire city. Let’s organize the party!” That sounds kind of menacing. At the bottom a strip has been torn off that said “No space for oligarchs.” I think we’ve gotten to the root of the problem.

Another famous and important group of protesters has joined the chat. I mean, the celebrations.

Quick promotion of the boat moored nearby and the film they projected aboard last night. They did get the tape-up-the-flags job done quickly and that’s important. This little slip could happen to anybody.

But this is just temporary tumult. They’ll be here, with their military security personnel blocking off streets and canals — it will be annoying as all get-out even while the couple assures everybody that they love Venice. But it won’t last long and then it’ll be over.

Moving on! Let’s talk about trees instead. They’ve suddenly become more important than yachts because of a tragedy that struck at Piazzale Roma, a place more banal than which it would be difficult to find. But tragedies — or in this case, trees — don’t have much awareness of banality.

You have to watch out for pickpockets and now you have to also watch out for 50-foot (15 meters) trees. (La Nuova Venezia)

I doubt any visitors have given much thought to Venice, City of Trees, but on June 2 a majestic holm oak at Piazzale Roma was heard creaking (wind was not exceptional that afternoon) and then it suddenly keeled over onto a group of 12 people who were hanging around. Two of the victims were seriously injured, one of them a woman with a fractured spine.

June 2 is a national holiday, so of course there were plenty of people everywhere. But it was also the wedding day (weddings again) of a couple waiting at Palazzo Cavalli for their guests to arrive. Some of the tree’s victims had been heading to the ceremony, which was naturally called off.

So now the city is frantically monitoring the trees and in the Giardini, and undoubtedly elsewhere, we see stumps and cut-up branches waiting to be taken away. But hold on: Some concerned citizens are objecting to all this. They maintain that suddenly the trees are in at least as much danger as the people who walk near them.

Of course it’s wrong to leave trees wobbling with fungus-ridden roots (one hypothesis for the disaster), but there is a case being made that it is just as wrong to remove trees that, according to a new group of protesters, never showed the smallest defect. Obviously we don’t want trees that are going to fall on us, but which ones are we saving? Are honest, law-abiding, tax-paying trees going to be sacrificed because of a few rotten ones? That’s what it looks like to those who are now protesting what suddenly appears to be the the wholesale slaughter of Venetian trees. A group has formed, of course, and the other evening on the Giudecca I passed a table set up by persons collecting signatures on a petition entitled “Save the Trees.”

If Venice is now in the hands of lumberjacks working overtime, all I can say is that clearly it was long past time to have checked the condition of the city’s trees and the city should be ashamed. And I’m sorry that people had to suffer in order for this admittedly pretty important task to finally get bumped way up near the top of the city’s “DO TODAY ASAP URGENT PRIORITY” to-do list.

This statue of Francesco Querini at the “Giardini Pubblici” vaporetto stop has stood for more than a century in the shade of ever-growing trees.

Everything looked fine. But appearance are so deceiving.

Turns out he was in mortal danger. Now he’s baking in the sun after the potentially dangerous trees have been excised. Even half of a magnolia was ready to strike.

Suddenly there’s wood everywhere. The newspaper said that at least seven trees had been earmarked for removal in the viale Garibaldi alone, that long shady stretch between via Garibaldi and the vaporetto stop at the Giardini. Seven. And we just kept traipsing along as if everything was fine.

I can see how this tree was harboring a secret.

Hey, stop for a minute. While everybody’s losing sleep about dangerous trees, it seems that nobody’s interested in objecting to the blatant neglect of simple things that make a city look decent. Thousands of locals and tourists walk through the Giardini Pubblici every day. Why do the benches have to look like they’ve been salvaged from some shipwreck? This didn’t happen overnight. There’s no money for paint? This is just dumb. Yes, I object.

Even my sainted mother would have objected to this. First, that this misfortune occurred, and second, that it has been left like that for weeks. It looks stupid. This is how “Save the Benches” groups (I made that up) get organized.

