Ponte dei Pugni, This Evening (5:30)

Photo credit: Sandro

This evening Sandro took his first photo using a tripod, which you can see above. 

Then to better understand the function of a tripod, and something about the way a shutter works, we experimented on the vaporetto ride home with long exposures, no tripod, and very wiggly hands, which you can see below.

One of Venice's most recognizable landmarks, usually.

I know Sandro liked the tripod, as he likes anything mechanical, but I'm not so sure he didn't like the wiggly approach even better.

Barca Bassa, Not Acqua Alta, in Dorsoduro

For the last two weeks every new day has seemed to bring a couple more periods of acqua alta, but considering the fact that the water level in the above photo is well within the bounds of the canal the trouble confronting the owner of the above boat is not high water but a problematically low boat. 

I asked someone who lives on the above fondamenta if the boat was abandoned, but he assured me it was not. Though falling water is generally considered much less newsworthy here than rising tides, we've had a lot of rain recently and my informant warned me that the above is the predictable result of simply neglecting to bail your boat. 

Early Spell Checker as Painted by Tiepolo: Cappella Sagredo

"Do I need an iota right here?"

What writer wouldn't appreciate the kind of editorial assistance depicted by Giambattista Tiepolo high up on a pendentive of the Sagredo family chapel in the church of San Francesco della Vigna?

The Quietest Room in Venice: at S. Francesco della Vigna

The Capella Santa of San Francesco della Vigna

I apologize for my second absolutist title in a row, but I've discovered that once you get started making absolute statements (no matter how dubious) it's hard to stop. This explains a lot about politics and religion, I think.

But cloistered as the above-pictured chapel is by, well, on one side quite literally a cloister, on another by a church, and on its two others by the structures of the monastery of San Francesco della Vigna, it's perfectly positioned at the northern edges of Castello to be among the quietest interiors in the city.

While the beautiful church of San Francesco della Vigna is often during its official visiting hours polluted with the noise of recorded classical music--since when do churches and great art require an obnoxious piped-in soundtrack?--the Capella Santa, separated from the church by a broad hallway and closed doors, is always blissfully quiet, and usually unoccupied.

I've sat there alone and literally strained to hear something. 

I've also sat looking at the late Giovanni Bellini painting in there, trying to figure out which parts of it were done by the master and which by his workshop. A full account of this painting and the church as a whole can be found on the excellent website The Churches of Venice: http://www.churchesofvenice.co.uk/castello.htm#sanfrandellavig

Perhaps it's not among the greatest of Gio Bellini's works, and as you'll find on the above link, Giorgio Vasari claimed it was painted mostly by one of his pupils, and yet there are elements (like the gaze of San Sebastiano out upon you) that won't quite let you go, and its hushed composure makes the chapel seem all the more intensely quiet.

  

The Most Beautiful Painting In Venice

Okay, I know I'm pushing it in the title of this post, but what if I said the complete title is "The Most Beautiful Painting in Venice that Relatively Few Visitors Ever See?"

Or "The Most Beautiful Painting in Venice Painted by Someone No One Has Ever Heard Of?"

The artist in question is one Antonio da Negroponte, about whom very little is known, and the painting in question seems to be his only surviving work. The Save Venice Foundation, which restored the painting in 1976 and again in 2008, refers to the painter as Antonio Falier da Negroponte, and a very short piece in the Oxford Grove Art online encyclopedia describes him as "a painter of Greek origin, active in Italy" against whom another great Venetian painter, Jacopo Bellini, threatened legal proceedings in an effort to recoup money owed him.

The discussion of the painting and its restoration on the Save Venice website--which I just discovered today--notes that the painting originally may have been the central panel of a triptych, and was "enlarged and partially repainted" to fit into its present frame in the 16th century. Certainly, the uppermost half-circular panel depicting God the Father and the Holy Ghost bears little resemblance to what is painted below, but any other additions to the original narrower painting are not so easy to see. The complete account of the restoration, along with some interesting photos, may be found here:

http://www.savevenice.org/restorations/restoration-single-work?post=1228#top

The painting itself may be found in the church of San Francesco della Vigna--which is of course a favorite destination of the more loyal (or hopelessly enthralled) of Venice's many lovers, but rather rarely visited by many others who come to town. Indeed, it's not even mentioned by Rick Steves in his popular guidebook. But, then, he also neglects to mention SS Giovanni e Paolo--and these are oversights for which I'm grateful, not critical. It's hard to hide a church as large as Giovanni and Paolo, but anything that might lessen the swarms of tourists to certain lovely places is alright by me.

