Napoleon | Venice: I am not making this up

The Garden of the Forgotten Venetians – Riccardo Selvatico

July 25, 2018 No Comments

The Gardens feel bigger and lusher than they look here, I have to say. But the area must have felt very different indeed when this space was occupied by the church and convent of San Domenico, of San Nicolo di Bari, of the Conception of the Virgin Mary (otherwise known as the Cappuccine), of Sant’ Antonio Abate, and the Old Sailors’ Home. But who needs those when they can have trees?

This arch is the only survivor of all those buildings, recovered from the church of Sant’ Antonio Abate, designed by Michele Sanmicheli (the arch served as the entrance to the Lando chapel). It lay on the ground in pieces for 15 years.

On the less marbley side is a phrase referring to the reconstruction in 1822. I have no information on why this was done or what happened to the rest of the church. Maybe Napoleon wanted something that looked like a triumphal arch. L’Arc de la Devastation.

This sylvan glade was created by Napoleon when he went through Venice like the Destroying Angel, razing and demolishing scores of churches, convents, scuole and other buildings that were inconsiderately sited where he wanted something else to be, or that happened to contain things he wanted such as gold, jewels and works of art.

Nowadays the Giardini Pubblici (Public Gardens) are best-known for accommodating the original pavilions of the art extravaganza known as the Biennale. Also, being a garden, the area is full of trees and flowers and shrubs, plus an attractive little playground. It even offers a useful amount of space to handle thousands of runners at the finish line of the Venice Marathon.

However, this 13-acre piece of Venice is more than a shrine for art lovers or a bosky dell for the relief of exhausted tourists. It is a garden of remembrance(s) of people and/or events of which hardly anybody remembers anything. That’s a wild guess on my part, based on the general nonchalance with which people wander through. Look at the bronze bust of Giorgio Emo Capodilista; it has “And now the weather report from Oblivion” written all over it. Not to mention Carlo de Ghega, another extremely worthy Venetian whose crumbling memorial plaque is only about 45 seconds away.

We get an extra dollop of wit here, considering the title of the exhibition whose banner is concealing half of the too-high-to-read-and-by-now-disintegrating plaque to Carlo de Ghega. It’s one thing not to be able to read it; it’s another not to be able even to see it. But *sic transit*, dude, you had your moment.

So I’ve decided — SEEING THAT THERE ARE NO HELPFUL EXPLANATORY SIGNS ANYWHERE, THE KIND THAT MANY TOWNS WHOSE CITIZENS AND OFFICIALS FEEL SOME CIVIC PRIDE OFTEN PLACE NEAR WORTHY LANDMARKS — to remedy this oversight. I’m limiting myself to the Gardens at the moment, because I intuit that trying to address the skillions of other personages “remembered” around Venice would be a life’s work. Not a reason not to do it, just a reason to evaluate it carefully.

But the Gardens are calling. May I present Riccardo Selvatico, our first example of departed glory:

This bronze herm by sculptor Pietro Canonica bears the most modest inscription possible (and it’s not “The Thinker”): “A Riccardo Selvatico La Sua Citta’ 1903” — “To Riccardo Selvatico, His City 1903.” The date is two years after his death.

Selvatico was born in Venice in 1849 and died in 1901. Trained as a lawyer, he was mayor of Venice from 1890-95. He was also a poet and writer of comedies (I guess politics could help you with that) written in the Venetian dialect. When he wasn’t scribbling he did a number of important things. For one, he established a fund to finance the construction of healthier housing, replacing swathes of dwellings which were worthy of New York’s Lower East Side or Rio’s favelas; he would have lived through several cholera epidemics, so he didn’t need anybody to explain the problems of slums.

And if that doesn’t seem especially herm-worthy, he was also the person who came up with the idea, approved by a city-council vote in 1894, of holding an international art exposition in Venice every two years. In other words, he invented the Biennale, which now runs for at least six months, and sometimes seven, every year. It brings glory to the participants and boatloads of money to the city — I have no way of knowing which aspect inspired him more. Maybe it was a draw. The opposition party, naturally, stigmatized it as yet another example of his administration’s tendency to waste money on projects of barely discernible utility, in order to favor its friends and clients.

