I knew two days ago what the weather was going to be last night. I knew it without checking the barometer, or the online weather forecast, or the newspaper. In fact, I knew it a year ago.
All I have to do is check the calendar.
June 29 is the Feast of St. Peter, as you know. And as everyone else knows — at least around here — that means there will be thunder. Probably rain. Possibly even hail, but that’s not so common.
Someone unknown to me has undoubtedly long since figured out why this is. All I know is that St. Peter likes thunder. They tell frightened children he’s cleaning the wine barrels. As time goes on there probably won’t be any children left who know what a wine barrel looks like, but I suppose St. Peter could be cleaning barrels full of discounted, slightly damaged designer handbags.
What St. Peter also oversees is one of the best festivals in Venice. Maybe anywhere. The festa of San Piero de Casteo, held on the greensward in front of the eponymous church (for centuries the cathedral of Venice), is a great moment in the neighborhood year. It’s five evenings of fun, frolic, and food, and dogs and kids and free gondola rides and also loud music that goes on far into the night. (St. Peter cleaning the Bose amplifiers?)
The proceeds, the fruit of phenomenal labor by squadrons of scouts and parishioners, some of whom in other places might have been expected to be doing nothing more strenuous than changing channels, are donated to all sorts of charitable causes.
The first people come with some semblance of tranquility and control. It doesn't last long.
Last night, being Wednesday, and the first night, the crowd was reasonably small, which meant you could still see grass and bits of walkway. The big event was the performance of “I Rusteghi,” one of the many famous Venetian comedies by the extremely famous and important Carlo Goldoni (1707 – 1793). A live performance of a certified classic — and for free. You can’t get that every day.
We wandered over there last night to get in the mood for the next few days; we (or at least I) needed to start strengthening my mental muscles to confront Friday and Saturday night, the peak moments of this event.
One of life's great mysteries: That it's more interesting to look at the person sitting next to you on a screen than it is to just turn to look at him or her for real.
It’s not so much the blasting music, which we can hear from our little hovel 293 meters/962 feet away, because eventually the band packs up and goes home.
It’s the enthusiastic shouting of overexcited people walking home, all of them funneling down the street which is just outside our bedroom window. It’s like having 2,000 people yelling good-night for an hour standing right in front of the bed.
We shut the windows and turn the fan on “high.” The only other solution would be to go to the mountains every night.
Still, if for some reason this didn’t occur, I’d be sorry. It would be like not having thunder or lightning or hail. It would be wrong.
And yes, it did rain last night, but only some time after midnight so as not to spoil the party. St. Peter thinks of everything.
Classic weather for the feast of San Martino, probably designed to send you indoors to eat the classic roasted chestnuts.
As I may have said before, one of the many things I love about being here is the way life crosses the stream of the year by stepping on a series of metaphorical stones, which are the assorted holidays and feast days of some saints I hardly knew (that means “never knew”) existed. Now I know more about them than could ever be regarded as useful or even, dare I say it, interesting.
I used to think it was so exotic the way that people in the Middle Ages, according to assorted novels, would always be talking about events according to their nearest feast day: “We’ll plant the corn after St. Swithin’s Day,” “The marriage took place before Candlemas,” and so on. Now I’m doing it too.
For example, everybody knows that you don’t broach the new wine until St. Martin’s Day, which is today, November 11. The seppie begin to head out to sea after the Feast of the Redentore (third Sunday in July). I could go on, but St. Martin is getting restless.
The essential costume must include headgear, usually a crown. This item deftly connects the essential elements, which are San Martino, a sword, and a horse.
The festivities almost always take place on the eve of the official date of whatever the event may be. Therefore, yesterday via Garibaldi was strewn with small children in their “San Martin” garb — clever crowns, sometimes capes, often a bag for the candy they strongly urge people to give them — and carrying whatever bits of kitchenware such as pots and pans (or their covers) to bang and clang as they sing the vaguely threatening San Martino song. The gist of this ditty is that if you don’t give them candy, they will invoke a variety of unpleasant reprisals. Pimples on your butt is one of the favorites.
