First Flight, Rio Fuseri

27 July 2015

 

On The Publication Day of CIAO, SANDRO!, A Look Back at Its Real-life Inspiration

 

 

Today is the publication day of my children's picture book Ciao, Sandro!, featuring illustrations by Luciano Lozano, so it seemed like a good time to remember the adventurous real life dog who inspired the book, who was indeed named Sandro (as is my son, which is actually why I didn't change the dog's name for the book), and who did in fact know how to take vaporetti all around the lagoon by himself. 

The real-life Sandro died just short of his 19th birthday two years ago. His fictionalized version can now be found for sale online and/or in your local bookstore--as well as in Venice's own Libreria Marco Polo (the international publication date is June 10).

 

One Step Closer to Publication: Advance Copies of CIAO, SANDRO!

With some regional visitors in town for Carnevale, gondoliers temporarily returned to their stations this past week. But in the weeks before, when the above photo was taken, no gondoliers were to be seen-- except, as chance would have it, the one captured above tutoring his son.

  

Though the official publication date of the children's picture book, Ciao, Sandro!, that I wrote and Luciano Lozano illustrated is 8 June 2021, I recently received 15 advance copies, of which you can see some examples above and below in what I suppose might be called their "native habitat."

During non-pandemic times, such advance copies would be among the titles displayed at the Abrams Publishing booth at the annual Bologna Children's Book Fair, the most important such fair for the children's publishing industry, attracting over 1,400 exhibitors and  around 30,000 visitors from around 80 countries, and typically held in March. Last year the fair was first postponed, and then canceled outright. This year its date has been pushed back from March to 14-17 June. 

One need not be in the industry to attend, and along with a staggering array of titles and publishers from around the world, its exhibitions of the original artwork of illustrators from every corner of the globe would merit a visit all on their own.

I spent a full day at the 2019 edition of the fair, and look forward to doing so again in 2021. In terms of scale, it's rather like the Venice Biennale of the children's book publishing world, with as many things to see and almost as much ground to cover as the Biennale's Arsenale setting.

You can pre-order Ciao, Sandro! now if you'd like by hovering your mouse over the word "PRE-ORDER" on the Abrams Books for Young Readers site and then clicking on one of the choices that appear. 

Or, more directly, you can pre-order it now if you're in the United States by clicking here.

If you live in the UK the direct link is here.

(And both of the above sites benefit independent bookstores rather than monopolistic chains.)

The opening two-page spread of the book (a few other pages can be found at end of post)

 

A quick search also shows that is available for pre-order on sites in the Italy and the EU, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. 

All of the above links are to the US English language edition. The sale and purchase of translation rights between publishers is chief among the industry business transacted at the Bologna Children's Book Fair; no foreign editions have yet been announced for Ciao, Sandro!

 

The pandemic has been a terrible time for gondoliers and taxi drivers and delivery drivers (who have seen their volume plummet with the closure of hotels and restaurants) but, in the absence of water traffic, an almost edenic time for rowers.  

Teatro Magico

Among the many things those 75% of total visitors to Venice who stay only a few hours miss are the live performances in venues like Teatro Goldoni, which offers not just plays, but dance and musical performances to which there are no language barriers.

'Tis the Season...

Workers construct the ice skating rink in Campo San Polo last Friday, while, at left,  a small colony of orange plastic sea lions await their opportunity to aid the unsteady upon the ice

...to go ice skating in Campo San Polo. At least it will be beginning tomorrow.

Lacking much chance to practice, I suspect the vast majority of Venetians are no better at ice skating than they are at driving (at which they are reputed to be very bad indeed). But the absence of expertise never shows any sign of lessening anyone's enjoyment of the latter activity--and, unlike the former, almost never poses any danger to innocent bystanders or property.

The small rink will stay up through the end of Carnevale.

A New Source of Magic in Venice

One of Mistero e Magia's two proprietors, Alberto De Curti, performs a trick for a young visitor from France

Venice has long been considered a mysterious and magical place, but only since the March 28 opening of Mistero e Magia has it had its own magic store: the first ever in the city's history. 

Located on Ruga Giuffa, the narrow picturesque commercial calle that branches off of Campo Santa Maria Formosa in the direction of Campo San Zaccaria, the store not only stocks everything a budding magician might need, but if you're looking for juggling supplies of all kinds, face paints and clown gear, or a wide range of wands with which to produce soap bubbles in sizes ranging from the divertingly domestic to the elephantine, you need look no further.

