Today is the feast of All Souls, more informally called “I Morti” (the dead). Unlike Mexico and maybe some other countries, celebrating/commemorating the Day of the Dead in Venice is not a big holiday, in a festive sort of sense.
Here, one typically — if one is old-fashioned, as we are — eats a few “fave” on the night of All Saints, i.e. November 1. They’re so intensely sweet that I can manage only one or two before saying good-bye to these morsels for another year.
And this evening, one would typically roast chestnuts and drink torbolino, the first drawing-off of the new wine. (We skip the torbolino because naturally it isn’t as good now as it was in the old days.)
So much for the few remaining traditions observed on this day, but wait! This year a temporary bridge was assembled to connect the Fondamente Nove to the cemetery island of San Michele, reviving a custom that had been abandoned in 1950. It isn’t the old bridge, of course, which used to be set up on massive wooden boats called peate. What impresses me is that enough of these boats were taken out of service back then for a number of days, because 70 years ago they were still hard at work.
The bridge stretched — and still does — for 417 meters (1,359 feet). That is longer than the famous pontoon bridge set up for the feast of the Redentore across the Giudecca Canal (342 meters, or 1,123 feet).Here’s something that’s just as exotic as the boats: no railings or any other protective barriers or devices. People either walked or thought differently back then.
This year, to general amazement, the city (mayor, basically, who is soon up for re-election — I’M NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAS NOTICED THAT) decided to spend 450,000 euros ($502,776) on a pontoon bridge resembling the one set up for the feast of the Redentore in July. The bridge will be up until November 10, so there’s still time if any reader wants to stroll across it to the cemetery. There are vaporettos back to Venice if the gentle rocking motion of the bridge has lost its appeal.
We’re not big cemetery-goers, but we went to pay our respects to some of Lino’s family who have gone ahead, as the Alpine Regiment soldiers refer to their comrades at funerals. Obviously we’ve been before, though of course it was less oppressive going today than it was twice in the last two years, accompanying a coffin. I probably didn’t need to say that. The bridge was appealing, but not our main motive for the excursion.
The city had imposed a rule, enforced by numerous people in various uniforms, that the bridge could be used today and tomorrow only by residents, Venetians or otherwise (showing either their vaporetto pass or their I.D.), or anybody with the vaporetto pass, by which they mean the long-term one which would indicate some more than passing connection with the city. At first we thought this was extremely weird, even though people could certainly go via the free vaporetto today.
They were absolutely checking people’s passes or ID.
But a Venetian friend I met on the bridge explained that one reason for this rule was to squelch tour groups from swarming it (bridge and cemetery) for the novelty of it all, thereby ruining what is a very personal and often emotional experience for people who live here. She said that some tour operators had indeed publicized this event, so let me offer an unsolicited compliment to whoever thought up that rule. Gad. That’s all we need — tourists on the bridge to the cemetery today. They can go on Monday, and every day till next Sunday if they want to.
“The bridge of the saints and the dead” (defuncts).” Here are some rules: Thursday October 31 from 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM and from Friday November 1 to Sunday November 3 from 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM; from November 4-10 from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM.
I was surprised to run into a good number of people we know, either on the traverse or wandering around the plots, looking for their deceased relatives, often holding bouquets or other flower arrangements. The place was absolutely bursting with flowers; it has never looked that good, and the colors were wonderfully welcome in what was a dank, gray, cold, rainy day. Perfect weather for the occasion, true, but after a while one’s thoughts wandered from the past to the very present cold, wet feet.
All told, several hours well spent. And thoughts and emotions dedicated to several exceptional people, starting with Lino’s parents, two sisters and a brother. The rest are interred in the cemetery in Mestre, where I wouldn’t have gone, though I wafted them a number of familial thoughts.
The cemetery as seen from above gives no hint at how maddeningly complicated it is to find the loculi you want amid what are mazes of concrete blocks. The interments aren’t much easier to deal with, either. People were wandering with maps in their hands — no telling what condition the people at the information booth were in at closing time.On the tomb of the Nob. Famiglia Malfer (noble family Malfer). The only lion with a hammer I’ve ever seen — not the Venetian lion, obviously, but still. I’d always thought lions depended on their fangs and claws. More seriously, a quick search reveals that it’s a name to be found in northern Italy in the Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige or Lake Garda areas. In heraldry, the lion represents strength, courage and command; the hammer symbolizes exertion or endeavor, intelligence or ingenuity, and determination or constancy. But we were searching for Lino’s family, so we moved on.Immediately entering the cemetery through the stately official portal (which I’d always seen closed), there was an information booth to the left, and a wooden ramp which I assume was to facilitate the passage of people in wheelchairs (we saw several), as well as strollers.Small children, always so glad to be taken to incomprehensible places for profoundly uninteresting reasons, in the rain. Filial piety flickers faintly, but at least they’re now finally heading for the exit.Astonishing quantities of flowers — the place has never looked this good. I think I heard somebody say that the city had ponied up for a good number of these. Maybe the bridge people said they’d throw in the flowers at cost.