Some protests, however, are about things that are more important than weddings and forestry. I’m thinking about the proposed re-routing of the 4.1 and 4.2 vaporettos. There are two objections to this notion. One is convenience (sudden lack of), and the other is probable damage to the fondamente of the Arsenal canal. Plenty of people are now up in arms and collecting signatures against this potential change.

This route used to exist; I remember passing this way back in the mid-Eighties — it was convenient and a heck of a way to see a glimpse of the city that’s closed to the public.

But then it was decided to send the boats the long way around Sant’ Elena on their path from the Arsenale stop to the Fondamente Nove, as a clear and wonderful service to the semi-isolated residents of the area who needed more than just one line.

But no longer. The residents of farthest Castello and their needs/desires have dropped off the list of municipal priorities (I’m beginning to wonder if there even is such a list), and the people aren’t happy. Yes, the 5.1 and 5.2 will continue to serve San Pietro di Castello, but there is also that pervasive sensation that tourists take precedence over the locals (let’s speed up the trip to Murano and not waste time going around the touristic dead-end of Sant’ Elena). And, as I say, there’s also the likelihood that waves will damage the walls of the canal, which somebody ought to be thinking about in whatever time is left over from felling lumber.

Without the 4.1, anyone at Sant’ Elena that needs to go to the hospital will have to take the 5.1 to the Lido and change there for the 4.1. Anyone at San Pietro di Castello who needs to go to San Zaccaria will have to take the 5.1 and go to the Lido and change there for the 5.2. Does that sound like anybody at the ACTV Planning Office and Marching and Chowder Society is particularly interested in life at the local level?

The rio dell’Arsenale leads from the lagoon toward the Arsenal. One hopes the schedule will ensure that the northbound and southbound vaporettos don’t meet here. The more serious consideration is the effect of the waves on the fondamente lining the canal.

I realize that, as I mentioned, the vaporettos managed to pass through here several decades ago. I just have a different outlook on the procedure this time. Looks kind of tight here between the pilings and the footbridge. Both of which can be adjusted. Somewhat. Looking at you, high tide.

I see four tricky little points to get through, but I know there won’t be any problems. The vaporetto captains are fine. Not sure about the waves hitting the fondamente in what is still an area belonging to the Navy, but I suspect the city is working to resolve that issue. Navy proprietorship, I mean, not the waves. The city doesn’t care about waves.

I can tell you from experience that the force of the tide through this very narrow space is something to take into consideration. But the vaporettos have motors, so no worries.

Looking at the entrance into the Arsenal from the northern lagoon. The hole in the wall was made years ago for the express purpose of creating a space for the vaporettos to pass through, so why am I wasting time thinking about all this? What really matters is the enormous inconvenience this new plan would impose on the locals. But, like the waves, that doesn’t seem to matter.

In conclusion, let me bring up a genuine problem. There is a desperate need to find and keep enough family doctors to care for the admittedly dwindling population. They are called “medici di base,” or basic doctors, and under the national health system you have to have one. Whatever procedure you may require has to start with an official request (I call it a work order) from your assigned doctor, and some doctors have up to 1,000 assigned patients. The older doctors retire, the younger doctors don’t stick around. You can wake up and find yourself literally without an assigned doctor, it has happened to us more than once. This will never make international, news (celebrity weddings are so much more engrossing), but I can assure you it’s one of the most important problems that eastern Castello, if not Venetians everywhere, is worried about.

A few days ago a big public meeting was held in via Garibaldi at which various citizens’ groups expressed their complaints — and not for the first time — to assorted official representatives (politicians and representatives of the health system). Their thoughts were clear from the home-made banners, and I expect that these banners are stored close at hand for the next inevitable outcry from the struggling locals. Note: AULSS stands for Azienda Unita’ Locale Socio Sanitaria, or Unified Local Social Health Agency. Venice’s section is #3.

(L to R, translated by me): The family doctor is a right. AULSS 3 less propaganda and more territorial services. AULSS we’re fed up. We want family doctors. AULSS We’re fed up. Family doctors an adequate number at Castello and Sant’ Elena. We’re indignant!!