So he wrote a little poem called “Metempsicosi” in which he imagines that if it were true that we can be reincarnated as some animal, he’d like to come back as a pigeon in the Piazza San Marco, watch the people, fly around, and poop on the hats of a couple of individuals he isn’t going to name.

Not your ordinary politician, nor even your average man of letters. If there’s one thing that comes through every word, it’s his love for his city and its people and its life. One critic praised his poetry and comedies as being “ennobled by (his) exquisite Venetianness and refined wit.”

His five years as mayor were busy, of course, partly due to an ongoing battle between his highly eclectic and non-religious government and the opposition party marshaled by Giuseppe Sarto, then patriarch of Venice but later Pope Pius X. In 1895 Sarto’s faction won the election and Selvatico was back on the street. Separation of church and state was not an important principle at the time.

His birthplace also rates a plaque (translated by me): “Here was born on April 15 1849 Riccardo Selvatico poet of the vernacular and mayor of Venice who carried the intimate sense of life into his art and in life transfused the dignity and the measure of art. The city places this 1902.” This house stands at the foot of the bridge of Sant’ Antonio between Campo S. Lio and Calle de la Bissa.

He also gets a campiello named after him. Next time you’re voyaging between Campo S. Bartolomio and Campo of the Santi Apostoli, tip your hat. All these memorials are impressive, especially as nobody now remembers who he was. If the city fathers hadn’t made all these efforts, even I might not have heard of him (apart from the fact that Lino has a copy of “I Recini di Festa” and other works of Selvatico from which he reads poetry to me).

Selvatico clearly accomplished more than your usual assortment of Bepis and Tonis (“Bepi”and “Toni” are the immemorial nicknames of the quintessential pair of Venetian friends, up to and including today). I’m glad his efforts were appreciated, though the encomiums came after his death, as usual.

This portrait must have been made toward the end of his life; he was only 52 when he died, and his somewhat wary expression might be one effect of life in City Hall. Or maybe he’s imagining himself as a pigeon.

I Recini da Festa (“The best earrings”) is a comedy in two acts set in Venice, first performed in Venice to great success at the Teatro Goldoni on April 4, 1876 (14 years before he became mayor, so people knew what they were getting into, so to speak, when they elected him). One critic calls this comedy as “light and intricate as a piece of Burano lace,” still a stellar example of the best of the theatre in Venetian dialect of the time. Then as now, everybody spoke Venetian, so it wasn’t necessarily seen as a quaint way of talking, or even typical of a particular social class.

A poverty-stricken young married couple — also, she’s pregnant — is living with her parents because the husband has been rejected by his rich father who was opposed to the wedding. This opposition is based on an old quarrel between the two fathers-in-law dating from their youth, about which the newlyweds know nothing. Her father can’t support them all, so his wife breaks the piggybank in which the money for the crib was being kept.

But the baby MUST have a crib so that the father can at least put up a good appearance, therefore the daughter (soon to be mother) decides to pawn her best earrings. The person who resolves all the twists is the big-hearted and astute midwife, who’s ready to make any sacrifice to settle the matter. In the end the two old enemies make peace, and the rich father himself gives the earrings back to his daughter-in-law. Happy ending for everybody!

One critic calls this little confection “fresh, simple, full of domestic intimacy, which even today one hears willingly.”

Regata Storica, 2013, only a minute to the finish line.

Perhaps even better-known (among Venetians) is his poem “Brindisi” (toast), written in honor of the Regata Storica of 1893, and read by Selvatico at the then-traditional dinner given for all the racers the Thursday evening before the big event on Sunday.

That year the festivities were grand — nine new gondolinos had been constructed, and six bissone were bedecked at a cost of 3000 lire ($15,678 adjusted value). The rockstar pair of rowers, the Zanellato brothers, weren’t competing, and that left three crews which were virtually equal. Emotions were high even before the wine began to flow.

Like most poetry, it’s infinitely better spoken than read in silence, and I can only imagine the exultation that greeted the last few verses. I will translate, knowing that things like this come out in translation as if they’d been soaked in bleach. The original is below.