What especially sets it off, though, is its staff. Mistero e Magia is not just a place where magic supplies are sold, but where magic is actually performed--and taught. Sandro and I happened upon the store by accident a couple of Saturdays ago and he was thrilled when one of the staff started showing him some tricks.

I know absolutely nothing about magic and, aside from a couple of brief performances at birthday parties he'd attended, Sandro had not seen much of it. But the staff, both the first day we wandered in and on subsequent visits, is great with kids (and adults): patient and informative, intent on educating, rather than merely selling.

The store has become Sandro's favorite after-school destination. The last time we were in, I talked to one of the store's proprietors, Alberto De Curti (Daniele Malusa is the other), and watched as he demonstrated various tricks to various kids: first, in Italian, then in English, then in French. De Curti told me that beyond the impromptu education they're happy to do in the course of normal business hours, the store also offers workshops for both kids and adults taught by professional magicians, suitable for both full-time residents of Venice and those who are only in town for a few days. 

For example, Aroldo Lattarulo will teach a course on April 26, and later in the spring the well-known American illusionist Vito Lupo will offer his own workshop. To learn more about the store and its offerings, you can visit their Facebook page: Mistero e Magia Facebook Page. 

Residents of Venice are all-too-familiar with the sight of neighborhood stores going out of business. It's much rarer to see a store that opens with the aim of becoming a destination for the city's young (the last time we were in Mistero e Magia there was a group of local guys in their later teens who'd come in to talk magic with one of the store's staff).

Mistero e Magia also happens to be a great destination for tourists and visitors to the city: an excellent break, for example, from the usual sight-seeing for a visiting kid (or adult) worn out and foot-sore from too much legendary old art and architecture.

It's the kind of magical enterprise the city could use more of, and it will likely require the patronage of both residents and visitors to stay afloat. It's worth a visit--or many.

The Giant Caterpillar and the Palazzo Ducale

In Italy the Christmas season officially ended yesterday, with the Feast of the Epiphany: another national holiday. Good kids woke to a some more small gifts, bad kids to coal, all left by La Befana, the generous witch with a real love of housekeeping. Even in the course of her far-flung gift-dispensing rounds she's been known to tidy up some of the houses she visits. Though, alas, not ours.

It was, for the most part, another bright blue day here, perfect weather for the strolling that many families did on the holiday, and for a last visit to Luna Park on the Riva dei Sette Martiri before school began again today.

Round and Round at the Turn of a New Year

Luna Park, or what everyone who lives in Venice refers to as simply "le giostre" (or, "the rides"), has returned to the Riva dei Sette Martiri for its annual stay until 1 February. There's a ride I don't recall from prior years that's quaintly retro even by the not-exactly-cutting-edge-standards of the other giostre, consisting of small chairs suspended from chains that, as you can see above, spin around a broad two-colored base beneath fluorescent tubes.

Because being swung around the same circular route doesn't seem to be an adequately goal-oriented activity for children--not even in Italy, whose notorious bureaucracy regularly sets its adult citizens on just such endless circuits--there's something to grab for. On the equestrian-themed carousels of America a kid reaches--as the character of Phoebe famously does at the end of The Catcher in the Rye--for a gold ring. ("The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it is bad to say anything to them.")

Here, the child in the spinning chair is encouraged to reach for a stuffed plush serpent suspended from a rather make-shift stand just outside the ride's path.

Additionally, while the American child, alone on his or her mount, is encouraged to rise high and solitary in his or her stirrups and grasp for the shiny ring, on the ride here a child can't even get within grabbing distance of the dangling snake without the aid of a friend seated in the chair behind him or her.

That is, Sandro's friend "C" only had a chance to reach the snake if Sandro, seated behind him, pushed C's chair a bit further out of the chair's typical centripetal orbit. (Successfully, as you can see in the image above of C flourishing his captured snake.)

Now, I suspect there are any number of social, cultural, anthropological, philosophical, and religious reflections likely to be inspired by such differences between the carousel Sandro knew as a toddler in Brooklyn and the spinning chairs of this year's Luna Park, but I leave them to be worked out by those readers so inclined and, for my own part, settle instead for wishing you all a Happy New Year.

Sunday at Teatro Goldoni with Jack and Some Beans

The jewel box interior of the Teatro Goldoni

The Teatro Goldoni, a short walk from Piazza San Marco, has been reconstructed many times since it first opened in 1622, but it remains a magical place to see live theater. Yesterday we attended the first production in a new Sunday series of five performances for kids entitled Domeniche in famiglia.

