AUTUMN DROPS HER VARIED FRUITS AT OUR FEET, WHILE FAR
ABOVE ON SUNNY ROCKS THE VINTAGE BASKS AND MELLOWS.
AND ALL THE TIME HE HAS DEAR CHILDREN WHO DOTE ON KISSES,
A HOUSE THAT PRESERVES THE TRADITION OF CHASTITY, COWS THAT HANG
THEIR MILKY UDDERS, AND PLUMP YOUNG GOATS ON THE HAPPY GREEN
ROMPING AND BUTTING WITH THEIR HORNS.
*
Accelerating down a foggy slope we cross the Po and hurtle on through a phantasmagoric landscape of villages and open fields, onward toward Venice. Approaching the outskirts of Rovigo we pass through a scene cloaked in sfumato, through which signs dimly appear in the distance: “Marconi,” “Continental,” “Augustus.” Three young goats nudge one another within a trackside enclosure, their white coats like points of illumination against the beige-gray scumble of the landscape.
“‘IN THE MEDITERRANEAN DWELLS A SEER,’ SHE BEGAN TO SAY.” Across a watery landscape. “‘SEA-BLUE PROTEUS.’” We are crossing. “‘WHO DRIVES THROUGH THE MIGHTY DEEP.’” Very gingerly. “‘A CHARIOT DRAWN BY HARNESSED FISH AND TWO-LEGGED HORSES.’” A railway bridge into Venice. “‘NOW HE VISITS THE MACEDONIAN PORTS.’” The cloudy sky virtually indistinguishable from what lies beneath it. “‘NOW PALLENE HIS BIRTH-PLACE.’”
At last we arrive in Piazza Santa Lucia. Four middle-aged ladies arise and don their caps in preparation for departure. “‘HIM WE NYMPHS AND ANCIENT NEREUS HOLD IN HONOR.’” As we enter the station. “‘FOR HE KNOWS ALL THAT IS.’” Departing opposite. “‘ALL THAT HAS BEEN.’” A train heading for Trieste, Yugoslavia, Hamburg. “‘ALL THAT’S ABOUT TO BE – .’” At the very end of the platform a sign reads. “‘BY THE GOD NEPTUNE’S GRACE, HE KNOWS ALL.’” “Luxottica.” “‘WHOSE HERDS OF MONSTERS / AND HIDEOUS SEALS HE PASTURES IN MEADOWS SUBMARINE.’”
“A reader coming to Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso for the first time is bound to find himself immersed, not to say drowning, in the pell-mell rush and swirl of event and character, as the poet initiates the resumption of Boiardo’s story. Immense pleasure is undoubtedly to be had in surrendering to the rapid flow of this colorful and ever-changing tale. Nevertheless, the reader may also yearn for some definition in the landscape, especially since the poem is so vast, and its narrative method and tonal complexities grow but more bewildering in the course of its 46 cantos.”
And we are off, by vaporetto, down the Grand Canal. A blue skiff stacked with used furniture labors by. Across from author sits an elderly gentleman in a fox-gray jacket reading the paper. A woman in fur coat and fur hat gets up to close the double glass doors to our compartment. The chilly breeze abates. On the bank opposite a boat bearing officers of the Guardia di Finanza docks to investigate two suspicious types huddled on the shore. A black-and-orange skiff glides by, as we in turn glide beneath the railway bridge.
We have entered the Grand Canal proper, which will give us a fleeting view of Palazzo Belloni Battagia. Forests, clearings and caves. And the Municipal Casino. Fairy ring and geniuses guarding groves. Housed opposite in Palazzo Vendramin Calergi. Crippling, enabling or healing wells. Of Ca’ Pesaro. The labyrinth. Which houses the Museo di Arte Moderna. The lion, the white hind, the rabbit. The Museo di Arte Orientale. Miraculous means of transport. A glimpse of the splendid Ca’ d’Oro. The Book of all Knowledge. On our way to the Rialto. Magical shields and mysterious swords. Of the large, rectangular Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Transitional or initiatory markers: Originally built by German merchants. The sea voyage, dreams, gates and doors. From there we continue past Ca’ Foscari. Hangings, tapestries and paintings. Present site of the university premises. As predictive or as summarizing devices. Onward to Ca’ Rezzonico. Venery. Now housing the Museo del Settecento Veneziano. Hunter and hunted. On past Palazzo Grassi. The entranced gaze that suspends the narrative. And Palazzo Corner della Ca’ Granda. The exposure (stripping) of the enchantress. Before we swerve away from Santa Maria della Salute. Calypso. To arrive at Piazza San Marco. Apocalypse.