There are some who tremble/Looking around/And seeing that the world/Keeps going along every day

It seems that Venice/Once so beautiful/A little at a time/She too has changed

Mincioni/Let me say it/Venice doesn’t change/No matter how much people shout (terms in italics explained below)

The calle de l’Oca/has gone to hell/But the Grand Canal/For Lord’s sake, who would touch it?

They’ve gone to hell/parties and gambling houses/Dances, country festivals/

The Forze di Ercole/the puppet shows

So fine– but there is always/our Regata/There is always the festa/That nothing can affect (literally “impact”)

Cape, wig/ hat shaped like a raviolo/They’re dead and buried/But there is still the boatman!

And as long as this breed/Of arms and lungs/Of men who are tressi/sbragioni but good

As long as this breed/I repeat, is like this/Venice doesn’t change/Venice is beautiful!

————————————————————-

Mincioni: Refers to the male member; I’ve tried and can’t confidently give an English equivalent in the sense intended here, which summarizes all the great qualities of men’s men, in a good sense, even while using a word which usually implies the opposite.

Forze di Ercole: These “strengths of Hercules” were complicated human pyramids, spectacular exhibitions of endurance and equilibrium put on during festive occasions such as Carnival.

The men appear to be supported by barrels, but don’t be impressed. Sometimes they would construct their tower with the two outer men standing on boats. The group shown above was seen in Salizzada San Pantalon in 1769.

Hat like a raviolo: Tricorn

Tressi: A person who is a “tresso” (here he is using the plural to characterize boatmen in general) is big, strong, burly, muscular. I can imagine this inspiring an enormous burst of laughter, table- and friend-pounding, general uproar. What’s even better is that “tresso” is also the piece of wood which strengthens and unites two things that without it would collapse — for example, the legs of a chair (technically known in English as the “stretcher”). Calling somebody a tresso suddenly seems like a great thing.

Sbragioni: People called “sbragioni” are those who tend to yell when talking, especially with the belief that yelling will make the shouter win the argument. More laughter.

So far we have literary, bronze, geographic, and economic memorials to Selvatico. But his earthly remains? They can be found in the extreme southeast corner of the cemetery on the island of San Michele. But first you have to circumnavigate an enormous raised tomb in the center of the walkway.

The three arches are facing the water and are currently blocked by a chain-link fence. Which is so easy to get around it might as well not be there. Selvatico’s is the plaque on the right.

He has been joined by the famous actor Cesco Baseggio, who died in 1971. Baseggio, born up the road in Treviso, was famous for his performances in Venetian dialect.

The epitaph is the same phrase incised on the plaque at his birthplace. When you’ve perfected something, just leave it alone, though accenting the letters with gold leaf seems appropriate.

This is only the first personage to be rediscovered in the Garden of the Forgotten Venetians. Next chapter coming soon.

“Brindisi” for the Regata Storica by Riccardo Selvatico 1893

Gh’è certi che trema
Vardandose a torno,
E visto ch’el mondo
Camina ogni zorno,

Ghe par che Venezia
Un dì cussì bela,
Un poco a la volta
Se cambia anca ela.

Mincioni, mincioni,
Lassè che lo diga;
Venezia no cambia
Per quanto che i ziga.

Xe andada in malora
La cale de l’Oca;
Ma el so Canalazzo,
Perdio, chi lo toca?

Xe andai in so malora
Festini e ridoti,
I salti, le sagre,
Le forze, i casoti:

Va ben, ma gh’è sempre
La nostra Regata,
Gh’è sempre la festa
Che gnente ghe impata.

Velada, paruca,
Capelo a rafiol
Xe morti e sepolti;
Ma gh’è el barcariol!

E fin che sta razza
De brazzi e polmoni,
De omeni tressi,
Sbragioni ma boni,

In fin che sta razza,
Ripeto, xe quela,
Venezia no cambia,
Venezia xe bela!

Venetian History

The fontegheto also has changed its look

April 26, 2017 7 Comments

While my mind is still loitering around the Giardini Reali, soon to be refurbished, titivated, and otherwise brought back to life (the Giardini, not my mind), I thought I’d show a glimpse of how the immediate area looked before Napoleon moved in and there went the neighborhood.