A magnificent bean stalk conjured from humble materials

Jack e il fagiolo magico (Jack the Magic Beans) was a two-person production by the Bologna-based children's theater company La Baracca, that used music, video and simple but evocative staging to conjure a "great world above the clouds" where the most extraordinary rewards await a boy who seems to have gotten a bum deal on earth below. 

In addition to touring productions like the one we saw yesterday (and which have ranged all over the world), La Baracca maintains an extensive program of performances and activities at its home base in the Teatro Testoni Ragazzi in Bologna, which you can read about (in Italian or English) here: http://www.testoniragazzi.it/. If you're planning to visit Bologna with kids, it's a resource worth checking out.

And the remaining four productions at Teatro Goldoni in this winter's Domeniche in famiglia series may be worth checking out if you're going to be in Venice in January or February with kids even if they don't speak Italian. At a cost of just 6 euro per seat, the spectacle and music and the overall experience may, for certain kids, make the language irrelevant. (Sandro sometimes likes to watch a certain Russian cartoon about a bear, though he doesn't understand the language.) A complete schedule of the series is here: http://www.teatrostabileveneto.it/teatro.asp?id=26986&p=7

Coaxing a golden egg from a freshly-stolen hen

Festa di Primavera Tomorrow in Garden of ex-Ospedale Umberto I

The preschool Pan di Zenzero occupies part of the building at left; services for adults who are known in Italian as i diversabili (the differently-abled) are in the building at right

Festivities begin at noon tomorrow & go till 7 pm

If you happen to be in Venice now, tomorrow (Saturday, 10 May) is your chance not only to get to see the enclosed overgrown giardino on the edge of the lagoon toward the western end of Cannaregio within the complex of buildings that once made up Ospedale Umberto I, but, more importantly, to do much much more besides. It's the annual Festa di Primavera of Pan di Zenzero, un asilo steinriano, or what would be known as a Waldorf kindergarten in the US, which follows the early education model first proposed by Rudolf Steiner.

The festa will feature games and workshops and theater for kids, food and beverages and music and hand-made objects for all ages, the most affordable rides in a gondola you'll find anywhere in the city, and, in addition to la pesca delle sorprese (or fishing for surprises) for kids, the chance for adults to snag their own larger prizes. Last year, for example, one lucky couple won free lodging in a private vacation house in Sardegna.

The closest vaporetto stop is Sant' Alvise, and the gated entrance to the giardino lies a few minutes' walk west of the church of Sant' Alvise, along the same fondamenta. Devoted to various community services and programs, the ex-ospedale is not typically open to residents not partaking of or participating in such programs or to tourists.

Foreground: the floral centerpiece of a vegetable garden created and maintained by both the school and larger community

In another part of the giardino, an abandoned concrete bunker lies in the shade of the trees behind the commemorative bust, at the edge of the lagoon.  

What would Venice be without fishing? In this case (taken at last year's festa) for kids' gifts.

A real baker leads a bread-making workshop at last year's festa

Il giardino in early April

It's doubtful anyone ever compared Umberto I to a rose

The Arsenale Opens Wide This Weekend

A fleet of sanpierote moored in the Darsena Grande

Yesterday was the first day of a three-day "open house" at the Arsenale. Officially entitled Arsenale Aperto alla Città, each day through Sunday, from 10 in the morning until 8 at night, will feature a full array of events for children and adults.

Throughout the day kids can have a go at throwing clay on a real pottery wheel under the watchful eye of an experienced artisan (as below), learn how to row in a caorlina (a large traditional lagoon work boat now used for 6 person races) in the Venetian style, or in the "English-style" (as it's called here) in a long dragon boat. There are free drawing and painting and clay workshops for kids, too, while adults might take one of the frequent guided tours of the Arsenale. There are sporting events--regatte, rugby, calcio--live music, arts and crafts displays, exhibitions of traditional Venetian boats (such as the sanpierote above) and Il Nuovo Trionfo (the old trabaccolo usually moored at the Punta della Dogana and formerly used to carry goods throughout the northern Adriatic), and, of course, Venetian food and wine. 

But each day also features conferences, talks and meetings on not just the history of the Arsenale but on its future as an important part of the life of the city. For the real point of the three-day festival is not only to entertain the community, or to celebrate Venetian traditions, but to send a clear signal to the city's decision makers that Venetians have an abiding and active interest in this central piece of their cultural patrimony and are determined that it be used or developed in a way that benefits Venetians, with imagination and foresight, in the interest of the living resident community, rather than some imagined foreign luxury clientele.