The Canal’s green waters are cold and uninviting, but our vessel, as if thrice adream, makes swift progress. Before long, our engines churning backwards, we make our first landfall, bumping into the dock. Two middle-aged women board the boat in elegant black knee-length coats, black stockings, patent leather shoes. Their short hair has been dyed a silvery gray, their lipstick in bright magenta. As we wait for yet more passengers to embark, a yellow, heavily-laden tanker, its armatures jutting into the sky, plows on by. Across the way a white-bedded, red-cabbed truck momentarily obliterates a wall graffito reading “Titi.”
The symbolically female body of the romance itself. Before long we take our second landfall. Joins its female landscape. A tall African woman in black leather cap. (Enclosing forest). Her reddish locks bunched out behind. (Enveloping bower). Steps across the gangplank. (Mysterious cave). In expensive brown suede jacket over cocoa sweater. As a space the knight or reader must quest through and emerge from. She glances nervously at the already occupied passenger deck. A passive damsel in distress. And we are off once more, being passed by a black skiff whose hull, encircled with a yellow line, is also encircled by another in blue. Twins or counterfeit doubles. Gradually the right bank’s residences rise from two to three to four stories. Descent from a world above, ascent from a world below.
As we make our final glide into the Piazza, black gondolas materialize, the flash-bulbs of tourists going off behind them in the foggy ambiance of the great monuments. Three white gulls skim the surface of the water, two of them landing on two separate piers, one squat and fat, one thin and tall, as the third rises heavenward.
Heading down the Riva degli Schiavoni we reach by foot the Calle delle Rasse to turn up a dark narrow passageway full of curious apparitions. The mysterious foundling, the woodland nonage, the noble savage. Ahead looms the Hotel Pellegrino e Commercia. A pair of men, mysteriously swaddled in black, float by in silence. The rustication of chivalric personae. A porter, pulling behind him a wide trolley, approaches, causing pedestrians to move in waves to either side. The knight’s retirement from worldly endeavor. As we pass a shop whose window is filled with green masks, a rough voice shouts an incomprehensible command. The talking beast. Timid pedestrians duck into doorways, alcoves, alleys. The narrow escape from cannibals. At the end of the cold dank alley a red neon sign announces “Ice.” The pirate cave. To one side, in white, the word “Gelati.”
We have quickly reached our destination, the Campo Santi Filippo e Giacomo, a tiny square consisting of little more than several narrow streets’ convergence. An orange news stand at its center has already closed at 2:00 in the afternoon. We mount the hotel stair to the third floor. Having entered our narrow room, author heads for the window, pulls aside its curtains and opens its volets for a broader view of what we have just traversed.
“It is partly a matter of light. Venice has always been a translucent city, a place of ravishing sunsets and iridescent mornings, mono-chromatic though its long winters can seem. Once it was vivid with gilded facades and frescoes. The Doge’s Palace used to glow with gold, vermilion and blue. Here and there, on decomposing walls or leprous carvings, you may still witness faint lingering glimmers of the city’s lost color.” –Jan Morris
Directly beneath us, from our hotel’s first floor, a green awning, half dry, half spotted with rain, projects out into the street. At the far end of the square, atop a conical base, stands a tall, red-painted wooden pole, atop it in turn, a sphere, three golden hoops representing its equator and two of its longitudes. “It is partly a matter of texture.” A black man in nubby brown jacket, slick magenta pants, yellow running shoes, his baby secured to his chest, strolls by. “Venice is a place of voluptuous materials.” A middle-aged Caucasian woman enters, in black hat, black parka, black tights. “She is instinct with soft seductive textiles.” Behind her she drags a large brown pouch on a traveler’s dolly. “Like the silks that Wagner hung around his bedroom.” It is the mail delivery person. “The velvets, taffetas, damasks and satins that her merchants brought home from the East.” She flips through a packet of letters only to exit at once. “When all the ravishing delicacies of the Orient passed this way in a cloud of spice.” Skipping all the local shops without delivering anything.
