Five Views Back at the Winter Now Ending

Over this past weekend we had, first, frigid bora winds from the north, then, the next day, the balmy scirocco from the south. Contrary to what one might first be inclined to think, the latter are actually more of a problem for Venice, as in the course of blowing water up the Adriatic coast they're a major factor in the worst instances of acqua alta. And we were hit with two spells of acqua alta over the weekend, but both arrived in the wee hours of the morning and turned out to be not so high as first feared (120 cm instead of 140 cm, in the latter instance).

In spite of the storms over this past weekend, though, there's a sense that winter is pretty much finished here, though February is just ending. For the second winter in a row, there was no snow in the city. There's never very much, but each of our first three years featured at least one day of it, as is (or was) typical. 

What we had instead was fog, which is not unusual. But because we went a number of weeks at one point without a drop of the usual winter rain, the fog seemed the dominant motif of this past winter, to an extent it hasn't before in the years we've lived here.

So, with signs of spring already visible, and Marzo Pazzo as it's called here (Crazy March) just hours away, here are five last looks back at the past winter.

   

The Canale delle Vignole

Three Panoramas of Santa Marta

San Nicolò al Lido at Sunset and Low Tide, This Evening

Corte della Comare, Tonight

A Look Back at Carnevale's End, and Ahead to Its Rebirth

A very entertaining pair of magicians perform on one of the side stages in Piazza San Marco

Reflections in a Golden Tuba: Alberto Azzolini of the group Brass Operà, whose regular weekday performances were one of the highlights of the main stage schedule and a crowd favorite

It's a little odd to hear your second-grade son going around the house reciting "from ashes he was born and to ashes he will return." And if you're a native English-speaking American it doesn't make it any less so that he's doing it in Italian ("dalla polvere era nato e di polvere è tornato").

Nor is its oddness diminished by the fact that he's simply repeating the final lines of a poem about Carnevale that he was instructed to memorize in school, written by Gabriele D'Annunzio. The very same D'Annunzio who, as Lucy Hughes-Hallet shows in her fine biography Gabriele D'Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War, used his proto-rock-star status to urge Italy into a war (WW I) it would have been better off remaining neutral in, and who reveled almost erotically in the pointless mass slaughter of the countless young men he inspired.

But, be that as it may, this is simply a filostrocca (or lullaby) about Carnevale, and it's certainly not unusual for children's songs to have some extremely dark undercurrents (such as the origins of "Ring Around the Rosy" in the London Plague of 1665).

Nonethless, I can't quite imagine that an American second grade class these days would teach the kids anything including lines about drinking so much wine that one's face suddenly turns red, but, then, I also can't imagine an American elementary school that would (as Sandro's school did) provide Prosecco for adults at the late morning reception following the kids' Christmas pageant. Whereas images of gluttony are common in both Italian and American culture--and treated as almost something of a requirement for the proper celebration of America's Thanksgiving.

Sandro, however, when I asked him about the poem, was very clear about the fact that all the eating and drinking and, eventually, dying, was done by Carnevale itself (or himself)--that is, by the personification of Carnevale (to use a word that he did not).

I wanted to ask him what was the relationship between this figure of Carnevale and actual people, but I could tell he'd already said all he wanted to say about the poem and he'd reply to any other question with a dismissive roll of his eyes. I suppose the figure of Carnevale, in this case, embodies the spirit of excess of Carnevale, but I can't imagine what this would mean to a second grader. No more than I can guess what he makes of the Ash Wednesday with which both the poem and Carnevale ends.

And, anyway, perhaps there's really no separating the "idea" or "meaning" of a poem from the images with which it is built up. At some point in poetry, if it is poetry (rather than prose broken into lines, or mere window dressing), there is a leap from the concrete accumulation of details to some sense intimately connected to them and inseparable from them but beyond them all. This sense (or variety of senses) dwells, first, in the details of the poem, then in us. Perhaps that's really the point in memorizing poems at all: because what we "learn from" a poem is in the poem, not something we can unpack from it and carry off in some skeletal or schematic form.

A poem is not the tool or means to learn something else--to learn its "message". It is, itself, what we learn. 

In any case, the poem is below, and in keeping with its cyclical theme this post is intended not only as a look back at the festivities that ended at midnight on Tuesday, but at the planning already underway for next year's events. And it also gives any of us interested in doing so, ample time to memorize it ourselves before next year's Carnevale.       

Carnevale

Carnevale vecchio e pazzo
S'è venduto il materasso
Per comprare pane e vino,
Taralucci e cotechino.
E mangiando a crepapelle
La montgna di frittelle
Gli è crescituo un gran pancione
Che somiglia ad un pallone.
Beve, beve all'improvviso
Gli diventa rosso il viso
Poi gli scoppia anche la pancia
mentre ancora mangia, mangia.
Così muore il Carnevale
E gli fanno il funerale:
Dalla Polvere era nato
E di polvere è tornato.

A quick translation:

Old and crazy Carnevale
Sold his mattress
To buy bread and wine,
Taralucci and sausage.
And eating to the point of bursting
A mountain of frittelle,
He grew a huge gut
Round as a big ball.
He drinks and drinks and suddenly
His face turns red,
Then his belly explodes,
Even as he continues to eat and eat.
And so dies Carnevale,
And is laid to rest:
From dust was he born
And to dust he is returned. 