It's an important message to send, and one that's becoming increasingly hard to get across anywhere in the world, but this three-day open house aims to demonstrate unmistakably the public commitment to such ideals.

A full schedule of events, with a helpful map, can be downloaded on the following page ("Scarica il programma dell' evento in formatto pdf"): http://www.comune.venezia.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/73050

One of the members of I Bochaleri (l'associazione di ceramisti veneziani) helps a boy with the pottery wheel

Most of the events take place in the warehouses to the left of photo; in the distance is the Porta Nuova to the lagoon with its large tower, constructed by the French in a gothic style in 1810 (and with a rooftop full of people yesterday)

A Festa di Primavera & Other Festas Soon to Come

Nothing says Spring like a floral crown (see images below for completed examples)

La Festa di Primavera last Saturday at my son's small Waldorf asilo (or kindergarten) near Sant' Alvise in Cannaregio reminded me that one of the best ways to catch Venice's residents being themselves--rather than playing to tourists--is to attend one of the city's local festivals. They're generally not well-publicized, and even those festivals which set up websites often turn out to be more informative about last year's schedule of events than this year's.

But here is a list of some of the feste and sagre that I've attended in recent years with approximate dates for when they typically run and links to posts I've written on each:

Festa di Sant' Antonio at church of San Francesco della Vigna: June 8 through15, 2013

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2011/06/festa-di-s-antonio-at-s-fran-della.html

Festa di San Giovanni in Bragora: 3rd week of June (for about a week)

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2012/06/festa-di-san-giovanni-in-bragora-2012.html

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2011/06/festa-di-san-giovanni-in-bragora.html

Festa di San Piero de Casteo (aka S Pietro di Castello): last week of June (about a week)

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2012/06/bridge-diving-festa-de-san-piero-de.html

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2011/07/festa-di-san-pietro-di-castello.html

Festa del Redentore: the famous city-wide festa and most important of them all, but now handled by an official private marketing arm: July 20 & 21, 2013.

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2012/07/festa-del-redentore-2012-revelers.html

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2012/07/festa-del-redentore-2012-fireworks.html

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2011/07/festa-del-redentore-4-views-from-boat.html

Sagra di Santa Marta: last week of July (the 1st in this working-class area of Venice took place last year)

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2012/07/sagra-di-santa-marta.html

Sagra di San Giacomo dell' Orio: end of July (for about a week)

http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2011/07/sagra-di-san-giacomo-dellorio-3-views.html

And here are some more images from this year's Festa di Primavera of the Asilo Pan di Zenzero, which will occur again next year in early to mid-May in the garden of the ex-Ospedale Umberto I at the northwestern edge of Cannaregio.

A mosaic workshop I oversaw with real Murano glass tiles on handmade frames

Just 5 euros would buy you a ticket for a ride in a real gondola with a real gondolier (the father of one of the school's students)

There were no shortage of hand-made items to buy, including some ducks & geese made of felt by my wife Jen

There was a bread-making workshop for kids and...

 

...a fishing hole full of surprises.

One More Favorite Carnevale Activity: Passa al Goldoni

I wanted to mention one last favorite annual event of Carnevale before leaving those festivities entirely behind: Passa al Goldoni, a series of four or five puppet shows held in the foyer of Teatro Goldoni each Carnevale season. Entry is free, but seating is limited, and if the photos I post here are all from behind the puppeteer it's because there was no space for me in front of the stage.

Sandro attended two of the shows put on by the puppeteer Mauro Pagan and loved them both, as did the rest of kids in the audiences (as you can see from the above photo). These particular photos are from Pagan's performance of San Giorgio e il drago, which happily had nothing of the ecclesiastical about it, but included real flames, some scary moments, a lot of humor, and the perfect amount of flatulence humor.

Mauro Pagan enacts St George's slaying of the dragon

Farewell to Carnevale: Some Favorite Things

Sandro and I happened through Piazza San Marco Tuesday afternoon and, without planning on it, came upon what appeared to be the closing ceremonies of Carnevale. Or, at least, the end of the daily costume competitions that had been going on on the big stage since Carnevale's beginning. The official conclusion to the festivities would be marked by La Vogata del Silenzio (or The Silent Row) later that night--which, choosing sleep over spectacle, we missed this year.

The Piazza was packed, and as I was holding Sandro in my arms so that he could see above the crowd, I managed to take only a single photograph, which I post (much cropped) above. In it is one of my favorite costumes of Carnevale, but I can't tell you a thing about it.

Here are a few of my other favorite things from Carnevale...

