Thursday, December 26, 2013

On the Feast of Santo Stefano, As It Was, Never Was, and Is


The Festa di Santo Stefano was, according to William Dean Howells (who takes his information from Giustina Renier-Michiel's Origine delle Feste Veneziane), "one of the rare occasions of the year when the Doge appeared officially in public after nightfall." Each year on this day, December 26, the Doge boarded a magnificent ship (though not the grand il Bucintoro) and, accompanied by a beautifully-lanterned flotilla of nobles and other citizens, made his way across the basin of San Marco to the church of San Giorgio to pay his respects to the body of the martyr buried there.

The photos of this post (and the lone image of my December 13 post) were taken exactly two weeks ago, at about 4 in the afternoon, far down the Riva from the Doge's old residence, but I was assured by one of the people filming the short ceremony that it was meant to commemorate the Doge's annual mini-pilgrimage.

Sandro and I were walking home from his school and it was the bagpiper that first got our attention. I sincerely doubt that bagpipers were involved in the traditional ceremony of December 26--though it was a nice addition to a foggy afternoon. And when the Doge, after freeing himself from what appeared to be some rather complicated state business on his cell phone, boarded the waiting ship (Il Nuovo Trionfo), it was not to be taken across the basin to San Giorgio Maggiore but to simply pay his brief respects to a living presepe, or manger scene.

At this point I asked another member of the small film crew what was going on, but he'd hardly gotten much beyond what the previous guy had told me about how the Doge used to visit San Giorgio Maggiore when Sandro started complaining quite insistently that he was cold and tired and wanted to continue on our way home.

So, really, I don't know exactly what was going on, or for what purpose, aside from that it was a St Stephen's Day rite on a day that was not St Stephen's Day and that bore almost no relation to the traditional rite.

But it did remind me that one of the still-observed traditions of this day in Venice is for Venetian families to take a walk to see some of the local presepe, and this is why I post these images today: not so much as a picturesque celebration in costume of what used to be done during the long centuries of the late great Republic, but of what remains alive today.



10 comments:

  1. May be because of the the cold fog or the strangeness of the show, but the teenage pupils of the second photo seem to be bored a lot and not very happy to participate in these school outdoor activities. May be they consider a bit ridiculous this historical pageant in the era of the 3D film. Do you known if they were Italian pupils, as they look like? Unlike in the UK, uniforms are currently very rarely worn in the French schools, except in some very rare private or military ones. I think it is the same in Italy. So this group of pupils seems as strange as the entire scene. Thank you for this funny post to commemorate the Doge's annual December 26th pilgrimage.

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    1. It was just as the second member of the film crew seemed to be getting to the group of students you refer to, Auvraisien, that my son arrived and interrupted everything. He'd told me how they'd been re-enacting a version of Santo Stefano's Feast for 5 or 6 years, had mentioned how San Giorgio had been a Benedictine monastery and that i ragazzi... And that's a much as I caught. I was anticipating that he was going to explain that the students somehow represented some Benedictine element: students from a Benedictine school? I have no idea. My Italian isn't good enough to allow me to simultaneously hear whining in English and speech in Italian and still be able to comprehend the Italian. I subsequently tried to enlarge the images to see the name tags on the kids' jackets, but because of glare, or hair, I couldn't manage to make out where they were from. But they did seem to be bored, and I can't quite blame them as, with the exception of just two of them who briefly boarded the boat to pay respects the "holy family", the rest really had nothing to do. (And they weren't allowed to wear their winter coats while the ceremony lasted.)

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  2. The Doge with a cell phone! So much for the myth that Abraham Lincoln invented it...

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    1. I believe it was actually Galileo, RandysRules; it wasn't anything about astronomy he was demonstrating to the Doge up in the campanile of San Marco, but the best place (at that time) for cell phone reception.

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  3. I never heard of this celebration, but I will ask my dad who knows a lot of Venetian history. I did a little googling for the students since the uniform made me think that they were in the hospitality field. I found this http://www.barbarigo.it/ with a picture of two students wearing a similar tie. It is located in the Castello area so I bet they were students of that school.

    I am going to be in Venice in two weeks, anything you would want from the US for Sandro? Something you can't get in Italy?

    Taking orders....

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    1. Wow, Laura, that's an impressive bit of detective work! I think you're right, but I wonder what they were doing there. Making something they can use to publicize their school?

      I can't at the moment think of anything Sandro needs from the US right now, though it's very kind of you to offer. Oddly enough one of the main things I miss from the US is KALE, which one rarely encounters here (mostly only as cavolo nero). But that's not something to transport overseas!

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    2. It was really easy, all I did was google scuola alberghiera and arsenale, not detective work at all. The students probably need to learn about various Venetian festivities.

      I love Kale! Maybe I can bring some seeds and you can ask the guys at spiazzi verdi at the zittelle to grow it for you. I am sure they will give you some in exchange for some volunteer work. I was going to bring some seeds for my dad, he has a little orto in his garden, he too could use some help if he weren't at the other end of Venice.

      Counting the days...haven't been back in more than two years. I plan on eating lots of baccala' mantecato.

      CIAO!

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    3. I don't know that they'll let you bring seeds into the country, Laura, will they? If they're from Monsanto--I understand it can be pretty hard to get seeds from someone OTHER than Monsanto in the US--I kind of hope they won't.

      Two years is a long time away; it's raining a lot lately, but, well, Venice is Venice in any weather. Here's hoping you have a safe and easy trip here.

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  4. In the Bay Area there are many companies that sell organic seeds, so no problem finding seeds.

    I will bring some, hopefully they won't take them away. I have not been checked once coming back, that would be a first!

    I would take Venice in any weather, except the summer heat!

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    1. Ah, the heat in summer, Laura, is nothing to me compared to the crowds, but, depending on how long and where you've been in the Bay Area, you may have gotten weather-spoiled in that temperate California climate!

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