I’m not going to lie: I never thought I’d see this day. Either it would never come, or by the time it did, I’d have long since turned into tera de bocal (clay for making chamberpots, as they put it here). But here we are, or more specifically, there it was this morning — the Adriatic to the right, the lagoon 70 cm lower to the left, and the vaunted MOSE floodgates ensuring for the first time that the twain shall never meet.
Years, decades, lifetimes have been devoted to constructing (and paying for) this thing, and I had little (in ErlaSpeak that means “no”) expectation that the gates would ever function. But they did. Allow me to doff my chapeau and say I’m not only astounded, but slightly weirded out. Because hearing three signals on the warning siren at 8:00 AM put all my nerves on high alert, even though we’re not in danger till four signals warn us of the possibility of the tide’s exceeding our personal domestic ground-level safe limit of 150 cm. Instead: Nothing.
I think everybody’s nerves have been a little tense, after two days of forecasts predicting an acqua alta to peak today at 135 cm above mean sea level at 12:05 PM. But at 9:00 AM (and at a mere 70 cm of rising tide) it was instead the long-discussed, -doubted, -reviled floodgates that rose, and stopped the sea at whatever the watery analogy of “in its tracks” may be. At the measuring station at the Diga Sud of the Lido the tide was at 119 cm, but the water at the Punta della Salute — bacino of San Marco, basically — was at 69 cm. When the tide turned, just after noon, it had reached 129 cm, but in the city was only a paltry 73.
This graph clearly shows the track of the tide, from its lowest point at 6:00 AM to the moment when the gates began to rise. Game, as they say, over.
We went outside to look at our canal. The water wasn’t moving. A lost pear, fallen from the fruit/vegetable boat upstream, was bobbing tranquilly in one place when it ought long since to have been carried off by the rising (or, by then, falling) tide.
Even on a normal day, the water in the canal is almost always moving at some speed, in some direction; only briefly, twice a month, does the tide pause in what is called the morte de aqua (“death of the water”). But here it was, stock still. It might as well have been in the bathtub. And so it remained until some time after the Adriatic began to withdraw; I suppose that didn’t need to be said, but perhaps someone other than myself might have forgotten that you wouldn’t lower the barrier until the sea was at least even with the level of water in the lagoon.
I didn’t used to think of 135 cm as anything more than “God, this is annoying.” But I think it’s fair to say that the doomsday inundation of November 11-12, 2019 is still too screamingly fresh in everybody’s mind to allow the casual return of “Sure, this is Venice, what do you expect?” Any tide above normal now appears potentially apocalyptic. And if our nerves were slightly on edge, so were those of the hopeful travelers who had booked hotel rooms and then, having heard early mentions of the dreaded words “acqua alta,” quickly canceled the reservations.
That’s too bad, because they missed a verifiably historic moment. And I’m glad I was here to see that pear not going anywhere in our canal.
The breakwater at San Nicolo’ on the Lido was an excellent spot for watching this epic event. This clip gives a sense of the force of the wind, always a crucial player on Team Flood Venice. This morning it was up to 41 kph (25 mph).
In case the still photograph above doesn’t convey the dynamic of what’s happening, this video from Corriere della Sera (particularly at the beginning and end of the clip) gives a glimpse of the force of the tide, as seen against the barriers as they rise, one by one. Fun fact: It took one hour and 17 minutes to raise all 78 of the gates, so the process obviously needs to start in a timely manner and not wait till the last OMG minute.
Beautiful in its way…But this is astonishingly beautiful: Noon today in the Piazza San Marco, the moment of the peak tide which ought to have covered the pavement with some 45 cm/17 inches of lagoon. The only water that dampened the stones here came from the clouds.
Note: Two videos, and all of the images with the exception of the water in the Piazza San Marco, were forwarded to me by friends via WhatsApp, so I am unable to give appropriate credit to their sources.
These are certainly not the most elaborate costumes I saw, but the glowing parasols are the point.
Carnival (or Carnevale, if you prefer) isn’t something I gorge on every year; I tend to take a few little nibbles around the edges. And this year wouldn’t have been any different except that a former colleague from National Geographic, photographer Tomasz Tomaszewski, said he was coming with a friend to make pictures, and asked if I could give a logistical hand.
For three intense days (Thursday to Saturday) we wandered around — if you can call eight miles a day “wandering” — and it turned out to be surprisingly entertaining. This doesn’t mean I can’t wait till next year to do it all again, but either the quality of the costumes was higher than in some years past, or I’ve changed in some indefinable way, or something.
