Fire, water, brimstone?
The last thing on this mortal earth that the Venice firemen ever want to deal with is a fire.
If you leaf through a thousand years of Venetian history, you can see that fire has been about a skillion times more damaging to the city than water ever has been, or ever could be, not that I’m promoting acqua alta. But you can accommodate water, one way or another — besides, you get fair warning when it’s coming, and you know that after a few hours it will go away all by itself. But you cannot accommodate a fire. There have been conflagrations in Venice that can match some of the worst you’ve ever heard of, at least in places not named Chicago or London.
In 1514 the entire Rialto market area was leveled by fire, leaving only the church of San Giacometto untouched. The Doge’s Palace was carbonized, as they say here, to various degrees three times, in 1483, 1574 and 1577, the last one leaving so little that there was serious discussion of demolishing the walls and just building the whole thing over. (Plan rejected, happily for us.)
And there was the olive oil warehouse behind San Marcuola that caught fire from a lantern in 1789. I don’t think there’s any way to put out an oil fire, at least of that magnitude. Four hundred families were left to pick through the smoking ruins. Not to forget the lumber warehouse that caught fire at Barbarie de le Tole in 1686, which incinerated the neighborhood leaving only one house standing.
And my all-time non-favorite, the fire that started in San Severo in 1105 and took a tour of something like half of the city. Get out your maps: It started in the house of the Zancani family at San Severo, burned the neighborhood, then the flames moved on to San Lorenzo, San Provolo, Santa Maria Formosa, onward to San Giovanni Nuovo, San Zulian and San Basso and around the Piazza San Marco up to the church of San Geminiano, and proceeded to San Moise’ and Santa Maria Zobenigo. There the strong wind blew sparks across the Grand Canal. San Gregorio caught fire, Sant’ Agnese, San Trovaso, San Barnaba, San Basilio, then on to Angelo Raffaelle and San Nicolo dei Mendicoli; the fire on the San Marco side, not done yet, marched to San Maurizio, S. Paternian (now Campo Manin), San Luca, San Vidal, and San Samuele. Bring me an acqua alta that can hurt like that.
Today the firemen probably spend more time in the water than they do around those banal but occasionally really bad fires caused by short circuits, flaming food and arson. The lagoon is their beat: Pilings gone adrift, boats that have capsized or sunk, and other nautical mishaps are what the firemen usually deal with, and yesterday morning we came across such an event in the rio di San Giovanni Nuovo as we were walking from Santa Maria Formosa toward San Zaccaria.
First we heard the roar of the fireboat’s engine, all set to pump like crazy. Then we saw it, next to its waterlogged victim; by the look of the work already in progress, we’d come in toward the end of the second act of this drama, which means we had no idea of what had happened in the first act, nor who the dramatis personae were. But we could recognize a logistical problem which for some reason was more difficult than usual. I can say that because, as Lino explained it to me, if they had executed two little steps at the beginning, they’d have been home for lunch in no time. (I will try to describe his solution later.) As it was, in the absence of a team leader, everybody got into the act, and you don’t need to be a fireman, or a boat, to know that when too many people are trying to come up with a solution to a problem, the problem wins.
Short version: They evidently tried to lift the entire boat, which, considering the weight of the water, was discovered to be impossible. They couldn’t raise the boat even two inches above the surface of the canal to be able to pump out the water in the boat (we walked by when they were at the point of renouncing the effort), so they ended up deciding to tow it away. By the look of it, this procedure would have been more or less like towing a dead blue whale which had swallowed five Zamzama guns, with cannonballs.
Lino, who has also dealt with his fair share of submerged boats, told me that the boat was (briefly) on a modest slant. Blocking the upper side, they only needed to raise the lower side enough to start pumping. He made it sound easy, and considering how many times he and I have undertaken maneuvers with extremely heavy boats all by ourselves, he gets Olympic-level credit for understanding physics. Still, I give the firemen the benefit of the doubt because firemen are my heroes, and nothing I say should be taken as denigrating or belittling them in any way, much less to imply that I could have done it better. But still, it wasn’t going well — even I could see that.
Speaking of cannons, and lifting, a Venetian patrician named Giovanni Zusto once devised a way to lift an entire ship to the surface — a ship carrying cannon, which is what brought this feat to my mind — after it had sat in the mud for three years.
You should know about this, to have something astonishing to think about whenever you get tired of marveling at Venetian engineering skill ashore. On April 1, 1783, the “Fenice,” complete with 74 cannon, sank in the Canal Spignon, which is just inside the inlet at Malamocco. That location means mud and currents.