In the section reserved for military graves — most of them ranging from old to extremely old — I was surprised to find two women putting flowers on a tomb. I didn’t ask them anything, although I was curious. But I did make a point of reading the tombstone.BERTUZZI ALDO (typically, the family name is written first): “Tragico e fatale destino stroncava la giovine e generosa esistenza nel compiere un generoso atto altruistico inteso al salvataggio di due persone in procinto di annegare in fiume vi trovava tragica fine.” “Tragic and fatal destiny cut off the young and generous existence in executing a generous and altruistic act intended to save two persons in danger of drowning in a river there he found his tragic end.” (August 9 1946). Being in the military section, he was clearly a soldier who had made it through World War II, and then that.This is something you don’t usually expect to see in a cemetery. It’s not new land, it’s recycled land. After ten years, Lino tells me, they dig you up. If you have relatives that will come take an interest in your remains, your bones (if that’s all that’s left) will be placed in a box and re-filed in a space in a columbarium. Otherwise, bones, tombstones, it all goes. The bones, I’ve been told, are burned; the marble, etc., is disposed of in some way. I don’t know if I’ll spend any time researching this further; I’m sure it’s quite fascinating but at the moment I’m aghast. PS: If nobody comes to account for you, you just disappear. If somebody comes looking for you later, for some reason, oh well. The weak link in this extraordinary system seems to be the postal system. If you move and change your address, the notice the cemetery administration sends you will never reach you. It happened to more than one person I know. I realize that this earth is not our home, but this is a bit much.Walking back over the bridge toward the Fondamente Nove, hot drinks, home.This is what the late morning looked like once we’d left the yellow chrysanthemums behind.The ascent of the raised part of the bridge was only slightly demanding.Homeward bound on the 4.2. Traffic lights on both sides of the bridge managed the two-way traffic, seeing that the boats have to alternate in order to pass through. Somewhat like those picturesque but slightly terrifying one-lane bridges leading to blind corners.
One of the most notable monuments in the Giardini — in its position, and in itself — is of Venetian aviator Pier Luigi Penzo. Like his next-door neighbor, Francesco Querini, he too was involved in Arctic exploration and met a very distressing, unexpected, undeserved, all the “un”s you want, end. Yet somehow his story lacks some crucial element that makes Querini’s so riveting. I think it’s because the real focus of attention was on someone else.
The inscription reads: ACCANTO AL MARMO DI FRANCESCO QUERINI QUI VUOLSI ONORATA E COMPIANTA L’ALA DEL VENEZIANO PIER LUIGI PENZO SORVOLATA SU L’ARTIDE CADUTO NEL RODANO NATO A VENEZIA 5 MAGGIO 1896 MORTO A VALENCE IL 29 SETTEMBRE 1928.” “Beside the marble of Francesco Querini here it is desired to be honored and lamented the wing of Venetian Pier Luigi Penzo Flown above the Arctic Fallen in the Rhone Born in Venice 5 May 1896 Died 29 September 1928.” The eagle and anchor represent his status as a Navy pilot before passing to the Air Force.Although the words don’t exactly soar, one can admire the design of the lettering. On a more modest note, it appears that the encroachment of the shrub is eventually going to cover the words completely if someone doesn’t intervene with the pruning shears.He looks entirely like someone who deserves a monument, though of course monuments tend to do that.
The barest outlines of his tale are that he participated in a massive rescue operation in the vicinity of the North Pole in 1928; on his flight home his plane struck some power lines near Valence, France and broke apart. It fell into the Rhone River, from which his remains were recovered two weeks later some 50 km (31 miles) downstream. I have found surprisingly little to add to that summary; Google searches mercilessly return articles about the Venetian soccer stadium, named — another sort of memorial — for him.
Therefore, and meaning no disrespect, you might be wondering why this person, who admittedly met a premature and unmerited demise, should have been given such an impressive monument. (In fact, two of them — the other is on the cemetery island of San Michele.)
I’m glad you wondered, because while the ill-fated expedition he was sent to rescue is lavishly described in numerous documents, not to mention a film (“The Red Tent,” 1969), Penzo himself seems not to have been the hero, but a team player in the grand sweep of several tragedies. I must describe these tragedies — some technical, some human, some political — in order to clarify why Penzo was literally put on a pedestal. Emotions of all sizes and sorts had been running extremely high.