The hands-on workshops (above) of this year's 4th Annual Carnevale Internazionale dei Ragazzi, put on by La Biennale di Venezia in their main exhibition space in I Giardini Pubblici, were once again, day in and day out, the single liveliest and most interesting place to be for kids and their parents. And, as you can see below, the live performances--also free--were also worth a look.  

French mime Jo Bulitt performs with the Ensemble L'Arsenale

The ice skating rink that goes up annually in December in Campo San Polo is not, officially, a part of Carnevale, but as it comes down about the same time as the Carnevale does, I'm cheating and including it. It's a marvelous experience to ice skate in the largest campo in Venice (San Marco is, of course, a piazza), and remembering that it was once the site of rather less wholesome entertainments--such as bull baiting--gives it a bit of historical spice. For the most part you'll find yourself surrounded by more actual Venetians than most other places in the city, and as Venetians generally have little experience on ice, it's a fun, low-pressure atmosphere, perfect for beginners (such as myself).

Sandro discovers what hard work gallantry can be while skating in Camp San Polo

Le Giostre, or the little carnival that also goes up in December each year on Riva dei Sette Martiri near Via Garibaldi, is also not officially part of Carnevale, but as it also closes with Carnevale I include it here as well. Older Venetians remember when it used to be on Riva degli Schiavoni, a short distance from Piazza San Marco, and I wonder if tourists used to frequent it back then, because they almost never seem to do so now. Of course, 50 years ago there existed a long off-season in Venice, so the carnival even then, and even in such proximity to the tourist center of the city, may well have been locals only. 

In any case, it's almost exclusively locals now; I've yet to hear anything other than Italian spoken there, and the kids and parents I see there are the same ones I see on Via Garibaldi and in Sant' Elena. 

In sharp contrast to the free educational activities at the Biennale, a single round of head-on collisions for your kid on the bumper cars will set you back 2 euro. But, then, as your child will almost certainly find him- or herself in the thick of locals, the ride will probably be educational anyway. Trash-talking on any of the rides that are vaguely competitive--such as the bumper cars or the "Baby Moto"--is quite common, even among kindergarteners. Last night, for example, Sandro--who has only just stopped taunting others on such rides by calling them "piccolino/a" (little one) or "bebe"--was treated to a steady stream of adult-level curses by a neighborhood boy who was no more then seven.

Considering Venetians have a certain reputation for their foul language, it would be hard to find a more "authentic" Venetian experience for your child than that.

The Museum of Really Dead Things

You won't see a trophy room like this in NYC's American Museum of Natural History

Venice's Museo di Storia Naturale is not your typical museum of natural history.

For one thing, there's the long eventful history of the building in which it's located. It's one of the few remaining examples of a Veneto-Byzantine palazzo, and was originally built for the Pesaro family in the 13th century. In 1439, while in the hands of the Marquis of Ferrara, it still retained such eminence among the palazzi on the Grand Canal that it served as lodgings for John VIII Palaeologus, Emperor of Byzantium, and his retinue. This was the first visit ever paid by a Byzantine Emperor to Venice and, according to John Julius Norwich, no expense was spared, no ceremonial flourish overlooked--though by this time poor John's "empire" consisted of little more than Contantinople itself.

In 1621 it became the headquarters and warehouse for Turkish traders in Venice (and ever since has been known as the Fondaco dei Turchi), and in the 19th-century fell into such disrepair that Ruskin feared for its survival. He was right to, though its ultimate demise came not in the form of a collapse but of a rebuilding. The aggressive Austrian renovation of it in the 1850s--which involved, according to Deborah Howard, completely refacing the facade and extensively rebuilding the interior--destroyed much of what it had formerly been.

But its collections, too, are, well, to use an Italian word that seems particularly appropriate to them: particolare. That is, both unique and strange, or odd.

Mesmerized by the documentary on the Ouranosaurus behind them

Like the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, the museum of this sort I'm most familiar with, it all starts with dinosaurs. And both the Ouranosaurus nigeriensis skeleton and its presentation are both excellent. There's also a looping documentary (in Italian) about its discovery in 1973 that's so well done that Sandro sits fascinated throughout its entire 10 or 15 minutes every time we visit.

Parts of a huge prehistoric crocodile share the stage with the Ouranosaurus, then, in subsequent rooms, there are skulls of pre-humans and a saber-tooth tiger, nests of dinosaur eggs, fossilized tracks, fish, and giant bones, all well-presented and arranged at the perfect height for kids.