Across the way a small department store has had its front draped in clear plastic for renovation. “Her buildings inlaid with marbles and porphyries.” Next door, dead and dying leaves of plants droop from the green-shuttered windows of a gray apartment house. “Cipollino, ver-antico, jasper.” A woman in red hair, red-streaked animal pelt, a short black jacket over blue skirt, strides through the Campo, her back to us. “Marmo greco, polished granite, alabaster.” An Eastern European, in dark green beret and red jacket, sweeps its flagstones clean with a blue broom. “In the little square, opposite my apartment, Casanova was born.” Abruptly a man in eighteenth-century garb appears, white ruffles on his cuffs, an ermine-trimmed tricorn hat, his face disguised by a white mask. “In the house to the right, with the flower-pots in the window, lived W. D. Howells.” He too turns his back on us. “To my left is the terrace from which Napoleon once watched a regatta.” As he turns now to face us. “Nearby is one of the greatest houses of the world, the Ca’ Rezzonico.” His left hand reveals a single red rose. “Browning died there, Pope Clement XIII lived there, the Emperor Francis II stayed there, Max Beerbohm wrote about it.” His right hand holds a golden key. “Across the canal is the home of the former Doge Cristoforo Moro, sometimes called the original of Othello . . . .”
First outing to San Marco, past mighty San Zaccaria, works by Giovanni Bellini and Jacopo Tintoretto gracing its interior. Seven pigeons assemble about companion’s feet, occasioning a distribution of cookie crumbs. Beneath a Renaissance rhythm of arch and column the church’s first medieval course is clad in rose-gray: rectangle within marble rectangle, within, another, yet another within. The pigeons flap and bounce, skittering politely among the crumbs.
Through an arch we catch sight of the Basin’s waters, creamier than before, though still deep green. Santa Maria della Salute rises serenely over the wind-swept surface of the waves, upon which ride black-hulled, cream-decked vaporetti. Frigidly poised in white jacket and black bow tie, a waiter stands at attention before “Terrazzo Principessa”; tactfully he solicits prospective customers for the Ristorante Caffè. Diverted by a red-headed, fur-vested patron, he engages in conversation. It begins to sprinkle, on inlaid sidewalk, on Doge’s Palace, on an elegant group of Japanese tourists busy with their cameras. Mounting a small bridge, we reach its apogee to cast a wary eye down a little canal, over which arches the Bridge of Sighs. In the walk side chandeliers the glass is rose, their stanchions a forest green. As we continue on toward Piazzetta San Marco, a gold-hooded monk saunters toward us.
At the center of the great Piazza sit two young women having their faces painted. Another, her hair bright red and green, looks on. In a second chair a girl of twenty lounges in striped bell bottom jeans, blue slippers, a green cap, her fingerless gloves day-glow orange. A little black can of paint extended in his left hand, a pony-tailed artiste ornaments her face with swirls of gold, white and green. Three carabinieri stroll by looking for trouble. Behind us a pretty girl, having offered a few crumbs to a pigeon, suddenly attracts eight or ten, who perch on her head, her shoulders, her outstretched hand. Inspired by such attention, Qian-hui offers more of her 4000-Lire cookie. Quickly a flock masses atop her head and shoulders. Two eerily white-masked girls, in burgundy capes over high black heels, rattle a toy as they pass. White headband across his forehead, a six-foot-two Japanese strolls through the Piazza. We have reached the Basilica di San Marco.
“Go forth again to gaze upon the old cathedral front, where you have smiled so often at the fantastic ignorance of the old sculptors: examine once more those ugly goblins, and formless monsters, and stern statues, anatomiless and rigid; but do not mock at them, for they are signs of the life and liberty of every workman who struck the stone; a freedom of thought, and rank in scale of being, such as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure; but which it must be the first aim of all Europe at this day to regain for its children.” –Ruskin
In the central arch Christ has risen, a white light issuing from his head, gold obscuring the tips of the cross. In front of us Japanese kids in coffee-colored hair, the guys in high heels, are dancing to the Zoobombs. Qian-hui decides upon a one-side-only face paint job, as four black-clad Italian girls walk by, laughing. Her colors selected – gold, white and green, the session commences. To one side shivers an artiste in blue earmuffs, her hair frosted red and blue. Seated awaiting customers, a second artiste also shivers, paper jonquils in her hair; she has wrapped a purple scarf about the neck of her black sweater, from whose arms emerge carmine cuffs. In waxed blond hair another artiste is having her own face done to cover her forehead from eyebrow to hairline in ocher and silver. In the portal to the left of Christ, Saint Mark is depicted in gold-bordered blue winding sheet, a white halo encircling his head, as he lies stretched out, ready for entombment. At the Piazzetta’s far end the Wingèd Lion of St. Mark, already vague in outline atop his pillar, recedes into a slowly descending fog.