The Gazzettino, then a weekly, published this portrait of the 32-year-old Penzo a few weeks after his death. He was posthumously awarded the silver medal of the Air Force.
In drastically condensed form, we pick up the tale of Italian efforts to reach the North Pole in the autumn of 1925, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen asked General Umberto Nobile of the Italian Royal Air Force to collaborate with him on a flight to the North Pole; Amundsen wanted to be the first to reach it by air. More to the point, he wanted to fly in a semi-rigid airship, and Nobile was already well-known as an important aeronautical engineer, pilot, and fervent proponent of dirigibles.
Nobile designed and piloted the airship Norge, accomplishing the first verified trip of any kind to reach the North Pole and likely the first verified flight from Europe to North America (Svalbard, Norway to Teller, Alaska) over the polar ice cap. This feat was known as the Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight, so named for Lincoln Ellsworth who, with the Aero Club of Norway, financed the expedition. On May 12, 1926 at 1:30 AM GMT the North Pole was reached (though not actually touched). The flags of Norway, Italy, and the United States were dropped onto the ice and the airship proceeded to Alaska.
With the success of this exploit Nobile then planned another polar overflight, this time with an all-Italian crew in a dirigible named Italia. The project, however, met strong headwinds from his many enemies in the Fascist government, some of whom were also enemies of airships but huge fans of rigid aircraft. After grudgingly approving the expedition, Captain Italo Balbo, then-Secretary of State for the Air Force (later Minister of the Air Force), wished him a special bon voyage: “Let him go,” he is reported to have said, “for he cannot possibly come back to bother us anymore.”
The expedition went splendidly for a while. On May 23, 1928, after a 69-hour flight to the Siberian group of Arctic islands, the Italia began its flight to the North Pole with Nobile as both pilot and expedition leader. On May 24, the airship reached the Pole and began its homeward trip to Svalbard when it ran into a storm.
Rapidly losing altitude in the struggle against real headwinds, the next day the Italia crashed onto the pack ice fewer than 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Nordaustlandet (astern part of Svalbard).
Of the 16 men in the crew, ten were thrown onto the ice as the gondola was smashed; without the weight of the gondola, the buoyant superstructure began to float away with six crewmen still inside it who, as they drifted skyward, threw all the supplies they could manage out onto the ice, which saved the lives of their severely injured comrades. The six were never seen again.
The disaster’s horror was intensified, if such a thing were possible, by the desperation of the month-long search for the survivors.
The men on the ice sent calls for help via a radio transceiver salvaged from the shattered gondola, but 30 days passed with no response. While a variety of the usual Arctic horrors were befalling them, an international rescue operation was seeking them — Soviet Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Italy, not to mention privately owned ships which had been chartered by polar scientists and explorers. Even Roald Amundsen put aside his bad feelings toward Nobile and boarded a French seaplane to aid in the rescue efforts. The plane disappeared between Tromsø and Svalbard, and though a pontoon from the craft was later found, the bodies of Amundsen and all aboard were not.
Enter Major Pier Luigi Penzo, joining the search on June 23, 1928 in his Marina II, an SM55-Dornier Wal hydroplane. Born in Malamocco, he had enrolled in the Italian Royal Navy at the age of 20, and earned his hydroplane pilot’s license at the seaplane base at Sant’ Andrea, just across from the Lido. He distinguished himself in combat on the Piave front in World War 1, and had become one of the most requested aerial rescue pilots then active. He was also well-known to Italo Balbo — I suppose you could say he was a friend — with whom he had flown on several occasions.
The “idroscalo,” or seaplane base, at Sant’ Andrea was where Penzo earned his hydroplane pilot’s license. There was a flourishing waterborne airmail route between Torino and Trieste in the Twenties, mostly following the rivers (Ticino, Po) till reaching Venice.
In the end, the survivors’ signals were picked up by a Russian ham radio operator who alerted the search teams, and it wasn’t even Penzo who spotted them for the first time, but fellow pilot Umberto Maddalena. And the first rescue plane to land was a Swedish Air Force Fokker ski plane piloted by Lieutenant Einar Lundborg.
Nobile had prepared a detailed evacuation plan, with the most seriously wounded man (the heavily built mechanic Natale Cecioni) at the top of the list and himself as number 4. But Lundborg refused to take anyone but Nobile, who also had been injured. Lundborg argued that the plane could only take one passenger, and Cecioni was so heavy the pilot was unsure he could take off. So Nobile was airlifted to safety, a captain who, it can’t be denied, had clearly not chosen to go down with his ship (so to speak). When Nobile boarded the Italian ship that served as expedition headquarters, he was arrested.
Worse still, when Lundborg returned alone to pick up the next survivor his plane crashed on landing, and he was left on the ice with the other five.