The essential elements for the traditional cookie are pastry dough and candies stuck on with icing. This is the minimalist version, reduced, simplified, symbolic. And small.
I like to think about all these people who stroll across the Venetian calendar. The Befana (Jan. 6), Santa Lucia (Dec. 13), the Madonna della Salute (Nov. 21), San Marco (April 25) and now San Martino (Nov. 11). Of course there are many more, when you add in every parish’s patron saint. Just imagine them all getting together at their annual convention: “International Marching and Chowder Society of Saints of the Venetian Year, this year meeting in Mobile, Alabama. Before registering, make sure you’ve paid your dues.” It’s just an expression. Saints, by definition, have long since paid them.
Where was I? Via Garibaldi. So yesterday afternoon hot chocolate and the crucial cookie called a “Samartin” (Sa-mar-TEEN) were distributed to the children by the good men of the Mutual Aid Society of the Caulkers and Carpenters. When they ran out of children they gave cookies to everyone else, mainly grandmothers and aged aunts who had been circling like buzzards.
Today, the late morning was clanked and clattered by groups of schoolchildren, manic little locusts in impromptu costumes swarming the shops and vendors. They were banging on their cookware and singing the San Martino song, or at least some of it.
The onslaught begins as the older children head for the next shop --which in this case will be a fruit and vegetable vendor.
It's nice to see the horse getting some recognition. All he did in the original story was stand there.
They had also prepared a series of posters depicting San Martino at his greatest moment, the encounter with the freezing beggar by the road and the division of his cloak with his sword.
A little tourist girl meets San Martino -- or more precisely, the beggar at his feet.
I believe he did a few other things in his life which had deeper and longer-lasting importance, but they don’t make anywhere near as good a story. Or poster.
Considering the ludicrous prices of the cookies on sale around town — a rough estimate tells me that regardless of size they cost 250% more than last year, when the prices were already too high — I think San Martino ought to cut the cookies in half.
Funny how in these pictures it's never winter. That sort of mitigates the whole freezing-to-death part of the story. But this is obviously prettier.
41 euros is $56. The size of this supposedly mega-cookie (#5) can easily be understood if you know the size of a Perugina "bacio" chocolate. (Hint: It contains one hazelnut.) I realize that 14 chocolates are not cheap. But if you're going to spend $56 on something, I wouldn't be thinking of chocolate but something more in the precious-metals line. Gad.
While Americans are watching Punxsutawney Phil, February 2 here in Venice is still known as the feast of the Madonna Candelora (can-del-ORA). Or Candlemas, according to its very old English name, or the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the medium-old locution, or the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple today.
"The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple," by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1342).
You’ll be startled to hear that it does not involve special food, songs, costumes, or any other acts or even thoughts, although down here at the waterline there may be some fragments of litany or dogma I haven’t come across. This general silence may be because Carnival has overwhelmed it, a festival famous for its lack of litany and dogma.
However, this baby step toward spring is still recognized in an old saying you hear around, which goes like this:
Ala Madona Candelora/de l’inverno semo fora/Se xe piove o xe vento/de l’inverno semo dentro.
“At the Madonna Candelora/ we’re out of winter/ But if it’s rainy or windy / we’re still inside it.”
No mention of how long the extended winter might be (one of Phil’s more helpful services, the six-more-weeks footnote). The canny Venetians may not have wanted to commit themselves. Or the Blessed Virgin.
I have discovered by other means, though, that the feast was mentioned in a document dated 380, and celebrated on February 14. Later modifications by popes and emperors brought it to February 2; Pope/Saint Gelasius (492-496) finally suppressed the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia (also involving purification), and connected it to respect the calculation governing the Jewish ritual of a woman’s purification 40 days after giving birth (hence in the Christian calendar in the West it falls 40 days after Christmas).
This extraordinary relief by the Ponte Tetta is so thoroughly imprisoned for protection that it's impossible to photograph all of its beauty. It is clearly a depiction of the presentation of Jesus; the two birds prescribed as an offering (Luke 2: 22-24) are hidden by the bars.