The little building on the right is the charmingly domed Palazzina Selva, bordering the west side of the Giardini Reali. The Vallaresso vaporetto stop is visible on the left. The ecru-colored building in the center of the picture is the headquarters of the Coast Guard and Harbormaster, but it was once the Fontegheto de la Farina, or flour warehouse.

Between the early 1800’s and the 1930’s, the white stone bridge so gracefully arching over the canal didn’t exist, for the simple reason that Napoleon and those who followed wanted the Gardens (royal, remember?) to be appropriately separated from the rest of the city on that side.

In this images from the 1930’s, the canal flows in regal isolation. But take a closer look at the building to the left, the former Fontegheto. Notice the two large arched window/doors at the corner of the building. The archway on the canal side is obviously blocked off, but it wasn’t always so…

Slightly further back in history, there once was a perfectly serviceable bridge, and without parapets or steps, which was more the norm than not. It led to that now-closed archway, which then was a perfectly serviceable passageway (sotoportego) that went through the Fontegheto de la Farina.

The waterfront at San Marco used to see a lot of working boats and cargo which were not gondolas and tourists. The Fontegheto de la Farina (the building front and center, with the bridge attached) has stood here since 1492 (this painting by Canaletto is from c.1730), a smaller flour warehouse than the Fontego de la Farina at the Rialto. Smaller merchants were allowed to sell flour in the covered passageway. But man does not live on flour alone. On December 14, 1724, the Venetian Senate ordered that a few rooms on the second floor be given to the Academy of Painters and Sculptors. This academy provided instruction and working space for foreign artists passing through Venice on their way to Rome, Florence, and Bologna. It was funded by contributions from Venetian noblemen, ordinary citizens, the artists and their students.

Uncategorized

Regrowing a garden

April 14, 2017 9 Comments

Let’s start at the beginning. This is how the area between the campanile of San Marco and the canal to the west looked in 1500. We can see this due to Jacopo dei’ Barbari’s evident out-of-body experience, for which we are extremely grateful. Notice that there are buildings where the garden will be 300 years later, when Napoleon comes to improve things.

Aerial views of Venice reveal an unsuspected abundance of gardens and parks, which aren’t always apparent to the wanderer of the brick- and stone-walled streets. But one garden cum park is so obvious that I wonder how many people are even aware of it. Those who are, though, have long been disappointed, and like so many things that ought to be done but somehow aren’t, the Giardini Reali stretching between the Piazza San Marco and the lagoon have spent years in quiet, despairing decline.

Once or twice a year, an article would appear in the Gazzettino urging the campers and backpackers and picnickers who bivouac in the Piazza to avail themselves of the green space — with benches, even! — where they could munch and relax. But either the message didn’t get across, or many people looked through the rusty gate at the dusty, gravelly area which once was a garden and now had more of the atmosphere of an abandoned parking lot in Buffalo and had second thoughts. Dust in the summer you can sort of put up with, but a mid-day garden which affords NO SHADE is very hard to make appealing.

In any case, tell the truth: Did you have any idea there was a garden there?

This is the area as it was seen at some unspecified date, but some time in the early 20th century. It’s a fairly large stretch of land to be used just for a batch of trees, but Napoleon did the same thing at the Giardini Pubblici.

(Photo by Cynthia Prefontaine for Venice Gardens Foundation.)

But I’m here with good news: The garden is coming back, with flowers and a fountain and SHADE. At least those are the glad tidings announced at a press conference last Friday by the Venice Gardens Foundation (which is new — you haven’t somehow missed it, but its website will compel you to brush up on your Italian), an ambitious undertaking launched with lavish funding from the Generali Insurance Company.

The “Royal Gardens” (your first hint that they do not date from the days of the non-royal doges) were created by the wish of Napoleon in 1806 according to a design by Giovanni Antonio Antolini. When he wasn’t razing and demolishing swathes of Venice, Napoleon was transforming them. No sooner had he turned the Procuratie Nuove into the Royal Palace than he commissioned an adjoining garden, because as we all know, a palace must have a garden. Just look at Versailles. Napoleon may have been all about egalite’, but only up to a point.