But after that, an education in natural history gives way to one in cultural history--and like so much of the detritus of cultural history (especially colonial history), it ain't pretty.

Or to put it another way, fossils give way to taxidermy, and specimens to inspire further study give way to specimens to inspire future nightmares.

Like an office inspired by Conrad's The Heart of Darkness

The first, largest and brightest of these rooms is filled with souvenirs of colonial Africa: the usual assortment of shields, spears, headwear, and a couple of snarling stuffed animal heads splattered with artificial blood. But also, in a large table-like glass case in the center of the room, the mummified remains of an African (bracketed by a pair of mummified alligators) lies in state with none of the wrappings of an ancient Egytian mummy. His wizened ebony form and grimacing face hold a certain terrifying fascination for Sandro. He stares at it silently, intently, as if grappling with the unpleasant implications contained in the fact that this figure really is (or once was) a human being like us. 

But it's the next, darker room (pictured at top), whose low dramatic lights, red walls and collection of big game trophies really spook him. He trots through it, trying his best to see as little as possible. And if my own pace through it isn't fast enough for him, as it once was not, if I try to actually look at something, he makes me pick him up and, once in my arms, averts his eyes till I carry him to safety.

I believe the first of these rooms contains the collection of 19th-century explorer Giovanni Miani, and the second of Giuseppe de Reali (1877-1937), but as I've never had time to read any of the information in the rooms I can't be sure.

More generally, I think of these rooms as providing a record of how natural curiosity can give way to--or take the form of--a kind of gleeful cruelty.

It's nice to think that the rationality of science and its systematic study of phenomenon is the path out of such cruelty and such excesses, and this is essentially the narrative presented by the museum's website in order to fit these two collections--and other collections of oddities--within the framework of the museum's larger educational aims.

But, in fact, the succession of rooms and exhibits and display cabinets in the museum suggest another more troubling narrative as well, reminding you in the most graphic manner of the excesses and cruelty that rationality alone and the scientific method can also lead to.

That is, just as the story of science and rationality is not a simple straightforward progression from barbarism to humane enlightenment, without switchbacks or ugly detours or backsliding, nor is one's progress through the museum's collections.

A bogus wonder of nature composed of different creatures

On the contrary, just when you think you've left all the gruesomeness behind--as contained in "The Cabinets of Wonder," for example, with their shrunken head and freaks of nature (both real and bogus, as at left)--and with no small sense of relief can devote yourself to twiddling the knobs of a microscope to bring slides of minute and benign plant life into focus, you walk into a room further along and encounter what I've taken to calling a livid Salute to Dissection within tall glass cases.

And once again the pursuit of scientific knowledge appears as little more than than a pornography of domination over the natural world. Though skinned and split and splayed and preserved (sometimes by secret methods, the museum tells us, reintroducing the air of magic into it all), some of the specimens on display appear as nothing less than the embodiment of suffering beyond one's worst imaginings--and a frozen eternal suffering at that. 

2 images of anguish: the lesser, at right, by Francis Bacon

In the case of one small monkey-like mammal, which quite literally wears its heart on its chest like a primate-version of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and whose mouth appears forever ripped open in a mute scream of anguish far more awful to behold than that of Francis Bacon's paintings of Pope Innocent X, it's hard to imagine the level of rational scientific detachment (or sublimation or denial) required to regard this creature with equanimity.

So that a visit to the museum can easily become, in a certain mood, a walking meditation on the way that science and rationality can show us the way out of naive, primitive barbarism--but only to lead us sometimes into another form of barbarism that seems even worse, precisely because of the knowingness and detachment and inhumanity with which it's pursued.

This is the horror the museum holds in store for adults who know, unlike their children, exactly the forms such scientific barbarity have in fact taken in real life. And, as the father of a young child, it makes me sadly anticipate the awful knowledge that every growing child must come into at some point--the luckiest of them through education, not immediate experience--that the cruelty of real life can sometimes actually far exceed the very worst nightmares dreamt in his or her nursery.

But for now at least, Sandro can simply avert his eyes from all this. Together we take in the other exhibits, in which the deadness of the objects is not foremost, and then end up in the bright natural light of the Cetaceans Gallery, with its long glass wall looking out on a beautiful Byzantine wellhead left over from the building's earliest incarnation, and the nearly complete skeleton of a finback whale above our heads, which washed up, already dead, on a shore near Naples in 1928.

Then, happily, and perhaps with a certain relief, we head out into the cold damp open air of Venice and back to life as we know it--and sometimes thankfully don't know it--but live it.