In black sweater, black cat mask, artificial leaves atop her head, a woman emerges from an arch at the base of the Torre dell’Orologio, the dial of its clock showing in gold the sun, the moon and the signs of the zodiac. From high above, another wingèd lion looks down. Beneath the tower, at an outdoor café, sits a white-clad woman; on the white tablecloth before her lies an open black purse, a red-and-white Marlboro pack within. She pours herself a glass of red wine from a light green bottle, its still-full portion showing dark green. Now she opens a compact: in its mirror, from over her shoulder, is reflected the image of a stone angel, its wings in gold. As she closes her make-up kit, golden letters on its black ground read “Giù.” At an adjacent artiste’s table a red pencil lies atop other pencils in black, yellow and robin’s-egg blue. The blue, yellow and black of the client’s maquillage finished, the artiste adds a few gold touches before attaching silver spangles.
We enter Basilica di San Marco over an orange-and-white-tiled parquet floor, mounting beige steps behind chicly clad Japanese tourists, one in tight brown corduroys and white shirt with salmon collar. We have penetrated the grand, candle-lit interior. A restorer works at marble paving stones: a black-centered white Greek cross centers a quincunx, its four brown quadrangles joined with yellow point-to-point. In the autumn dusk, beneath a pale blue sky streaked rose, Venetians stroll past the Doge’s Palace over a paved labyrinth, San Giorgio Maggiore caught in the light ahead of them. Another restorer applies beige grouting to a problematic square: 25 illusionistic cubes within a diamond, all within another square. Dressed in caps and long coats, pedestrians hurry through the same scene, over slippery sleet-coated snow, pools of icy water filling the partly bared labyrinth, as the copper pyramidal top of San Giorgio Maggiore’s tower stands out against a gray sky. “Silence and an attitude of respect is requested,” the words repeated in French; beneath the sign a third restorer polishes the gorgeous surface of a white mosaic square: within it, a white diamond filled with yellow, orange and red, white and green lozenges. Outdoors the early spring Piazetta is flooded with water, a golden morning sky reflected in a golden pool, San Giorgio in silhouette. Yet another restorer works at a spiral mosaic: within its circular center, courses of arrows point in alternate directions. Outdoors, the Basin achieved, we look out over the wind-swept waters of Summer, as an orange sun emerges from behind a cloud. Black-clad Japanese tourists, in an attitude of humility, gather at the Basilica’s crossing, the scene grounded in a deep bass rumble of organ notes.
We turn back out into the Piazza. The subtly arched walls of the Procuratie Vecchie recede down irregular sight-lines to culminate in the Napoleonic wing. We circumambulate the space, returning alongside the Procuratie Nuove. Though the weather is almost Russian in its lugubrious dampness, the chirping chatter of French teenagers enlivens the scene. Behind them in frozen postures two figures in gold masks and black feathers pose patiently for half a dozen amateur German photographers. Two hooded, lettuce-leaved, palm-headed ghosts, garlanded in pearls, appear, as we stroll by tower and loggia toward the majestic view of Dogana del Mare. At the quay a casual gondolier in a New York Yankees baseball cap argues with a long-blond-haired colleague. We turn up the Riva, past Vaporetto Stop # 2, the mahogany cabin of a cruiser visible in the Basin beyond. A Dutch family of four, having overtaken us, cranes their heads backward for a better view of author and companion. At a café table an Englishman struggles with a heavy silver pot of tea, as his wife spreads congealed butter on no longer warm toasted muffins. We pause again to gaze out over the Grand Canal.
