Dimenticare Venezia
In 1892, in Italian Hours, Henry James wrote that, Venetian life, in the large old sense, has long since come to an end, and the essential present character of the most melancholy of cities resides simply in its being the most beautiful of tombs.
In 1956, Mary McCarthy (an American critic and novelist, 1912 – 1989) wrote, in Venice Observed, And there is no use pretending that the tourist Venice is not the real Venice, which is possible with other cities – Rome or Florence or Naples. The tourist Venice is Venice: the gondolas, the sunsets, the changing light, Florian’s, Quadri’s, Torcello, Harry’s Bar, Murano, Burano, the pigeons, the glass beads, the vaporetto. Venice is a folding picture postcard of itself.
Both these statements, I believe, ring true today, but neither should be taken as the last word. Many other writers have added their pennyworths to the pile of thoughts that Venice inspires. Charles Dickens, in Pictures from Italy (1846) dreamt of buildings that were high and low, and black, and white, and straight, and crooked; mean and grand, crazy and strong..... He fancied he saw old Shylock passing to and fro upon a bridge, all built up with shops and humming with the tongues of men..... Jan (then James) Morris wrote in 1960 that, In Venice the past and the present are curiously interwoven.....and that Melancholia contributes strongly to the Venetian atmosphere.
Joseph Brodsky, in Watermark (1992), referred to the chiming of bells, his room flooded with this outer, peal-laden haze, which is part damp oxygen, part coffee and prayers.....
More recently, in Venice is a Fish (2000), Tiziano Scarpa suggests that the visitor to Venice should put on very dark sunglasses.... Venice can be lethal, he says. In the historic centre the aesthetic radioactivity is extremely high.
Every angle radiates beauty; apparently shabby; profoundly devious, inexorable. The sublime pours in bucketloads from the churches, but even the calli without monuments, the bridges to the rii, are picturesque at the very least.
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My love affair with Venezia has lasted almost fifty years, though over those years we have both aged and changed. It may be a platitude to say that the magic has worn a little thin, and that I feel a little less excited about our relationship than perhaps I did when I first set foot in La Serenissima. But I guess the feeling is reciprocal – she loves me a little less too. I am just one of millions of admirers, and the restauranteurs and the gondoliers know it.
There is nothing special about me.
So, during my recent stay, in a tiny quiet apartment above a courtyard in the Santa Croce sestiero,
a step away from the delightful Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio,
I retrace the steps of many years, revisiting the great churches of the Frari and Saints Giovanni and Paolo, the Salute,
San Giorgio Maggiore, as well as, of course, San Marco.
I climb campanili to see the views across the city and the lagoon to the distant Dolomiti.
I wander over the Rialto, through the markets, through the Correr, the Accademia, the Scuole (dei Carmini, Grande di San Rocco,
di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni), the Guggenheim,
the great Palazzi (Ducale, Ca’ Rezzonico, Ca’ Pesaro). I visit La Fenice (for Il Barbiere di Siviglia), having not been there since I went with Amanda before the fire.... I visit the campi (too many to mention) and the islands (Murano with its flamboyant glass, multi-coloured Burano,
silent Torcello,
the Lido with its Adriatic strand
and Giudecca with its busy boatyards).....
In the Arsenale we see a magical show about Casanova, boats and floats and acrobats, and projections on fountains.
And with every step come memories but also new pleasures as the light changes, and I see things I hadn’t noticed before. The Carnival adds spice and splendour,
the old Bacari replenish flagging spirits,
various trattorie fill my belly (but drain my wallet) with bigoli in salsa, risotto di nero di seppia, pasta e fagioli, moleche (soft-shelled crabs), branzino (sea bass), pesce san Pietro (John Dory), all lubricated with copious glasses of Tai (Venetian Tocai) or Soave (et alios).....
My love is rekindled and, as the weather turns from rain and cold to crystal clear skies and gentle breezes, I relax into a routine of living once more all’Italiana: a cappuccino and cornetto con crema at Lavena, then a walk, as Tiziano Scarpa recommends: The first and only itinerary I suggest to you has a name. It’s called: at random. Subtitle: aimlessly..... Getting lost is the only place worth going to..... I feel a new sense of delight in every calle, every sottoportico, every campo. Here you can sit and dream. Here you can immerse yourself in a book
or just take the sun with your floppy dog.
There you can compose a sketch,
or sip a spritz.
I like to watch the world go by. It is reassuring to see people going about their lives in this timeless place.
And I love to exchange a cheeky glance here and there.....
And then as the days spin away, the sun falls,
the moon and stars appear above the rooftops,
and the canals become deep dark alleys lit only by the occasional lamp. I love the close dark silence, just sometimes broken by a lonely splash. I love the mellow warmth of the crumbling walls.
It can be eerily quiet – so many palazzi now are uninhabited, and very few are the animal sounds of the night.
I even get so lost in my reveries that I photograph a man with a mop of silver hair leaning on a bridge without realising who he is.
Later I discover that if I had £8,450 to spare I could have indulged in six days (partly) in the company of acclaimed architect and descendant of an ancient Venetian dynasty, Francesco da Mosto to discover the layered history of the Floating City, exploring its waterscapes, architecture and artworks.
Ah well! Another time....
But will there be another time? There are other places. Beautiful and unique as Venice is I feel this may have been the last time. So now, perhaps, is the time to forget Venice, as in Dimenticare Venezia, the 1979 film written and directed by Franco Brusati which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but which tied for the 1979 David di Donatello Award for Best Film with The Tree of Wooden Clogs and Christ Stopped at Eboli (it was a very good year!)
The film isn’t really about Venice at all, but I know it because one of my students at the time had a role in it and that was quite something. The main point here is that there comes a time when decisions must be made, and relationships may be more important than seeking diversion in fanciful plans.
I love Venice, and had a really good time there this year, but perhaps I should acknowledge that there are alternatives to beating on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past (F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby).
To quote Henry James again, this time from 1882 (Italian Hours), When I hear, when I see, the magical name I have written above these pages [Venice], it is not of the great square that I think, with its strange basilica and its high arcades, nor of the wide mouth of the Grand Canal, with the stately steps and the well-poised dome of the Salute; it is not of the low lagoon, nor the sweet Piazzetta, nor the dark chambers of St Mark’s. I simply see a narrow canal in the heart of the city – a patch of green water and a surface of pink wall.....
Basta.
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I wrote another piece about Venice on this blog some fifteen years ago (updated, I think, a year or two after). If you have the stamina, have a glance:
https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2010/04/venezia-venice.html
And then, if you need some light relief, join in with Joe Dolan's audience in this jolly piece of theatre.....
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{For Sarah H}
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