The original design for the garden by Giovanni Antonio Antolini, spread out so geometrically between the Procuratie Nuove — sorry, Royal Palace — and the bacino of San Marco. The march of time and neglect have reduced this glistening perfection to a mishmash of feral botanical survivors.

So a garden was decreed and so it was, and so it continued under the Austrian occupiers and on into the epoch of the Republic of Italy, when I suppose the nervous sensation that no ghe xe schei to maintain it began to be felt.

Now we’re here and the garden will bloom again, in the form of a return to the classic design (with a few modifications) by Paolo Pejrone, one of the most celebrated landscape architects in Italy, if not the world. Meanwhile, architect Alberto Tosello will restore and re-pristinate, as the fabulous Italian verb comes out, the suffering buildings of the Padiglione Santi (another architect, not a batch of saints) — a small classic temple often identified as Palazzina Selva — the hothouse, and the sadly decrepit pergola. And the disconsolate rusty gates. Not to mention the long since seized-up old metal drawbridge.

Here is how Paolo Pejrone describes how his work will look (translated by me): “…one can imagine a garden of abundance and coolness, rich and luxurious…On the whole it won’t be a flower garden, except for the wisteria and trumpet vines, the agapanthus, some clerodendrum and hydrangeas; all suffused with a light spirit, with colorful and sometimes perfumed intervals in an elaborate and yet simple garden of leaves… It will be a triumph of leafy green, a play of transparency and shadows: every kind of leaf, thin and ribbon-like, supple and broad, glossy, leathery, or fluffy and opaque. The Gardens will proudly overbrim in every moment of the year…” It sounds divine, especially the part about the SHADOWS. It practically sounds like a stretch of the Amazon lowlands.

All this should be ready for the pleasure of everybody in the second half of 2018. Perhaps just in time for the first snowfall, but no matter. It will be beautiful again, that’s the point. And if tourists keep deciding anyway to fire up their camp stoves to cook lunch in the Piazza San Marco (not made up), or sprawl across the steps near the Caffe Florian to gnaw their sandwiches instead of reposing briefly in what should be a delectable little nook of leafy green, it certainly won’t be anybody’s fault but their own.

If you’ve ever run the gauntlet between the Molo and the vaporetto stop at “Vallaresso,” you will recognize this battlement of kiosks. But yes, there is a garden-like space open just behind them.

Even if the gate is open, I can’t say I’ve ever felt an urge to go in. Perhaps it’s because I feared that it might lead to Miss Havisham’s ruined mansion.

Needs no comment from me, except to say that one might be forgiven for passing up the chance to go in.

If gravel is your game, you’ve come to the right place. But tell me if you can find a bench sheltered by anything but the sky.

However, one could make a case for more benches.

I realize that most of the public attention and concern for Venice is dedicated to churches and palaces and paintings, but a space that is part of a World Heritage Site had become a landscaped cry for help.

The pergola, which ought to be draped with wisteria and not tarpaulins and “CLOSED” “DANGER” “ENTRANCE FORBIDDEN” signs. This is what “We have no money” looks like.

On the left of the canal is the frozen-in-time-and-rust iron drawbridge, which served to connect the Royal Palace to the gardens for the convenience and delectation of the royals. It will be put back into working order, and anyone in what is now part of the Correr Museum will be able to wander over to the garden without having to go all the way around the Piazza. At least that’s the plan.

But landscape architect Paolo Pejrone has come to save the day, here explaining to the press how the garden will be laid out. When it’s all finished, I think they should install a statue of him, perhaps in this pose.

This is the new design, somewhat related to the old, with all the plants and trees indicated by myriad colors to which I do not have the key. But if anyone wants to know where the hydrangeas are going to be, I’ll try to find out. Even if you don’t care about hydrangeas, there will be grace and loveliness. And shade.