“The stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, with all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun: here and there an angry spot of thunder, a gray stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange, and plumy palm, that abate with their gray-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and the poplar valleys of France, and the dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in gray swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purples that cincture of field and wood, then splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm, and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight.” –Ruskin, The Stones of Venice
Three groups of Japanese girls huddle beneath us in departing gondolas, which jostle for position to make their difficult departure from a narrow cove. Energetically the gondoliers push their boats off against one another, shouting frantically at their colleagues. Author descends several steps in various colors and textures of marble, all bound together by metal plates, to observe the scene more closely. ”Diana, God Save . . . ,” reads half of an inscription, the rest not discernible. Within a waiting gondola, on a black-painted chair, sits an Indian matron, her crimson, gold-hemmed sari protruding from beneath her mink coat. On two stools, draped in green, her teenage children are taking seats, anxious lest they rock the boat. Overseeing their progress, the mustachioed North Indian husband, in business suit, over which an inadequate windbreaker, scolds the entourage in Bengali for their ineptitude. In sea-green, attached to the boat’s portals, four sea-horses rear their heads. Turning about, we retrace our steps, skirting the outer flank of the Doge’s Palace, its side now raked in light, its gray, white and pale orange tiles standing out more clearly than they had in early afternoon. Behind us the bells of the clock tower sound; a second, yet more distant set enters their voice. A young teenage girl in a yellow parka, dragging on a cigarette, beams at author as she passes.
“With the Paradiso Dante is proudly aware of ‘sailing waters never sailed before.’ Having placed Paradise beyond the confines of memory and language, what he describes is not the reality of perfect bliss but rather his experience of approaching it. For in the Paradiso the desire for God becomes the pilgrim’s fundamental impulse and the poet’s central theme. It is only by deferring for a full 33 cantos the satisfaction of desire that Dante creates a space within which the poem may be completed in line with the requirements of its formal and theological design.” –Lino Pertile
Issuing out of the calle into the riva for an evening stroll and supper, we sight in the mist across the Canal a sepulchral Santa Maria. The temperature, already cool, is falling. Along the quay an entire café, in pink chairs and white tables, has not a single customer. As we continue we encounter an equestrian statue, its rider extending his sword into the gray, smudged, charcoal sky. High above, on a balustrade of the Londres Hotel, a turtle-necked tourist gazes forth, as he smokes a cigarette; through open volets his room’s gold-leaf ceiling visible. “MAKE A TINKLING NOISE ROUND ABOUT AND CLASH THE MOTHER-GOD’S CYMBALS.” All is quiet but for the slapping of waves against moorings, which creak under the strain. “THEY WILL SETTLE DOWN OF THEIR OWN ACCORD IN THE PLACE YOU HAVE PERFUMED.” A black-clad, gray-haired man strolls by, a young woman on his arm, she too dressed in black. “AND CRAWL TO THE INNERMOST ROOM FOR REST, AS IS THEIR CUSTOM.” A wave splashes over the quay.
As we saunter by Chiesa della Pietà, shrouded in misty white, an eighteenth-century gentleman, red shopping bag in hand, turns up an alley, heading home. Gradually we leave behind the touristic precinct for another marked, says the guide, by “Napoleonic reconstructions.” Before long we arrive at a waterside video arcade called “American Games.” “Cosmo Vision,” “Star Wars,” “Adventure USA,” read their names. An Italian youth in gold identification bracelet manipulates “Sega Rally’s” joy stick, as other Italian kids busy themselves at “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and “Race Leader.”
Turning left into Remo Pescaria, we encounter a black cat, the only other pedestrian in the narrow alleyway. At a tiny triangular square we reach our destination, entering a bàcaro to take seats alone in a second room that communicates with the bar. A waiter in green vest has entered into conversation with two neighborhood patrons, a balding man in a beige coat, his briefcase clasped to his chest, and a dyed-blond woman in imitation fur jacket. One by one, owner, owner’s wife, bartender, male and female customer face about to observe the two tourists, author furtively recording them. In purple top and billowy white trousers a six-foot-four-inch clown enters, accompanied by a magician, guitar in hand. The bartender pours them both a glass of white wine. After quiet conference, clown, then magician, glances over his shoulder into the second room. The owner’s wife leans back against the coffee-maker for a better view. Having finished their coups de vin, magician and clown proceed into a third room, where they join a female vocalist in song.