So the aforementioned Zusto — once again, amateurs save the day — designed a system of enormous rafts which provided the basis for this gigantic hauling-up. On July 30, 1786, the Fenice rose again. The designs are on the second floor of the Naval Museum, which is closed for renovation. Here they are; have a look, and rethink how hard your day has been.
70 years free
April 25, as I have reported on other occasions, is a double holiday in Venice: The anniversary of the liberation of Italy after World War II (this year marking the 70th milestone), and the feast day of San Marco, the city’s patron saint.
Either of those facts deserves reams, and reams are ready and waiting, thanks to phalanxes of historians.
I simply want to keep the world apprised — yes, I modestly claim to keep the WORLD apprised — of a date that deserves remembering. And here, it’s remembered twice.
First, the roses:
And second, the liberation itself, as seen in Venice.
The constant Casanova
If you think the tides are predictable, consider the movie industry and Venice.
Many and varied have been the films made here, from “The Wings of the Dove” to “Death in Venice” to “The Tourist” and on and on. And those are just a few titles in English; plenty of other nations have sent their troupes here to act out among the canals. Has anyone seen Nenu Naa Rakshasi? Les Enfants du Siecle?
But you can’t go wrong with Giacomo Casanova. Sure, we’ve seen Effie Gray‘s life detailed — it’s finally coming out this week — and George Sand and Chopin (all so famous in their day), but these are not marquee names. Casanova, though, is a product with no expiration date; his exploits, real or imagined, have made him film fodder no fewer than eleven times. Sorry, make that twelve, counting the one they were shooting here a few days ago.
Amazon is getting into the streaming-films game (see: Netflix and Marco Polo), and this version of the madcap entrepreneur’s life will focus, I was told, on Casanova after he went into exile. It was a movie-worthy life pretty much up to the end. He was definitely not all show (or as they say here, “Beautiful vineyard but puny grapes”); here is something he wrote about his famous escape from prison which deserves to be read and remembered:
“Thus did God provide me with what I needed for an escape which was to be a wonder if not a miracle. I admit that I am proud of it; but my pride does not come from my having succeeded, for luck had a good deal to do with that; it comes from my having concluded that the thing could be done and having had the courage to undertake it.“
Now back to me and our two days with the boats.
Making a movie, from what I have seen, is like writing “Remembrance of Things Past” on an endless series of postage stamps. Enormous amounts of toil involving equipment, technicians, objects of every sort, humans of every pay grade, and uncounted hours of just loading and unloading things, setting them up and taking them down, are dedicated to putting even the tiniest fragments of story on film.
Last Sunday and Monday the filming was in high gear in Venice; at certain crucial moments Giacomo would need a boat, and Lino and I and several others were there with two vessels: a small mascareta that just sat there and looked boaty, and a gondola, a replica built several years ago of the type used in the 18th century, to aid his escape (or so it appeared). No costumes or makeup for us this time, we were just the boat wranglers.
Which was fine with me. Although I thoroughly enjoy getting paid, even just a few euros, for just standing around doing nothing, doing something is better in most ways. So we had episodes of rowing, and pushing, and pulling, and lifting, and watching mobs of multilingual people doing stuff you are unable to comprehend in any useful way.
Here is something I discovered: When the director yells “Silenzio!!” just before “Action!” you can hear a baby hiccup in the hospital on the mainland. You cannot believe how many noises there are in normal life until it’s imperative that you hear nothing. That was the most entertaining thing of all: What is that tiny little humming behind that building at the end of the street? How can shoes with rubber soles actually make a sound going over the bridge behind you? The canal is blocked by a watch-boat at both ends to block traffic. The waiting boats have to turn off their engines. Total silence falls.
Then the church bells start to ring.
Finally they stop. “Action!” (Action.) “Cut!” (Lunch.)
Then we rowed the boats back home. That was it.
Fred Astaire once stated that he only “did it for the dough and the old applause.” For me, no need to rush on the applause.
The daily peregrination
We are having perfect March weather (windy, chilly, sunny), which translates to perfect walking weather.
That’s a silly remark; it’s always walking weather here. But these mornings are much more appealing than some others. (August, I’m looking at you.)
So we are getting up and out the door early, when the streets are still almost empty and appear to be waiting just for us. Or if that’s a little too egotistical, they appear to be doing just fine without us. Or anybody. In any case, they look great.
