The Garden of the Forgotten Venetians – Riccardo Selvatico
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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!
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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.
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.
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!
Patriarchal postscript
Zwingle’s Eighth Law states “The bigger your memorial, the less people remember who you were.” A wander around Westminster Abbey shines a blinding light on that truth. A black marble slab for Charles Dickens, a white marble meringue for James Cornewall.
In case anyone was wondering if there might be any memorials to the three patriarchs of Venice who became pope, the answer is yes. But you might not notice them, and if you did, you might not quite grasp who they were. Especially if the inscription is in Latin (grrr).
Trivia alert: Venetians refer to popes, especially the three that touched Venice, by their civilian last names, not their formal papal names. Also, the word for “pope” in Italian is papa (PAH-pah.) The nickname for your daddy is the same word, pronounced pah-PAH. If you mix them up, people will think the pope is your father.
Pope Pius X, “Papa Sarto,” was deeply moved on leaving Venice to go to Rome for the conclave of cardinals meeting to elect the successor to Pope Leo XIII. The throng which came to see him off at the station was exhibiting what we’d call intense separation anxiety. He reassured them by promising that he would return, whether alive or dead. Yes, he said those words. He was elected pope, and though he lived another 11 years, he never made it back. He died in 1914.
In 1959, Pope John XXIII (just coming up in our chronicle) — who knew of this unfulfilled promise — arranged for Sarto’s casket to be disinterred, organized a special train which left, in those days, from a station within the Vatican, and sent him back to Venice. The body lay in state in the basilica of San Marco for a month, then was returned by special train to the Vatican. Promise kept.
Footnote: Lino remembers the day the train arrived, not because he was present, but because all the employees of the Aeronavali, which maintained and repaired airplanes at Nicelli airport on the Lido, were taken in a bus to see where the new Marco Polo airport was going to be built on the mainland. The sacred and the profane just keep on running into each other.
Of the three papal memorials here, that of Saint Pius X is the most impressive by weight, but the least impressive by location: at the head of the Ponte della Liberta’ by Piazzale Roma, next to the Agip gas station. Lino says it’s because he’s there to guard the gate to the city. There may well be more to it than that, but I haven’t taken the time to root it out. That could be a project for my old age.
Pope John XXIII, Papa Roncalli, or “The Good Pope,” was known as a saint by anyone who ever met him, at least here in Venice. The beatification details that made it official were just extra.
Lino had two encounters with him. One was by surprise, crossing the patriarch’s path as he left the basilica of the Salute. Lino was strolling with his girlfriend, and Roncalli stopped to say hello. “Are you two engaged?” he asked in a friendly, if generic, way. “Yes, Your Eminence” — Lino repeats this in a tiny abashed voice. “Love each other,” he said, patting each of them on the cheek. Evidently his charisma marked this little event in a powerful way, because on paper it looks like nothing.
The second encounter was at the airport, where Lino worked as an airplane mechanic. Patriarch Roncalli came to celebrate mass there for the workers, and he was lacking an altarboy to assist him. Lino volunteered.
My favorite bit of Roncalli lore is the nickname the gondoliers gave him: “Nane Schedina,” or Jack the Lottery Ticket. When he chose the name John XXIII, to the wags at the Molo stazio the Roman numerals looked like the pattern of the numbers on a lottery ticket.
If you needed any further evidence of his qualities as a patriarch/pope/human being, the nickname says it all. Gondoliers bestow them spontaneously, and only when they really want to. In fact, if there is any category which comes equipped with a built-in automatic crap detector, as Hemingway put it, it would be the gondoliers. The fact that Roncalli would sometimes walk over to the Molo to say hello, and even sometimes take them up on their offer of going to get a glass of wine at the nearby bar, obviously had something to do with their feeling for him. He’d play cards with the staff in the evening, too. Not with the majordomo, with the cook and the cleaning ladies.
He’s the only patriarch of the three that has two memorials. That doesn’t earn him any bonus points, I merely mention it.
Pope John Paul I, “Papa Luciani,” was smaller and, it turns out, more frail than his two patriarchal predecessors. But Venetians loved him, and not just because he came from the mountains just up the road. In his mere 33 days on the throne of St. Peter he earned the sobriquet “The Smiling Pope.” Venetians already knew that.
So far, no bust of him has been made, or if so, placed anywhere a human can see it. But he is remains an extremely tough act to follow, as his successors have amply demonstrated.