Second morning outing, under brilliantly pure skies, past the distant sun-struck volutes of Santa Maria Salute, two green cranes projecting behind her. In the Calle Vallaresso author turns toward the Accademia. “Venetian scholarship revolved around the schools, which stimulated the development of libraries.” Church bells peal pleasantly, as people make their way to work. “The publication of philosophical commentaries.” We arrive at Campo San Moisè. “And textbooks for the study of Greek.” Across the way a seedy palazzo is reflected in the green, slightly dirty waters of the Rio dei Barcaroli. “Early Quattrocento Venice produced two great teachers.” A common girl, maroon streaks in her dyed blond hair, hastens by. “Gasparino Barzizzi and Guarino Veronese.” We pass the Adriatic Shipping Company, the Deutsche Bank. “Both subsequently moved to the mainland.” “Jack,” reads a graffito at the latter’s entrance.
Having traversed the Campo Maurizio, we come upon a small shop, whose gold letters read “Il Papiro.” “Guarino emphasized Greek, and taught young patricians.” In its window, fancy writing paraphernalia: “But the main humanist schools were in Venice.” Brass letter openers, maroon and olive sealing wax. “And aimed to train their young citizens.” A two-ended fountain pen. “For public office and the diplomatic service.”
The Calle di Speziè leads us into the much larger Campo San Stefano. “The principal schools, Scuola di San Marco and Scuola di Rialto.” Within which stands the Istituto Veneto. “Assumed a role similar to that of the academy in Florence.” “Scienze, Lettere e Arte,” reads its inscription. “Of the Curia in Rome.” In a shop window two plaster-cast copies of heads from Hermes with the Infant Dionysus have been leaned against two pyramids. “Of the court in Ferrara.” The point of one pyramid stuck into the ear of one Hermes. As we direct our steps toward the Rialto, we cross the small Ponte dei Frati and emerge once more into the light. From the end of Parrocchia di San Luca we glance back at a leaning tower.
The Calle della Mandola is crowded with middle-aged men in large hairdos, women in fur stoles, all on their way to work. “Another genre of Quattrocento Venetian literature was the travel account.” A pastry shop advertises 1001 varieties of delicacies. “True explorers, these authors, most of them merchants, needed economic intelligence if their trading was to prosper.” Crossing Ponte della Cortesia we look down into the Rio di San Luca, its waters half sunlit, its barges loaded with imported tiles, lumber and construction equipment. “Giosaphat Barbaro, Ambrosio Contarini and Niccolò di Conti all held public office, and were sent out to spy.” “Italia → Grecia,” reads an ad for a tour company, a ship depicted above the arrow. “Niccolò dictated an account of his Indian journey to Poggio Bracciolini.” At 9:32 shop owners are polishing their wares. “Who turned it into Latin.” Beyond the metal arches of Rialto Bridge, the wind picks up. “In these accounts.” Two boats simultaneously negotiate the bend in the Canal, gradually veering apart. “Markets and foods.” A young naval ensign descends the steps of the bridge into San Polo, attaché case in hand. “Manufacturing and raw materials.” We have entered the Campo San Bartolomeo. “Are all looked at with the calculating merchant’s eye.” Goldoni, from his bronze pedestal, gaily surveying the scene.
“Of the thirteen original capitals on the exterior portico, twelve belong to the wing built after 1340.” Self-conducted tour of The Doge’s Palace. “One, dedicated to the theme of fruit, dates to the phase of completion, decreed in 1422.” We have entered the courtyard of the Ducal Apartments, a bright sun illuminating its upper reaches. “Sources for the inspiration of the Palace included the Bible.” To one side rises a memorial tower. “And the astrological previsions, or Tetrabiblos.” We mount the steps from the courtyard to the Primo Piano Nobile to arrive at the level of the Gothic balustrade. “Emerging from the rich foliage of the subjects on the capitals.” The floor of the vestibule is paved in white, slate-gray and coral marble tiles. “Each illustrates a single idea about the ducal residence.” We look up into a pure heaven. “Which was conceived as a mirror of the universe.” On the wall to our right, Hercules clubs the Hydra. “As the palace of wise king Solomon.” Atlas holds the world on his shoulder. “As the seat of Justice.” Housed in a separate room, one of the exterior capitals shows, in miniature, the creation of Adam, depicted as a little child emerging from the clay, a tree sprouting from his ribs. “Because of its corner position, and its reference to Genesis, it constitutes the narrative fulcrum of the entire palace.”