Venetian History

My last word on viale Garibaldi

July 29, 2014 1 Comment

We left our story — “The Interminable Quest for the True Provenance of the Viale Garibaldi, as Recounted by People Living and Dead (I suppose that should be “living or dead”), with Illustrations and Funny Spelling” — at an uncomfortable point between things I knew and things I only thought I knew.

Several readers have since written me giving me more information and opinions than I’d expected (that’s not saying much, considering that I expected none). My ensuing labors to sift, evaluate, cross-check, confirm, and make at least one educated guess have led me to the last thing I’m going to say about viale Garibaldi. Not that there couldn’t be more, and there probably is more, but my interest is dimming and I’d bet yours is too.

The story so far:

A view of the church of San Giuseppe di Castello, by Antonio Canaletto. The church in the foreground was torn down, houses built in its place, the canal in the foreground filled in to create viale Garibaldi, and limetrees planted along its borders. In other words, this view is painted from the perspective of a person standing on what was to become the viale Garibaldi. (www.canalettogallery.org) — A view of the church of San Giuseppe di Castello, by Antonio Canaletto. The church in the foreground was torn down , houses built in its place, and a row of trees was planted in front of the houses.

Canaletto painted a picture showing a section of Castello as it no longer appears. I deduced from the painting that the vantage point from which he painted it was a canal which was later filled in to make the present gravel walkway lined by lime trees named the viale Garibaldi.

Please note that much confusion can be avoided by remembering that via Garibaldi and viale Garibaldi are not the same thing. “Viale” is a word which, among various translations, means “tree-lined avenue.”

A reader questioned my original assertion and its various geographical and geometrical elements, and proposed that the water seen in the painting was instead a glimpse of the Bacino of San Marco, where its rippling wavelets caressed the smooth stone surface of a working riva (fondamenta). He proposed it in less overwrought terms.

I found a map by Joan Blaue (date unknown by me, except that it was made in the 1600’s) which shows that there was indeed a riva in that place, leading down into the waters of the Bacino of San Marco, and not at all the canal I had imagined.

In brief, I was wrong and he was right.

A cropped section of the view shows the location as it was just before Canaletto's day. Although the proportions seem to be a little hinky, there is no denying that the churches painted by Canaletto were facing the Bacino of San Marco. The thrill of new knowledge is only slightly muted by the effort to see the city as they saw it. — A cropped section of the view shows the location as it was just before Canaletto’s day. Although the proportions seem to be a little hinky, there is no denying that the churches painted by Canaletto were facing the Bacino of San Marco. He doesn’t show as clearly as Ughi does (below) the street that became the viale, but I see that it’s there.

Another reader then wrote with more information and opinions, and attached a detail from another map, which I am showing here. It was made by Ludovico Ughi in 1729 — slightly after Canaletto’s time, but probably not long enough to matter to our story.

As you see, Ughi identifies a clearly non-canal strip of territory as “Cale di S. Domenico di Castello.” If it was a calle (street) in 1729, I’m going to assume it was a calle in 16-whatever-it-was when Canaletto painted his picture.

Or maybe you can’t see it. It’s the broad line that begins in the “crook” of the waterfront and goes north till it hits the “rio di Castello,” the canal which became via Garibaldi.

Detail of the area in question from Ludovico Ughi's map of 1729. The "Cale di S. Domenico di Castello" is located exactly where viale Garibaldi is today. — Detail of the area in question from Ludovico Ughi’s map of 1729. The “Cale di S. Domenico di Castello” is located exactly where viale Garibaldi is today.

Conclusion: Making assumptions can be dangerous, as my original post demonstrated, but I think the evidence is now reasonably clear that the present viale Garibaldi was not a canal in the 17th century.

That’s really all I’m interested in saying about this. Whatever it was, or wasn’t, or dreamed of being, but couldn’t, or might have been if Napoleon or Nikola Tesla or Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler hadn’t intervened, is a story I’m not going to be pursuing anymore.

I’m all for knowledge — the more, the better, even as it gets broken and reassembled in ever-tinier pieces and shapes. But unless somebody can convince me that Jimmy Hoffa is buried under the third bench on the right, I’m going to leave this subject and go on to something else. Perhaps something more interesting, maybe even more important. But at least it won’t be about the viale Garibaldi.

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