Some (not all) scholars also assert that the feast was instituted to replace, smother, or otherwise push off the road the rites honoring the ancient Italic goddess Cerere (borrowed from the Greeks’ Demeter), goddess of growing things, particularly grain.
Speaking of Cerere, a few years ago I was researching an article on the myriad peoples, lumped together under the rubric “Italic,” which were doing just fine in Italy prior to the Roman domination (“Italy Before the Romans,” National Geographic, January, 2005). One of these peoples, the Samnites, occupied the territories in and around Campobasso, in Molise.
This is one of only a few depictions of Mary I've ever seen that show how young she was when she became a mother.
I came upon a fountain surmounted by a statue of Cerere in the square of Baranello, a small town of 2,745 souls six miles from Campobasso. It was clearly not ancient; in fact, it was created in 1896. Perhaps the harvest was a disaster that year — I’m just guessing. Then again, maybe they’d had a bumper crop and didn’t want to appear to take it for granted. I suspect that farmers tend to be belt-and-suspenders people.
The inscriptions on the statue’s pedestal (translated by me) state:
(Front) I dedicate this fountain in honor of the farmers of Baranello who with work and sobriety contributed to its well-being
(left) Almo Sun, who with your shining chariot makes the day rise and disappear and returns to be born, different but the same, may you contemplate something larger than this town. May the earth, fertile with fruit and flocks, give to Cerere a crown of wheat-ears and may the salubrious waters and the nimbus of Jove nourish the people
(Right) O Gods, grant honest customs to docile youth, to old age placidity, and to the Samnite people give wealth, progeny, and every glory
Lest you think that this effusion represents the apex of Victorian nostalgia — the anonymous donor clearly beat Mussolini to the public declaration of worship of their Latin forebears — let me note that a statue of Cerere also stands atop the Chicago Board of Trade, as well as appearing on the Great Seal of the State of New Jersey, holding a cornucopia. These notions die hard. Or not at all.
Back to our — with all due respect — meteorological Madonna. The forecast for February 2 is for brilliant sun all day. I’m ready.
Enough with the winter already -- it was snowing on January 26. Even the statues are waiting for spring, including the faithful Nino Bixio, who's got Garibaldi's back.
I realize that a mere ten days have passed since we officially festivized All Saints, which to my literal mind means we’re good for another year with everybody who has ever been beatified or canonized. But of course that isn’t the case, at least not here. Happily, saints often come not only with their often inscrutable life stories, but — as you may have noticed — with their own particular provender.
St. Martin in his greatest moment, here in a relief sculpture on the facade of the eponymous church near the Arsenal.
November 11 is the next case in point: It’s St. Martin’s Day (that would be St. Martin of Tours, if you’re looking for him — not the Caribbean island). And even though you may feel as if what’s left of the year is unspooling in a meaningless way — let’s just get to Christmas — there are several milestones on the way and he is one of the most important.
The man himself (316 to 397 A.D.) was born in what is now Hungary, and although he was drawn to Christianity at the age of ten, he followed his officer father and joined a Roman unit of heavy cavalry. He was pious but that didn’t seem to interfere with the performance of his duties, whatever those might have been. So everything was going along in a normal Roman-cavalry-unit sort of way until one day, near his base at Amiens, France, he had a life-changing experience, followed by a vision, which has become the most famous (usually only) thing which we remember about him. I refer to the Episode of the Cloak.
In the words of his hagiographer, Sulpitius Severus, “In the middle of winter, a winter which had shown itself to be more severe than ordinary, so that extreme cold was proving fatal to many, he happened to meet at the gate of the city of Amiens a poor man destitute of clothing. He was entreating those that passed by to have compassion upon him, but all passed the wretched man without notice, when Martin…recognized that a being to whom others showed no pity, was, in that respect, left to him.
A child's version of events painted on a plate which says "Viva San Martino" (long live St. Martin). I think he might have liked this blithe little version of events.