We enter a room in which two enormous globes are supported by full-breasted women. In a glass case a map expresses the extent of Venice’s power. “Historically, Perseus, the son of Jove, through the participation of the moral virtues he possessed, or through the genealogy of one of those kings of Crete or Athens or Arcadia who were called Jove, slew the Gorgon that had tyrannized the world, and because he was virtuous was exalted by men to the heavens.” –Leone Ebreo. The rooms on the Canal side are neither so elaborate nor so sumptuous as those facing the inner court. “Furthermore, Perseus signifies, morally, the prudent man, son of Jove, gifted with his virtues, who in slaying base and earthly vice, which is signified by the Gorgon, ascended to the heaven of virtue.” We mount to the Secondo Piano, where we enter into truly sumptuous quarters. “Yet again, allegorically, he signifies that the human mind, son of Jove, in killing and conquering the earthliness of Gorgonic nature, ascended to the understanding of heavenly high and eternal things.” Standing on gray capitals, their supporting pillars in black, allegorical figures reach to the ceiling, which is coffered and developed with yet more allegories. We proceed to the Anticollegio, thence to the Collegio, entering at last the Sala del Senato, a long chamber that culminates in a long wooden platform.
The sunlight entering from the courtyard is so bright that we cannot read the tapestries. “The Senate was the organ designated to oversee economic and financial matters.” Through the window we observe two small craft on the Grand Canal as they make their way to shore. “Only the highest ranking families were called upon for membership.” Three more vessels move across its waters in apparently random motion. “Thus the Senate balanced the democratically elected body.” “THEY STOPPER UP, THOUGH HE STRUGGLE WILDLY, HIS TWO / NOSTRILS AND BREATHING MOUTH.” We continue on to the Chamber of the Council of Ten (“Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci”). “AND THEY BEAT HIM TO DEATH WITH BLOWS / THAT POUND HIS FLESH TO PULP BUT LEAVE THE HIDE INTACT.” “Even more marked than in Florence was the presence of families with generations of powerful, wealthy and highly literate individuals dedicated to public service.” “BATTENED DOWN IN THAT NARROW ROOM THEY LEAVE HIM, UNDER HIS RIBS / LAYING FRESH CASSIA AND THYME AND BROKEN BRANCHES.” Mary sits enthroned with the Christ child. “The Barbaro, Bembo, Contarini, Donà, Foscarini, Giustiniani families, and others.” ““THIS IS DONE AS SOON AS A WEST WIND RUFFLES THE WATER.”In the antechamber to the Armory we view a display of long knives, pike staffs and swords. “The Venetian state also organized regular pilgrimages to the Holy Land.” In the Sale d’Armi itself: scythes, axes and other vicious cutting devices. “BEFORE THE MEADOWS ARE FLUSHED WITH VERNAL COLOR.” Muskets, their handles in wood, ivory and bronze. “BEFORE / THE TALKATIVE MARTIN HANGS HER NEST UNDER THE RAFTERS.” A highly polished ten-barreled piece of artillery. Returning to the Primo Piano we enter at last the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, “THE LARGEST ROOM IN THE PALACE.” A skiff heads toward San Giorgio Maggiore. “Where the assembly of all officials and magistrates of the Republic would meet in plenary session.” Whose wall was filled with Tintoretto’s “Paradiso,” now removed from the chamber for restoration. In the ceiling above, Mary is blessed by a radiant Christ, a dove hovering between them.