You can never go wrong with dogs.
I hope you enjoy these snaps, because the story of Carnevale 2020 has not had a happy ending. Northern Italy (specifically the regions of Lombardia and Veneto) are in the tightening clutch of the COVID-19 epidemic. On Sunday there were only 20,000 revelers out of an expected 100,000.
In fact, the curtain fell on Carnevale two days early – Sunday nght at midnight, to be precise. I don’t know that this has ever happened, but missing the culmination of festivities on Tuesday (Martedi’ Grasso) has certainly made the scheduled participants unhappy. The 12 Marias are in tears because now we’ll never know who was the fairest of them all.
That’s just the beginning. The governor of the Veneto has decreed many decrees prohibiting events or places of any sort where people might gather in groups larger than (insert small number here). Until March 1 the schools, universities, and museums are closed. There will be no masses celebrated in church, even on Ash Wednesday, not even in the basilica of San Marco. Sporting events are all canceled.
But let me share a look back at a few sunny days when Carnival was fully fledged and nobody was worrying about anything more important than where to finally find a place to sit down.
Trailing clouds of glory, this couple proceeded at a stately pace beneath puffs and cherubs. The stately pace was more or less imposed by the weight of the costume (some of them went up to 26 pounds, or 12 kg), and walking slowly also made it easy for photographers to snap away. The most elaborate costumes made many stops on the stroll around the Piazza because almost all of this activity was undertaken precisely to be photographed. Just like the casinos want you to steal their ashtrays (I was told once…), people dress up here to be photographed. You can’t possibly offend them by asking. Or not asking and just going ahead, shooting away, which is more common.Photographers were swarming like freaking locusts.Everybody was happy.All it took was for one person to start shooting and there was a sudden rush from everywhere and the wild fluttering sound of camera shutters. It was like seagulls attacking a slice of pizza.She was only pretending to play but it looked like she was having a grand time.I give her credit for willingness to walk around with an entire fabric-store supply of material draped on and around her, but it makes me feel tired and slightly smothered just looking at her.The roses…..It seems slightly Zen to come all the way from Tokyo to sit by yourself, but perhaps her cavalier was out getting her cigarettes or something. Tomasz is immortalizing her and her cigarette holder; she told him that she had made the costume (or had it made; in any case, it wasn’t rented, as many people do to simplify matters).
There were far too many 18th-century-Mozart-Casanova-Marie-Antoinette costumes roaming around for my taste, but this French couple took it to a whole new level. They (or she) makes the costumes, and she told me that they changed their outfit every day — wigs and all. I secretly called her Melisande, but her real name is Charlotte and she comes from La Rochelle. She and her friends — two men were in tow — drove to Venice with their steamer trunks loaded with this glorious garb.Good from the back, as well.She was too perfect. Perhaps she was listening for the distant rumble of the tumbrels?Speaking of French, this squadron was a sight to behold– three admirals, home from the fleet after a vigorous few months of bashing the English (I imagine).These cafes are expensive, but if you can find a seat they’re the best place to give your costume a rest for a while.If there’s anywhere the standard period costume really looks good (apart from the Caffe’ Florian, I mean), it’s in a gondola.She needed a better position than a mere cafe table and she got it atop the balustrade of the entrance to the campanile.I began to yearn for simplicity, the way you yearn for a pickle after a hot pastrami sandwich. These two Italian ladies were just what I needed.As was this girl.Dotted nylons and sparkly sneakers — that’s her Carnevale outfit and I really like it.Then this vision rose from the sea, a magical naiad combining fantasy, glamour, and dazzling simplicity. Even the pose was perfect.This extraordinary headdress is all reef — coral, algae, shells.The pictures were all of Venice and water. If we have to have acqua alta, could more of these creatures appear, please?I forgot all about Melisande when I lost my heart to Ondine.At the Rialto, another breath of non-18th-century air. Very few elements involved (not like the mountain of material with the white silk roses), but all the better for that. Finding a great hat that wasn’t a tricorn isn’t deeply difficult, but you have to realize that that’s really what your outfit needs.I entertain myself by noticing reflections, and this one of the basilica’s facade was a nice change from the parade of people.You can only look at so many costumes before your eyes seek something drastically different. Here’s a shop at the end of a long sunny street with people apparently walking through it. Photographer Tomaszewski, or his shadow, has paused at the right to look at something. Or nothing. His eyes might have been getting tired too.
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.
