A Bit of Christmas in Campo Santa Margherita, Tonight

The Largest Church in Venice

Unione Venezia (in white) takes on Mezzocorona of Trentino, 8 December 2011

If, as many people have noted, calcio (or football or soccer) is a major religion in Italy, then the largest church in Venice is neither SS Giovanni e Paolo nor I Frari, but Stadio Pierluigi Penzo which, from what I've observed, few tourists ever enter.

As recently as 2002 the Venice team--or, at times, Venice-Mestre team--was in Italy's top league, Serie A. But since being declared bankrupt after the 2009 season (as it had been after the 2005 season as well) it has vied for top spot in Serie D as F.B.C. Unione Venezia. 

A local friend who has rarely attended a game since its demotion from Serie A said that the stadium used to have a great many more bleachers, which were removed as the team's fortunes declined. To attend a Serie A game in the old fully fitted-out stadium was, he told me, a thrilling and terrifying experience. Thrilling because the fans were rabid in their support. Terrifying because the old metal stands never seemed particularly sturdy and when the crowd got to stamping its feet in unison, as it often did, complete structural collapse seemed certain and imminent.

Venezia fans still stamp their feet, and sing, and jeer their opponents, and are still as passionate as before--but there are far fewer of them. Perhaps 3,000 per game, as compared to more than 20,000 in the Serie A days.

A sampling of the team's most boisterous supporters

Unione Venezia sat all alone at the top of the standings--undefeated in 14 matches, with only 2 draws--when I went to my first game of the season last Thursday afternoon. It was a special holiday game against a team far below them in the standings, Mezzocorona, and Venezia played as if they resented being among the relatively few folks in town who had to work that day. Or perhaps they were contemplating the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, whose feast day it was. They certainly weren't thinking about playing defense. They were behind 2-0 at the end of the first period, and 3-0 as soon as the second one began. Nor could they conceive the least bit of creativity on the attack.

But the games are worth attending if only to observe the fans. I always sit near the large group of ultras in the Distinti section--there's another isolated group of them in the Curva Sud, behind the goal. The price for a seat in either section is the same, so I'm not sure why someone would choose the latter place, as the view is much worse, but there may be some details about each group of supporters I've yet to learn.

At least two or three of the ultras who lead the songs and chants and cheering spend the entire game with their back to the action--not even American high school cheerleaders see so little of what's going on. As there is no in-stadium screen showing instant replays, nor even a scoreboard, these young men miss everything. In the church of calcio they are the most selfless of sacristans.

But try as they might, there was no helping i lagunari this day. Venezia hardly even threatened to score. In frustration, I took to wandering all over the stands, then down close to the field, then up to the very highest most distant bleachers in the place, trying out different vantage points. But there was no beauty to be found in the so-called "beautiful game" last Thursday, at least not for a Venezia fan. So I turned my back to the field and looked out over the shipyard behind the stadium, the harbor, the lagoon. I was not disappointed.

When there's no beauty to be found on the field, there's always the lagoon

Little City at the Edge of the World

photo credit: Jen

I read somewhere that Venice is only about twice the size of New York's Central Park. After a hard day's night of travel and the sadness of having to say arrivederci to family in the States, we were happy to see it again yesterday evening--though I have no idea what day it is today.

When I sit on a certain park bench at the far eastern end of the city I often see some airliner approach Marco Polo Airport along just the route we were following when this picture was taken. If I'm not preoccupied with other thoughts I usually imagine how pleasant it is to be in a plane as it finally descends to its destination, and how excited passengers must be to find themselves arriving at such a city for the first, or fifth, or tenth time. I don't think I'd ever gotten such a clear view of the city from the air as this photo presents, so now I can imagine the experience of those on the plane much better than I ever could before. And if you are one of those on the plane arriving you can imagine at least one guy, invisible, and miles distant, watching you come in for a safe landing.

Libreria Marco Polo

Novelist Sergio Garufi is interviewed in front of the bookstore, Oct 15, 2011

Does everybody out there know about Libreria Marco Polo?

It's just a few minutes from the Coin department store, right behind the church of San Giovanni Grisostomo (with its great Giovanni Bellini), and always has an extremely interesting selection of new titles in Italian and a pretty broad selection of used books in English. It also has some titles in German and French, I believe, though I haven't gotten around to looking at those.

It's a small charming friendly place that reminds one that the quality of a bookstore is not measured by square meters (or feet) or numbers of total volumes, but by its distinctive intelligence. Librera Marco Polo is positively overflowing with that.

It also puts on excellent events, such as the one for Sergio Garufi's dark and engaging novel of bibliophilia, Il nome giusto, pictured above and below.

Check out the store's website and blog at:

http://www.libreriamarcopolo.com/

And when you're in Venice, stop in and see it for yourself.

The Afterlife of a Murano Glass Chandelier

A good friend who visited us in August asked me more than once for suggestions about what one should buy in Venice. He had to ask more than once because I never managed to answer him, though I knew very well what he meant.

He was asking about the distinctive Venetian product--the thing made only, or most famously in Venice. Of course he already knew what those were: glass and lace and masks, but he was thinking I might have some inside information to give him on where deals might be found on these items.