I sometimes think the city is just waiting us out, considering that the population is falling by 1,500 per year.

So problems! There are plenty to choose from, and these aren’t even all of them. I’m beginning to suspect that the city government has become desensitized. Maybe all this is just background noise to them by now.

Meanwhile, all these annoying little issues will be swamped for the next week by the drama and glamor of Bezos/Sanchez. We should be glad of a little change of pace?

Venice’s defenders may seem to be mere shadows, but they’re still there.

Events

Redentore run-up

July 20, 2019 2 Comments

By now all the world knows — the world that reads this blog — that the feast of the Redentore is a huge event here, and has been for 441 years, counting this year.

The food, the fireworks, the votive bridge, the races, the church — it’s all fabulous. Confirmed by the pharmacist dryly this morning, “Tomorrow everyone will be in here with headaches, with stomach-aches, with everything-aches…”.

But yesterday I got an unexpected glimpse behind the curtain, as it were. The fireworks staging area was in full cry, making the most of the area at the farthest corner of the Arsenale that has been walled-off for eventual repairs to bits of MOSE.

As the 5.2 vaporetto left the Bacini stop behind, heading toward the Lido, I took a quick series of photos of the panoply of preparation:

Floating platforms are awaiting loads of fireworks, brought here in trucks on other floating platforms, like the grocery trucks that resupply the supermarkets.

Everything that’s being unloaded atop the wall is going to be transferred to its position in the regiment destined to be exploded tonight.

This is roughly what “the rockets’ red glare” looks like when it’s at home.

It’s hard to believe all those explosives fit into those few trucks. I’m sure there’s an explanation. Probably “One hundred deliveries” covers it.

Perhaps this is what retired bomb-squad experts do as extra work. And an unintended but very willing shout-out to the “Parente Fireworks” escadrille. Many of the greatest names in pyrotechnics are Italian: Grucci, Zambelli….. We’ll see how the Parente group compares.

Just like the old song, “Love and marriage…horse and carriage…” we have “fireworks and watermelon.” You can eat watermelon whenever you want, but if you don’t have it tonight … well, I don’t know what would happen. Maybe the fireworks wouldn’t go off.

History

The name game

October 27, 2014 3 Comments

According to the article, there are TK people in Venice with the last name Vianello. — “The Vianellos beat everybody,” the headline states. “The foreigners increase.” According to the article, there are 4339 people in the Comune of Venice with the last name Vianello. I’m sorry to see that the Barbarigos and Mocenigos have gone the way of the great auk, though some once-noble families (Moro, Dona’) are on the list.

Not a game at all, but shards of information I consider interesting, in an ephemeral sort of way. My favorite kind.

Meeting people here, or even just reading about them in the paper, will fairly quickly give you the sensation that there is only a handful of last names in Venice. Reading Venetian history has the same effect. There were 120 doges, and every five minutes it’s a Mocenigo or a Morosini or a Barbarigo or a Contarini (I feel a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song coming on).

In daily life nowadays, it’s Vianello or Zennaro or Busetto or Scarpa, all at some point from Pellestrina, where so many with these surnames dwell — and have dwelled — that the town is divided into four sections, each named for one of those specific tribes. This situation was created by doge Andrea Contarini, who in 1380 sent the four eponymous families from Chioggia to Pellestrina to reconstruct and inhabit the former town which had been destroyed by the Genoese in the “War of Chioggia” (1378-1381).

The density of these four names in Pellestrina is such that the post office finally gave permission to put nicknames on addresses, to give some hope of distinguishing between the scores of individuals with the same first and last name, some of them even living at the same location.

In the Comune at large, Costantinis and Penzos abound, and every year there is a bumper crop of D’Estes and Dei Rossis. Each name has its own provenance; some of them are obvious (“Sartori” means “tailors,” “Tagliapietra” means “stonecutter,” with which Venice had to have been infested) and some are more obscure (“Ballarin” meant “sawyer,” and “Bastasi” were the porters, specifically for the Customs or the quarantine islands).

