Summer nights in Venice

 A few days after returning from Pompeii we sent our friend up to Venice and joined her after the kids finished up their last days of school.  Hooray!  Summer vacation!  We planned to stay in Venice for a couple days then stop in a different city on the way home.

Venice is amazing.  I had been there once before in September of 2001, September 11 specifically.  That was interesting.  I heard about the attacks in New York from an announcement at a musical performance.  Then saw the pictures and headlines in the newspapers the next day.  It was different to experience those events outside the US.  My mom was worried, but we were fine.  I'm glad to have missed the media frenzy and the constant replaying of the traumatic scenes on TV.  We went to Switzerland and then back to Paris.  A week later we got home as scheduled even though there were many people on our packed transatlantic flight who were just making their way home after cancelled flights.  The flight from the East coast to California was practically empty.  That was 20 years ago.  I wouldn't see another empty plane like that until COVID.  

Back to the present...

We stayed in a little apartment in town, but outside of the usual tourist routes.  We had a hard time finding the place at first.  Venice is such a maze.  It is a warren of little alleys and streets.  We stopped at a little restaurant in a small square and asked for directions.  Our place was just around the corner.  We ended up eating at that restaurant most of the nights we were there.  It wasn't fancy, but it was just what we needed.  The menu was completely different from Rome.  They had gnocchi quartro formaggio, but no carbonara.

Rialto bridge

We enjoyed wandering the city and taking in the sites.  Some were the more expected tourist sites like the famous bridges and St Marks.  Others were less expected.  One thing that really stood out to me was how clean it was.  It almost didn't feel lived in.  I'm used to Rome now, with plenty of garbage and graffiti around.  There is less in the historical center, but the further out you go the less manicured it becomes.  In Rome there have been complaints for years about the garbage service.  There are rumors of mafia control and stalling to get more money from the system.  In the mean time the overflowing trash bins attract sea gulls and wild boars into the city.  Our neighborhood isn't too bad, but the north part of the city has a serious problem with boars.  They are wild and can be quite dangerous, especially when there are mothers with their young ones.  People are even getting "mugged" in grocery store parking lots.  

With so few tourists visiting right now, the city felt quiet.  It was nice that we weren't shoulder to shoulder with people in the narrow streets.  You can certainly see the effect I have been reading about.  Many local Venetians have moved out of the city.  Rome, even without the tourists, is still a vibrant city, full of people living life.  Venice didn't feel that way.  There is a lot of talk about limiting tourists, especially those who arrive for the day or just a few hours from massive cruise ships.  This type of tourism turns Venice into a theme park rather than a city.  They come, buy baubles made in China, and leave.  There are certainly many streets full of shops selling mass produced trinkets for tourists that have replaced other local businesses.  Cruise ships were recently banned from the Grand Canal.  They now have to dock on the outskirts of the city.  This will help protect the fragile buildings and ecosystem, but doesn't do much to limit the crush of summer tourists.  I can't blame people for wanting to come.  It is an amazing and unique place, but there has to be a way to do it better.

St Marks and it's famous horses

Bridge of Sighs in the back

Random picturesque alley

Acqua Alta bookstore

The Acqua Alta bookstore is definitely worth a look.  It is beautiful and haphazard, a perfect place to browses and find little treasures.  Because the store frequently floods, the books are stacked in bathtubs, sinks, and even a gondola.  My Girls found an old copy of Ivanhoe in English and we also got several vintage post cards of Venice.  They are so fun.

Chiesa di San Zaccaria

While wandering around we found the Church of St Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist.  It is a beautiful church with amazing paintings on the walls and in the apse.  It is so interesting to compare the styles in Venice to Rome.  They are so different.  They were, after all, different countries for a long time, unified into the country of Italy in 1870.  The current Renaissance and Gothic style church was built in the 15th century, replacing and adding on to the replacements of the 7th century original.  Being further from Rome, it escaped Baroque remodeling in the 16th and 17th centuries.  There is an attached convent on the side with a church.  For a small fee you can enter the nun's chapels and the crypt below ground.  Always check out the crypt.  They rarely disappoint.  These chapels were particularly good, filled with gothic era religious art.  The nuns of this convent were historically the daughters of doges or other wealthy, high born officials.  They were known for their pampered and less than nun-like lifestyle and behavior.  The chapels show none of the austerity you might expect in a convent.  The decorations are rich and extravagant. The crypt below is simple and striking, partly because of the constant flooding.