A Craft-y Way of Increasing Venetian Presence in Carnevale

Giovanni Giusto, president of the Consorzio del Tajapiera Restauratori Veneziani, at work in Piazza San Marco

The large temporary structures built for Carnevale--the main part of which is the stage for various performances--change each year. Each version is elaborate, some may be more appealing than others, but this year's design seems to me to be the most successful of any of the five I've seen because of the significant effect it has had on one's experience of Carnevale.

Whether you like or dislike this year's design--and I just saw an indignant Venetian on Facebook who thought the designer's construction of a main stage that evoked both the Rialto and Tre Archi bridges to be a shameful diminution of the originals and an unforgivable act of pandering to tourists--the big difference this year are the smaller pavilions extending out from the stage along both the Procuratie Vecchie and Nuove. Each of these pavilions house different artisans working away at their craft, all of which have been historically important in Venice.

The stage of this year's Carnevale, designed by La Fenice's set designer, Massimo Checchetto

There are, naturally, mask makers and glass makers, shoe makers, creators of fine textiles and of historical costumes. There are stone cutters and wood carvers, hat makers, experts in gilding and in ironworking, and, of course, makers of gondolas and forcole (oarlocks) and oars. There's a grand gondola, beautifully fitted out with elaborate carvings of scenes from the Battle of Lepanto, gilding, and luxury upholstery--showing each of these crafts at its finest, and how each separate one was (and is) involved in the creation of the iconic floating emblem of Venice (which is also the purpose of the association of Venetian artisans known as El Felze).

When I'd seen these pavilions being built before the start of Carnevale, I'll admit I'd feared the worst: that they'd serve as corporate promotional showcases or retail spaces (something along the lines of The Golden Arches "I'm Lovin' It Carnival Experience", or the Swatch "Time to Party Zone"). In at least one previous Carnevale the public space of the Piazza had been demarcated into certain areas requiring payment (for example, to enter private boxes in La Fenice-style tiered seating on either side of the stage). Such demarcations, needless to say, work against any sense of Carnevale as a communal event; a sense which is supposed to be at the festival's core, and which is already hard enough to come by in a city whose dwindling local population can be inclined at times to cede the Piazza to overwhelming crowds of tourists.

One of the indoradóri, or gold-leafers, engaged in her specialty; an excellent small guide (in English and Italian) to woodcarving and gilding in Venice was available gratis at the pavilion, produced by the artisan association El Felze 

I was relieved to hear that the small pavilions would, in fact, be used by local artisans. But then I wondered if there might be something a bit dispiriting about this: if this collection of little structures might seem rather like a zoo of vanishing species. As if the only place such rare creatures as actual Venetians and working artisans might still exist in Venice was in captivity, on display.

But it doesn't feel that way--at least not to me. It may be that the sheer amount of knowledge and artistry on display and in action could simply overwhelm even the least promising or hokey of contexts. These aren't actors in theme park dioramas, but working artists, the vitality of whose work can't be missed, even if the vast majority of Venetians themselves these days are more likely to motor around in fiberglass boats than row hand-made wooden ones.  

Moreover, the presence of these artisans in Piazza San Marco seems to ground this edition of Carnevale in the local more than any of the previous four years I've experienced. One of the most surprising and disappointing things to me about previous Carnevales was how absolutely dead the Piazza could seem for most of the days.

For as interesting and substantial as any given tourist may be as an individual, a vast piazza filled with nothing but tourists can seem dismayingly spectral. It's not really a tourist's fault. Unless we're on a guided tour, or following our own strict itinerary, we usually can't help but drift as tourists (or plod, when we reach the point of exhaustion)--nor, perhaps, should we want to help it. We slip out from beneath the weight of our normal life as tourists.

Francesco Briggi of Atelier Pietro Longhi at work on a sewing machine

But a Piazza of tourists far from home with nothing to do but, at best, photograph other tourists far from home in costume, can start to feel more like a convention, as I've said before (which, for all the beauty of the Piazza, might as well held on board a cruise ship), than a Venice Carnevale.

The presence of the artisans, aside from everything else it does, seems to anchor the proceedings in contemporary Venetian life (even if the artisans are practicing ancient crafts). And from what I've witnessed, it seems to draw more Venetians to the Piazza. Venetians, who might in other years have thought of the Piazza during this period as a tourist-only space, now have a reason to stop in and see friends who may be working in one of the pavilions.

The pavilions serve, you might say, as outposts of Venetian-ness in otherwise occupied territory, and this is important in this small walking-oriented town, where familiarity and shared history and face-to-face contact are all still important. If you happen to be in Venice for this Carnevale, see if you don't notice a small group of locals chatting on the apron of one of the pavilions: one of them is an artisan on break, perhaps they are smoking and/or enjoying a drink, perhaps they are taking some interest in what's happening on the main stage--and none of them would be in the Piazza if not for the artisans' pavilions.

A Carnevale without the participation of locals is not much of a Carnevale, just as a Venice without Venetians will be no kind of city. Whatever else may change in next year's edition of Carnevale I hope the artisan pavilions in Piazza San Marco will somehow be maintained--which seems easy enough to do. While the issue of how to keep Venetians in Venice is rather more complicated. Though perhaps not entirely unrelated.

The gondola Giulia, "Queen of Venice", on display in Piazza San Marco

Four Carnevale Portraits, Caffè Florian, Tonight