Now comes the tricky part: The list enumerates — As we see, there are more Hossains now than Senos or even than Chens. But after 500 years they might well be on the list of Venetians, if there’s still a Venice.

I’ve been here long enough — and it doesn’t mean you need to have spent a LONG time — to recognize the provenance of many of these names. If you hear one of these, you have a good chance of knowing where the person comes (or came) from:

Chioggia: Penzo, Pesce, Boscolo, Tiozzo, Padoan, Doria

Burano: Vio, Costantini, Zane, Tagliapietra, Seno

San Pietro in Volta: Ballarin, Ghezzo

Murano: Toso, Gallo, Ferro, Schiavon

Cavallino: Berton

Venice (Dorsoduro): Pitteri

A few tidbits from the article, which are not evident in the table of numbers but are obvious to anyone living here:

First is that during the past ten years, the number of individuals bearing each surname has diminished. That’s just part of the well-known shrinkage of Venetians.

Second — also fairly obvious to locals — is the addition of foreign surnames. Of course, my surname is foreign too (German-Swiss), but I’ve been happy to disappear among many Venetians whose last names also begin with “Z,” and they aren’t German, either: Zane and Zanella and Zuin and Zuliani. It’s great down here at the end of the alphabet, I’ve finally got company.

As you easily notice, Muslim and Asian names are becoming more numerous. (I realize that “Muslim” is not a nationality, nor a geographical area, but while the bearers of these names are most likely from Bangladesh, I decided not to guess).

So where would the “Vianello” clan come from? According to my dictionary of Italian surnames, it springs from Viani, which isn’t a place, as far as I can determine, but a basic root-name. Lino hypothesizes that it could derive from “villani” (pronounced vee-AH-nee in Venetian), which means farmers, tillers of the soil — “villein,” in the feudal terminology, a partially-free serf. You can still hear someone around here vilify another person by calling him a “villano,” and they don’t mean “villain” — they mean clod, churl, oaf.

“Rossi” means “reds.” It’s the most common surname in Italy, though in the Southern half it is often rendered “Russo” (the second-most common surname in Italy). It most likely came from a personage with some strikingly red attribute, such as hair, beard, or skin. Or all three.

“Scarpa” — It means “shoe,” so I’m guessing their forebears were shoe-makers, though then again, it’s possible that it was once somebody’s nickname (in Venice, at least, nicknames are fairly common and the person bears it for life and even sometimes leaves it to his children.) However, another hypothesis holds that it could be a variation of Karpathos, the Greek island known as “Scarpanto” in Venetian, and which formed part of the Venetian “Sea State” from 1306 to 1538, plenty long to germinate names. Thousands of Greeks lived in Venice, so the place name may have shifted to a personal name.

There are lots of names that come from places, sometimes Venetianized, such as:

Visentin (vee-zen-TEEN): Vicentino, or from Vicenza

Piasentini (pya-zen-TEE-nee): Piacentino, or from Piacenza

Veronese: from Verona

Trevisan (treh-vee-ZAHN): from Treviso

Furlan (foor-LAHN): from Friuli

Schiavon (skyah-VOHN): from Schiavonia, later Slavonia, which is now the easternmost part of Croatia. The Venetians were known to trade, among other valuable merchandise, in slaves, which often came from Central Asia or the Balkan hinterland. “Schiavo” (SKYA-voh), conveniently shortened, means “slave.” Slav – Slave. Not made up.

The names and the centuries may change, but the crime described on a plaque inside the Arsenal remains the same (translated by me): — The names may change, but the activity described on a plaque inside the Arsenal remains the same regardless of time, nation, or blood type (translated by me): “5 June 1743 Gabriel di Ferdinando was the Adjutant of the Admiral of the Arsenal He was banished under threat of hanging for being an unfaithful administrator guilty of enormous extremely grave detriments inflicted in the management of the public capital.”