As it is, those casual visitors who do venture all the way to San Francesco della Vigna often seem to walk right past the altarpiece without a second glance. If you've come looking for the works by Veronese or Bellini or Tiepolo here, this static gothic-looking thing hidden in the shadows beside a side door probably won't arrest your gaze--though it's the painting's almost Byzantine-like hieratic quality combined with its great fecundity of detail which makes it so extraordinary. A combination, in fact, that oddly enough makes me think of certain Hindu art. It's a work that repays all of the quiet attention one can give it.

And, in truth, there are long minutes when I stand before it and have no doubt that it's the most beautiful painting in Venice--without qualifications of any sort. 

As seen under natural light

A Furious Instance of Acqua Alta

Tilting toward a bridge      photo: Larry Castek

Before anyone gets too worried by the title of this post, I should admit up front that acqua alta, for all the attention it receives, typically presents no danger to visitors.

Though, as I mentioned in a post some time ago, a fair number of visitors seem to expect something rather dramatic. Not long after the deadly tsunami in Japan, a Japanese visitor to my friend's lace shop asked about aqua alta itself as if it too were prone to crash upon the city with furious destructive force.

In fact, there's usually nothing furious about acqua alta.

The same, however, can't be said about all gondolieri--as an incident that my wife Jen witnessed last week on the season's first day of acqua alta attests.

She was walking on Fondamenta dell'Osmarin, headed in the direction of the leaning tower of San Giorgio dei Greci, when she heard, first, a loud awful scraping sound, then, an explosion of Italian curses.

She turned to find that a gondola with a load of five passengers and a young gondoliere in his twenties had gotten stuck beneath a bridge.

You see, the acqua alta had greatly reduced the clearance beneath the city's bridges and the only way a gondola--with its elevated silver ferro upfront and its elegant risso in back--could pass beneath some of them was at a tilt of 45-degrees.

Apparently, this particular gondola fell a few degrees short of the mark.

Its gleaming ferro was stuck fast against the brick underside of the bridge and its pilot was apoplectic. So much so that the only language he could muster at first was Italian. Which was certainly fortunate, as his passengers appeared to speak only English and were spared full comprehension of the curses and insults he directed toward them--though not, alas, their volume or force.

Among the kinder things he repeated was, "Cicciona! Muovati!" Now, while ciccia--as I wrote about in a post last year (http://veneziablog.blogspot.it/2011/03/2-terms-of-endearment-best-avoided-in.html)--is a term of endearment, roughly equivalent to "dumpling," cicciona basically means "fatso". "Move it, fatso!" is what he was saying, singling out one unfortunate woman with his extended arm as the cause of all his misery.

For the only way to get the gondola to the proper tilt to pass underneath a bridge during acqua alta is for all of its passengers to be properly arranged along one side (as in the photo at top). Perhaps the woman in question shifted her position at the last moment. Or perhaps the blame really lay with the gondoliere himself, for underestimating the limited clearance, and for not properly arranging his passengers as they approached the bridge.

Wherever the blame lay, the end result was one extremely unpleasant gondola ride for everyone involved. As well as an extended bit of spontaneous canal-based theater for the ever-growing crowd that paused upon the fondamenta to watch. At a certain point the young gondoliere gathered the tatters of his wits and English language skills about him, addressed his passengers in a more productive (if hardly more polite) manner, and after much scraping and struggling, eventually shoved his gondola free of the bridge.

The gondola's ferro was badly scraped up, its risso splintered.

The youthfulness of the gondoliere, as well as something about the nature of his reaction, made Jen think that the gondola did not even belong to him.

We can't be sure about that, but it's not hard to imagine the indignant account he gave of this disaster to his fellow gondolieri (those damn tourists!), nor is it hard to imagine the mockery he must still be receiving from his colleagues a week later.

Nor is it hard to imagine his unfortunate passengers' account of their harrowing ride. Did they pay full price? Did they file a complaint?

In any case, I present the anecdote as a warning of one particular acqua-alta-related hazard, and with the suggestion that if you're intent on taking a relaxing ride in a Venetian gondola it's probably best to avoid doing so when the water is at its height. There's nothing romantic about being herded to one side or the other of a gondola like so much high-paying ballast.

Early Morning in Campo Santa Maria Formosa