Reflections of Venice 3

There are churches galore which, according to the tourist guide, all contain ‘important works’. We pass their façades, either as we sweep by on the water or as we walk through the web of waterways. The only one we enter, Chiesa della Pietá has an exhibition of violins and related woodwind instruments on account of Vivaldi being one of Venice’s favourite sons.

Other notable Venetians include Cassanova and Marco Polo – men of exploration and swagger; hedonistic rather than scholarly. I can’t imagine Leonardo da Vinci sitting down to his inventive drawings here. He would have been out partying in the streets, drinking and revelling, hiding behind a mask and not taking responsibility for his actions.

All is pretence in Venice, and not just the multitude of Carnivale masks. There are a couple of stone lions still in the city – the statues look friendly, but you used to be able to denounce someone by writing their name on a piece of paper and placing it in the lion’s mouth – the ensuing events were then far from friendly. I want to see these lions but we don’t seem to go their way.

The Venice Lion (St Mark’s symbol) is everywhere; in paintings and sculptures, carved on the side of buildings or stood atop pedestals – he is winged so could take off at any moment. I suspect those wings are clipped and his majesty is fading, otherwise I doubt he would remain here, and he looks sad rather than proud.

The Romanesque-Byzantine style of Saint Mark’s Basilica seems ostentatious with its gilt mosaics and five cupolas; its splendid marbles and gilded copper horses. The adjacent campanile was once a lighthouse although no longer, and the practical purpose of guiding ships into the harbour seems far preferable to me than a repository for a dead man’s bones.

The Torre dell’Orologio is something special with its blue and enamel face with zodiacal depictions to indicate the phases of the moon and its sundial and hands for pointing out the time rather more prosaically. It is familiar from having a baddie thrown through it by Bond in Moonraker and has pieced itself back together very nicely indeed.

Many of Venice’s treasure were hidden or removed when the Germans occupied the city during the war – the Venetians had learned their lesson from Napoleon’s previous plundering. Rooms were sealed up and ornate painted ceilings covered with tar to prevent the invading army from enjoying the gaze of cherubs – which might actually have put them off. But the Germans, with their love of art and fine things, did not destroy Venice; it remained intact throughout the war.

Long before the Germans’ arrival, however, there were specific areas for segregating the Jewish community. In 1516 the Ghetto was instituted by the Venetian republic as a compulsory place of residence for Jews. The word itself originates from Venice, being a contortion of the word ‘geto’, meaning to throw or cast as the foundries were located here in early times. There is an air of money-making with unfavourable connotations, which Shakespeare picked up in The Merchant of Venice.

But despite all this, I still like the place. I like the bustling market around the Ponte di Rialto; I like the occasional peaceful canals (literally backwaters) with the reflections of light from the water dancing on the brickwork.

I like drinking a glass of prosecco; the bubbles even eliciting laughter from a jolly gondolier who has popped into the bar for a break, his boater askew. I like watching the gondoliers negotiating the waterways and jostling for position outside the hotels, hitching their gondolas to the palina (the coloured striped pole painted in the noble family’s colours) while casually smoking cigarettes or chatting on cell phones.

And I like standing on the bridge, leaning on the balustrade and watching the lights of the shops and restaurants winking on in the dark; their reflection broken only by the watercraft that still plough up and down the canals with red and green lights hung for navigation.