I didn't. I could refer him to a lace shop I knew whose owners were knowledgeable and honest, for example, but there are no deals on well-made lace or well-made glass or well-made anything actually made in Venice. 

So then he got desperate: How about ties? he asked me one day as we passed a shop displaying them in its window. I shook my head. They might be nice ties, but they'd likely be the same ones he'd find in Florence or Rome at a better price. I couldn't help him. I told him there really were no bargains left.

However, a couple of weeks ago I wondered if perhaps I found one: a particular one to be sure, a niche item, and not for everyone, but something.

About mid-way between the churches of San Francesco della Vigna and SS Giovanni e Paolo is a single antique shop with two storefronts on two perpendicular calle. One of its storefronts is near the end of the Calle Barbaria de le Tole; the other is about 10 meters around the corner on Calle delle Cappuccine. A small garden court leads from the backdoor of one to the the backdoor of the other. I'm not in Venice at the moment and remember nothing about the name of the place except the proprietor's first name, Valter. [Note added 13 December 2011: the name of the shop is: Valter Ballarin, Rigattiere in Venezia]

In any case, it was there that I bought the fondo of an old Murano glass chandelier. The fondo is the base of the chandlier, its bottom-most central element from which all its various parts branch up and out as the leaves of an artichoke emanate from its own fondo. There were all kinds of parts from old dismembered chandeliers for sale in the shop: sinuous floral pieces of various pale colors that some creative person could probably put to good use, for example. But the pink hand-blown element I bought, pictured twice above, had found second life as a tea light holder. 

It was not the only piece born again to such a use. But the other tea light holders were slightly smaller in diameter and had previously adorned the base of one or another chandelier's candles. Called coppetta, they also were beautiful: fairly shallow little cups, petaled like flowers, with a little hole at the center. 

Here was hand-blown glass at an affordable price: 15 euro is what mine cost me. 

I don't think it would have worked for my friend, who doesn't seem like a guy who has much time for candles of any sort, but we've really enjoyed our fondo. In a dark room a tea light at the center of this very slightly asymmetrical piece of blown glass transports one back to its creation 80 years ago or more. The glass takes on an almost molten appearance--which it never had when it was part of a chandelier--and it's easy to imagine that it's fresh out of the forno. One can imagine the artist spinning it into a bowl-like shape at the end of his or her long pipe, then pulling and crimping into existence its two rows of angled leaves. The glass is returned to the fire, at least on a small scale, and the viewer is returned to an ancient process carried out on a specific day by an anonymous artisan otherwise long forgotten. 

A coppetta that I later bought: made at least a century ago, the particular yellow of this piece was made with uranium--once a common ingredient in the glass factories of Murano. I was assured it was not radioactive.

'Tis the Season: Acqua Alta

If I remember correctly, some of the worst acqua alta of last year occurred during December, so I know what's waiting for us when we return home from our two week visit to the States. But far away from Venice, one can find oneself missing even acqua alta. The above photo was taken after my son's pre-school's Christmas pageant, last December. As fun as the pageant was, I think he enjoyed splashing home just as much.

Update: Hello, Bridge of Sighs!

Two weeks ago I posted about the removal of the scaffolding from the Palazzo Ducale and noted that, however, the Bridge of Sighs had been newly covered. Well, the Bridge of Sighs has also been completely uncovered, all the scaffolding around it removed, and the view from the Ponte della Paglia is, once again (after three years), the famous one that even people who have never set foot in Venice (or cruised past it in one of those horrendous cruise ships) know so well.

One can get used to even the worst kinds of things, and so I guess I got used to all that scaffolding and the damned clouds and the wretched billboards and now that they are finally gone the bridge looks almost vulnerable, a little delicate. This is not a bad thing. I'd like to stand before it a long time and try to get a handle on how it looks to me now, in its natural state, so to speak, but I write this post from Chicago, Illinois and the photo above was taken Sunday, November 20, the afternoon before we left Venezia for a two-week visit to the States.  So any further consideration of the bridge will have to wait.

More generally, nearly every time I pass over or by the Ponte della Paglia, packed with tourists, I wonder what it is that everyone is seeing when they behold the famous Bridge of Sighs. I wondered this most of all when the bridge was just a bit of architecture visible amid all those clouds and billboards: looking rather like a fingernail clipping nearly lost upon a gaudy bedspread. But I found myself wondering the same thing when all that extra stuff was taken away as well.

Do people find the bridge beautiful in itself? Or is it the pathetic narrative evoked by Byron's designation of it that makes it such a must-see? Every guidebook tells us we should be haunted by thoughts of those pitiful wretches glimpsing freedom for the last time through its constricted windows on their way to their fate. Are we? Do we even pretend to be? Or by this time is the bridge--for most or many of us--simply a celebrated sight: famous for being famous? Can we even really see it anymore?

I wish I could ask all those people crowded on the Ponte della Paglia, snapping away, but it's not the kind of thing most people would want to be bothered with. And even if I did ask, could they really answer, just like that--put on the spot? I don't think I could. I can't even now.