Bit of old fresco

Chapel apse in the older nun's church

Flooded lower level of the crypt

A remnant of old stone floor below the not quite so old floor.

My Girl and I took a lamp work glass class.  It was a lot of fun and My Girl is a natural.  Me, less so.  Trying made me really appreciate the intricate insects and animals we had been seeing in the shops.  We made beads and fish.  My Girl even made a dolphin with the help of the instructor.  It was fun to do something rather than just look.

St Marks at night

Walking around at night was much more enjoyable than walking during the heat of the day.  Somehow, hot and humid and dark is better than hot and humid and glaringly bright.  

Windows overlooking a canal

Inside a church on Murano island

We went across the lagoon to Murano island, known for the glass work factories and workshops.  The workshops weren't open for tours while we were there, but it was still interesting to see.  In the church the sparkly intricate glass chandeliers were a contrast to the massive dark paintings on the walls.

Dinner on the Jewish canal

We took a vaporetto, water bus, around the city one evening.  The sun was just starting to set and the views were spectacular.

Flag of Venice

The patron saint of Venice is St Mark.  Because of this, you see his symbol, the winged lion, all over the city.  It's on the city flag, carved in the stone work of St Mark's basilica, and in bronze on top of columns in St Mark's square.

Piazza San Marco - the Lion of Venice

I've been curious about the symbolic representation of the saints.  In art the saints are depicted in ways that they are recognizable and teach about their mission or martyrdom.  They might hold something, like keys, a book, or a saw, or have a recognizable feature, like a beardless face.  Some also have animal symbols.  In Christian art the four evangelical saints, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are often shown together as their winged symbolic creatures.  Matthew is a man.  Mark is a lion.  Luke is a ox.  And John is an Eagle.  You see these images in Byzantine mosaics and Renaissance frescoes.  I wondered how and if these winged creatures were connected to ancient animal composites and human/animal hybrid creatures.  I have seen all sorts of animals with wings and fish or serpent tails in Roman mosaics.  The walls of the Domus Aurea, Emperor Nero's palace, are decorated with all sorts of human/animal hybrid creatures.  These are now called grotesques, because they were found in underground "grottos" and "caves", really the rooms of the buried palace, and copied by Renaissance artists like Raphael.  These were not new ideas at the time of ancient Rome.  The tour guide at the Domus Aurea said that the painters most likely came from the Eastern empire and brought their artistic ideas with them.  The East included Greece, Egypt, and Assyria with their harpies, sphynxes, and lamassu.  The sphynxes of Egypt and Babylon were lions with human heads.  Harpies had the head and torso of a woman with the lower body and wings of a bird or eagle.  The Assyrian lamassu has the body and legs of a bull or lion, eagle wings, and the head of a man wearing a crown.

The representation of the four evangelical saints as winged creatures is called a tetramorph and may have originated in either the 5th or 2nd century depending on how you count it.  They are thought to reference a passage in the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament of the Bible  Similar imagery is in the book of Revelation in the New Testament.  Ezekiel had lived among Jews taken to Babylon and would have been familiar with their iconography.  The ox, lion, man, and eagle represented Assyrian zodiac symbols and the four elements.  In the Christian tetramorph they represent the four saints, four characteristics of Christ, and the major themes in the four Gospels.  The way that they are interpreted has shifted around through the years, but the main ideas held.  

In the Doctrine and Covenants' explanation of the Revelation of John, the creatures do not represent saints, but are symbolic representations of the chief of the different classes of all animals and their happiness and deference in the presence of God. (D&C 77:2-4)  The reference in Ezekiel is similarly interpreted by early Hebrew scholars, that God has dominion over all the earth and everything in it.

So, it looks like there is a connection between the saints as winged animals and the composite creatures of ancient Rome.  But it wasn't the Romans who influenced the early Christians.  The connection comes through both groups looking at the art and iconography of even more ancient civilizations.  

In the shade outside the Doge's palace.

Venice is an amazing place.  I'm so glad we were able to visit when it wasn't so busy.  By this time we were hot and tired and not really enjoying it anymore.  We skipped a few museums, declared defeat victory, and went home to our air conditioned apartment.  We'll come back when it has cooled off.

P.S.

Here is a bit of Venetian history from a YouTube channel the kids and I like.