Yet, what should he do? He had nothing except the cloak in which he was clad, for he had already parted with the rest of his garments for similar purposes. Taking, therefore, his sword with which he was girt, he divided his cloak into two equal parts, and gave one part to the poor man, while he again clothed himself with the remainder. Upon this, some of the bystanders laughed, because he was now an unsightly object, and stood out as but partly dressed. Many, however, who were of sounder judgment, groaned deeply because they themselves had done nothing similar. They especially felt this, because, being possessed of more than Martin, they could have clothed the poor man without reducing themselves to nakedness.”
The first time I heard this story, I was slightly perplexed by the fact that he hadn’t given the man his entire cloak, him being such a good person, and then I figured he’d miraculously be given a new one (or something). Cutting it and keeping half seems so intelligent — hard to believe he became a saint with that approach to problem-solving.
But obviously I don’t know my saint. “In the following night” (Severus continues) …Martin…had a vision of Christ arrayed in that part of his cloak with which he had clothed the poor man…he heard Jesus saying with a clear voice to the multitude of angels standing around — “Martin, who is still but a catechumen, clothed me with this robe.”
Martin immediately went to be baptized, and two years later he left the army to begin a lifetime of good works and miracles. Many of his reported exploits seem somehow generic — no disrespect intended, I have no doubt these occurred or ought to have occurred (converting a robber to the Faith, restoring someone who had been strangled, destroying heathen temples and altars, casting out devils, curing the sick, preaching repentance to the Devil). He wouldn’t have been a saint if he hadn’t done at least two of those things. But clearly others also recognized his intelligence and made him Bishop of Tours, and then he became a national saint of France and also of soldiers. (I think that’s a fine thing to remember on Veterans’ Day.) But what remains fixed in millions of art works, and in most garden-variety minds, is the cloak-and-beggar story.
A wineshop announces (in Venetian) the happy news: The torbolino has arrived!
I can remember much of this because everyone here refers to that brief pause in the oncoming winter weather (known elsewhere as Indian Summer) as “St. Martin’s Summer.” It is underway even as I write, having arrived two nights ago, girt with smiling sunshine, after three days of ferocious cold, wind and rain. I also remember much of this because the kids go a little crazy.
This is an important date (unrelated to Martin, as such) because this is when anyone who made wine in September begins to decant the first stage, or “must,” a barely fermented fluid which here is called torbolino (tor-bo-LEE-no) because it’s turbid, and is born to be consumed with roasted chestnuts. And while the adults may be swallowing turbid wine and burning their fingers, the children head straight for sugar and noise.
The kids appear in approximately organized groups, and go up and down the street banging whatever they've got to bang on or with and wearing certain costume elements. I don't know why the crown is considered an important attribute of St. Martin, but anybody wearing it certainly feels like celebrating.
The tradition is for children to go around the neighborhood banging and clanging on pots and pans with spoons or something, and carrying a small bag (sacco — sack. Sachetin — little sack. Sa-keh-TEEN). They sing at least the lilting refrain of a little song whose verses variously request any adult they stop to give them some kind of treat, and specifying the revenge they wish to see visited on anyone who refuses. “Pimples on your butt” is the best one. These are innocent little maledictions — nothing anyone could actually inflict, unlike Halloween tricks.
The correct term for this activity is “battere San Martino,” or “to beat St. Martin.” This simply means going out to make a racket in his honor. The refrain: “E co nooooooostro sachetiiiiiiiiin, Cari signori xe San Martin.” (And with our little sack, dear sirs it’s Saint Martin’s Day.)
Obviously this kid has reached a whole new level of cool. Nice to get the horse involved, too.
The littlest contingent was the only one which wore something resembling cloaks.
They go in and out of whatever shops may be open — this is a late-afternoon/early-evening project — and may well score some kind of small candy or even bits of money. They are usually accompanied by squadrons of mothers.