Today we meandered as far as the Sacca San Girolamo, otherwise known as the “Baia del Re,” in remotest Cannaregio. And along the way, reminiscences sprang out. Lino doesn’t look for memories, they practically run into him.
Take, for example, the little, very old man who approached us as we sauntered along the fondamenta de la Misericordia. He was medium height, robust in a block-of-cement-like way, with a face that boasted three bright apples — his chin and both cheeks. His eyes were clear, if somewhat distant, and he was shuffling along very, very slowly.
He glanced at us both as we got nearer and somehow I had the impression that he recognized Lino. But no gesture was made, so we three continued on our way.
“You know who that was?” Lino asked me. I accept this rhetorical opener by now and resist making any sarcastical reply. I just wait.
“He was the coach of the national women’s volleyball team,” is the answer. Why would Lino know this?
“His job was driving the garbage barge in my old neighborhood,” so naturally they would have seen each other around.
“But he was also a kind of hoarder,” Lino continued. “I read in the Gazzettino that the neighbors finally complained about the smell, and the Public Health officers came to investigate and they made him move.” Like many trash-collectors, he not only nabbed good stuff that he could resell, but evidently also perishable items which, as we know, often get thrown away in medium-to-good condition. But then the organic matter began to go the way of all organic matter, hence the complaints.
“He moved to somewhere on the mainland,” was the conclusion. My next questions were fruitless. “I only know what was in the paper about that. It went on for months.”
But that remark wasn’t the conclusion. “I once offered him our family’s old Singer sewing machine.” It was an early foot-treadle model that his mother and sisters used to make all of his clothes for most of his childhood, “He gave me a 2-liter bottle of wine.” An excellent example of turning gold into straw.
We proceeded over the bridge and he pointed at one of the anonymous modern apartment buildings on the other side. In fact, he pointed to a particular door.
“Roberto used to go there for his piano lessons,” began the next chapter. I had met Roberto once; he was born blind, and we would encounter him strolling around Dorsoduro with his wife. In fact, I never saw him without her.
Robert was born at the corner of Lino’s courtyard and the main road near Campo San Barnaba, so they were always playing or hanging out together. (Roberto once told me that they would organize soccer games in their courtyard, and he was always the goalie. “They made the goal just a little bigger than I was,” he said. So cool.)
At least once a week, Roberto had to report for his piano lesson, and Lino and an undetermined number of friends would take him there, walking from Campo San Barnaba to the Baia del Re. “We’d wait outside while he did his scales, or whatever, and when he was finished we’d walk him home.”
“How long did that take?”
“Oh, I don’t know. An hour.” Tracing the route, I see they went about 2 km (1.3 miles) each way.
“His mother spent a fortune on him, with doctor’s visits and so many other things. His father unloaded flour at the Molino Stucky. He would stand by a chute, and the bag of flour would come down onto his shoulder and he’d load it onto the boat.” The bags of flour typically weighed 25 kilos (55 pounds). Does the term “herniated disc” come to mind? How about “chance fracture”?
“After a while, his mother sent him to an institute in Padova. These were common after the war, for children with various disabilities or injuries. Maybe they’d have picked up an unexploded mine. Or been kicked by a horse, or whatever.
“She thought it would be a good thing for him to have some time with his friends, so on Sunday my brother and I would take the train to Padova with her to visit him. We walked from the station all the way to the Prato della Valle.” That would be 2.6 km (1.5 miles) one way.
“There was still a lot of damage around, I remember, from the bombing. She’d buy us hot chocolate.”
We walked under a large archway separating two streets, not far from the train station.
“See this archway?” he asked as we passed under it. You have to start a story with a question, it’s something Talmudic. Of course I said yes, and waited.
“One night during the war my father was walking home from the station” (his father drove a train with a coal-burning engine, so he was pretty much one color on his way home, the color being black. Not that that’s especially important to the story, I’m just setting the scene).
“It was late, and the curfew was on — nobody was supposed to be out — and he got stopped here by a group of patrolling Fascists.” One remembers that they were also known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security, and they too were wearing mostly black, but for a different reason.
“They asked him who he was, and where he was coming from, and where he was going, and why, and show them some identification now.
“He explained the situation, and after a few very tense minutes they let him go.”
I am not romanticizing the past, and neither is he. Washing in cold water and short pants winter and summer. No plumbing. No central heating. I’m not talking about the Middle Ages, there are plenty of people who remember how life was. But when I say it was a small town, I’ve said everything.