Meanwhile, Penzo and his crew (as well as another hydroplane) undertook a series of flights over the icepack dropping supplies and instruments to the marooned men. I can’t give any details on whether he took any survivors back to base.
After 48 days on the ice, the last five men of his crew were picked up by the Soviet icebreaker Krasin.
Time to leave? Nobile insisted that he wanted to stay to continue the search for the six men who were swept away in the airship when it disintegrated, but was ordered back to Rome with the others. He was to discover that the Arctic catastrophe wasn’t over, because it had given his enemies their chance to eliminate him.
When he and his men arrived in Rome on July 31, they were greeted by 200,000 cheering Italians. The popular exultation at the happy ending of the agonizing drama momentarily baffled Balbo and his allies, who had been seeding the foreign and domestic press with accusations against Nobile, claiming that agreeing to be evacuated first was an obvious sign of cowardice. (Pause to wonder why, in fact, Lundborg had insisted on taking him off before everybody else.) The official inquiry gave them the chance to place the blame for the disaster entirely on his shoulders. He was accused of abandoning his men, and Balbo went so far as to call for his execution by firing squad for treason and cowardice. Instead, Nobile resigned his commission and went to the United States, returning only in 1943 when Balbo was dead.
Here is a fuller, though still concise, account of the Italia disaster.
Italians of Lino’s vintage were raised with the conviction that Umberto Nobile was a craven poltroon, but this stamp commemorating the 90th anniversary of the expedition shows the “Italia” proudly aloft.
So, as I mentioned, there were tragedies: The technical tragedy was the crash of the “Italia”; the human tragedy was the loss of life; the political tragedy, as I see it, was the destruction of Nobile’s reputation. I don’t say he was right to be evacuated first, but the fact that the attacks on him were politically motivated is revolting.
In the months between the departure of the survivors in July and his own departure in September, Penzo remained at King’s Bay to continue the search for Amundsen, as well as for the six men lost in the envelope that floated away. In these flights he didn’t use his usual hydroplane, but a Macchi 18 biplane hydro-bomber (I throw that in for any aviation fans who might be reading). Unsuccessful in both cases, he was finally ordered back to Italy.
On September 27 (Thursday) he sent a telegram to his family that he was on his way home, and his brothers left Venice for Pisa, where his plane was expected to land on Friday. But it did not.
On Sunday morning a functionary of City Hall delivered the bad news to his wife. Two of his crew had survived the crash and been saved by fishermen, but Penzo and another two crewmen drowned. His remains were interred on the cemetery island of San Michele, under a honking big monument.
The memorial to Penzo is located in the section dedicated to the military. The eagles appear to want to be artichokes.The inscription in Latin identifies Petrus Alojsius Penzo April 6 1896 September 29 1928. Following his date of death is inscribed “E.F. VI,” for the sixth year of the Era Fascista (Fascist Era). The oak leaves above his head typically symbolize power, endurance and strength (also humble beginnings, which would certainly be apt for Malamocco); they’re often seen on military tombs.This interesting device is easy enough to decipher: The propellers and compass rose for aviation, the bear symbolizes the Arctic, and the corpse floating on the water would represent the victim.The other side of the monument isn’t much less impressive.“ASSUMENT PENNAS UT AQUILAE VOLABUNT ET NON DEFICIENT.” “They shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be faint.” Here the famous phrase from the book of Isaiah 40:31 is attributed simply to the “prophets.”“VIVENT MORTUI TUI + INTERFECTI TUI RESURGENT.” ‘Thy dead men shall live; thy slain men shall be raised.” (The Book of Wisdom).
But wasn’t enough; another memorial, in a more public place, was seen as desirable, and it was unveiled at an inauguration ceremony on June 1, 1932 by — of course! — Italo Balbo, then Minister of the Air Force. He had organized an international aviation conference in Rome, and added Venice to the program.
It was obviously correct for him, in his official capacity, to honor a fallen comrade, but he must have enjoyed the chance to castigate Nobile once again by glorifying a man who had lost his life in the effort, more or less, to save him. At least that’s how I interpret this extravagant conclusion to Penzo’s life.
The monument was designed by Venetian sculptor Francesco Scarpabolla (1902-1999). “Oh sure,” said Lino when I shared this information. “I knew him, he lived just down the street from me near San Vio.” We were all expecting that by now, naturally.
But the best monument to Penzo, to my way of thinking, isn’t either one of the statues, nor even the soccer stadium (sorry). It’s the elementary school at Malamocco, which bears his name. Latin quotations and oak leaves are all very well, but the school is dedicated to a local boy, and it’s there that his name will truly be kept alive.
I will trek down to Malamocco one of these days and make some photographs of the school. Meanwhile, here is map evidence that it exists.