Then there are the cookies called “Sammartini.” This is a newfangled post-war invention which played no part in the lives of children of Lino’s vintage. The dense buttery cookie dough is cut out by metal forms of various dimensions in the silhouette of a man on horseback holding his sword aloft. Then the pastry-makers go into a sort of frenzy decorating him with icing of various colors and sticking pieces of candy onto it before it dries. The price of these cookies varies according to size but also, I imagine, according to the elegance of the candy. An M&M is one thing, a Perugina chocolate is another. And then they add up the cost of the ingredients and multiply by, oh, a thousand. For the first time, I just saw some in the ordinary old supermarket, a triumph of economy over romance. It was bound to happen.
Speaking of economy, don’t worry too much about how much money the pastry-bakers could be losing on their unsold cookies the day after. They break them up into pieces and sell them by weight. That is really the triumph of economy over romance and I’m all for it. You know what? Fragments of saint taste just like the whole saint.
A pretty nice "Sammartin," it's true. But 28 euros? That's $40! If Saint Martin found out you had that much extra money to spend on something in his honor, I'm going to step up and say he wouldn't want it to be a cookie. My view of saints is that they're fine with fun, but not with insanity.This was my cookie and it was excellent. I think all horses should have M&M's for hooves.
For the first time the neighborhood hired a local man who put on quite a puppet show. It didn't have anything to do with St. Martin, but it did involve lots of hitting and rude remarks, all in Venetian. The kids loved it.
The Venetian backdrop was nice too.
Back in the days when children were still made to memorize poetry, they were taught “San Martino” by Giosue Carducci ( Nobel Prize for Literature, 1906). It’s a bucolic little ode to this autumnal interlude — nothing about cloaks, saints, or sacks, small or otherwise — but naturally the new wine works its way into it with no trouble at all.
The poem comes rolling out of Lino’s memory even after all these decades; he just started reciting it yesterday as we were walking over the bridge on the way to the vaporetto. It’s more a hymn to the season than anything related to saints or miracles and it reminds me, in a way, of those lines from Stephen Vincent Benet’s “John Brown’s Body” (“Fall of the possum, fall of the ‘coon/And the lop-eared hound-dog baying the moon./Fall that is neither bitter nor swift/But a brown girl bearing an idle gift/A brown seed-kernel that splits apart/And shows the Summer yet in its heart…”). It’s a season that definitely brings out something in poets, maybe even more than spring.
La nebbia agli irti colli/piovigginando sale,/e sotto il maestrale/urla e biancheggia il mar;
Ma per le vie del borgo/dal ribollir de’ tini/Va l’aspro odor de i vini/l’anime a rallegrar.
Gira su ceppi accesi/lo spiedo scoppietando:/sta il cacciator fischiando/sull’uscio a rimirar
Tra le rossastre nubi/Stormi di uccelli neri/Com’esuli pensieri/Nel vespero migrar.
The mist on the bristly hills/rises drizzling/and under the northwest wind/the sea whitens and howls.
But in the village streets/from the fermenting tubs/Comes the pungent odor of the wine/to cheer the spirit.
Above the burning logs/the spit turns, popping;/the hunter whistling in the doorway/takes aim again
Among the russet clouds/flocks of black birds/like exiled thoughts/migrate at vespers.
By the way, Carducci was born in a Tuscan mountain village called Valdicastello (now Valdicastello Carducci, pop. 1000), so he wasn’t some urban creature sitting downtown inventing some fantasy out of the Georgics. He heard and saw (and smelled) what he was writing about. That’s why I like it. I wonder how old he was when the idea of “exiled thoughts” came to him.
Signing off for the Daily Saint and Cookie.
The men in the fish shop thought all this was wonderful.
Someone unknown to me has undoubtedly long since figured out why this is. All I know is that St. Peter likes thunder. They tell frightened children he’s cleaning the wine barrels. As time goes on there probably won’t be any children left who know what a wine barrel looks like, but I suppose St. Peter could be cleaning barrels full of discounted, slightly damaged designer handbags.
Lest you think that this effusion represents the apex of Victorian nostalgia — the anonymous donor clearly beat Mussolini to the public declaration of worship of their Latin forebears — let me note that a statue of Cerere also stands atop the Chicago Board of Trade, as well as appearing on the Great Seal of the State of New Jersey, holding a cornucopia. These notions die hard. Or not at all.