Third morning outing. “The truncation of the Innamorato in 1494.” To San Polo, Santa Croce, Dorsodura. “Left dozens of Boiardo’s fascinating narrative inventions unresolved.” From the center of the Ponte di Rialto we look down. “And a host of fabulous creatures in a state of suspended animation.” Passing beneath us: “How, if at all, to take only the prime players, was he to conclude.” A vaporetto. “The impossible love of Orlando for Angelica?” A swerving police boat. “What was to be the course of Ruggiero and Bradamante’s courtship?” A heavy barge being pulled upstream by a tug. “Spiritually separated by their adherence to warring religions.” A single white pigeon. “Physically separated as soon as they met.” We descend the bridge’s steps into San Polo, whose markets are just opening. “What was to be the result of Agramante’s expedition into France?” It is 7:46. “And by what timely means was Charlemagne’s empire to be delivered from peril?” Vegetables wilted from the frost are being uncrated. “Lesser characters too had vanished into the unknown:” Heads of leafy romaine lettuce. “What fate had befallen the always improvident Astolfo, tricked by Alcina?” Crescents of zucchini? “Boiardo’s death in the year of the invasion deprived his readers of answers.” An argument breaks out. “But the intense magnetism of the mystery provoked others.” A box thrown down in disgust. “To attempt a conclusion.” Across the way, windows arch in arabesques.
“Ariosto was not the only poet to resume the matière provided by the Innamorato.” Three sleek gondolas dock at Traghetto Santa Sofia. “In 1505, 1514 and 1521.” Above the fruit market. “The Venetian Niccolà degli Agostino.” A ceiling rises, supported by three wooden beams. “Provided a fourth, fifth and sixth book of continuations.” They in turn supported by limestone pillars. “To Boiardo’s remnant.” We arrive at Mercato del Pesce and enter its precinct. “Raffaele da Verona, known as Valcieco.” Two burly policemen. “In 1514 added a fifth book of his own.” Examine merchandise. “And in 1518 Pierfrancesco de’ Conti da Camerino wrote yet another, sixth book.” One of them, without removing his purple gloves. “Tracing the life of Ruggiero’s and Bradamante’s son.” Picks up a plastic bag of herbs. “Rugino.” The stall’s attendant, a gold ring in his right ear, glances nervously at his girlfriend.
We continue up the sidewalk along a rio that is being dredged. A man in green mud-spattered jacket manipulates a crane to lower a length of pipe some twenty feet long into the water. A clock tower reads 8:48. We perambulate a broad street, returning before long to the quay, where Spanish and Portuguese cargo boats have tied up and begun unloading. “AS THE TWO QUEENS.” We have reached the Campiello da Speziè. “DIFFER IN ASPECT.” Two harlequin figures, one in green, one in red. “SO IN PHYSIQUE THEIR SUBJECTS.”One tall, one dwarflike. “FOR SOME ARE UNKEMPT AND SQUALID.”Peer at author through dark glasses.”“AS THOUGH HE WERE A TRAVELLER COME / ATHIRST OFF A DUSTY ROAD.”Vaguely they wander off through a Gothic arch. “SPITTING THE GRIT FROM HIS DRY MOUTH.”At the square’s opposite end stands a store whose sign reads “Tutto per La Scuola.” In a café window behind three tables set with white-fringed red cloths, atop which flowered cloths set at an angle, a hand-lettered sign reads: “Vin Brûlé / Punch Rum-Arancio / Cina VOV Caldo.” We mount steps over Rio Moncenigo to face a dowdy palazzo. “WHILE OTHERS GLEAM AND GLITTER.”Its massive volutes support heavy balconies. “THEIR BODIES PERFECTLY MARKED IN A PATTERN OF SHINING GOLD.”At canal side a street stall offers freshly-baked Pane Arabo. We turn down Salizzada Santa Stae and continue along its unornamented course. “1966,” “1967,” “1968,” “1969,” read its street addresses. A cigarette in his lips, a green-jacketed boy balances an engraved silver box atop his head, a white cloth beneath it. Returning back inland by a circuitous route, we at last reach the Ponte del Megio. On a harbor side storefront a graffito reads “Choice.” “Other developments followed:”
Having paused for coffee in Campo San Giacomo del’Orio, we wander yet farther afield, traversing the eastern bank of the Rio Marin. “In 1541 the satirist Francesco Berni offered a Tuscanized version of Boiardo’s poem.” On the walls of the Campiello del Cristo incomprehensible graffiti have been overpainted. “Wholly revising its original language.” Some in rose-salmon, some in whitewash. “Thereby turning it into something more correct but rather lifeless by comparison.” “Crool,” says one in blue. We mount the steps of the Ponte del Cristo, half in shadow, half in light, to descend before a store selling “Pane Fresco.” “Nor did he refrain from adding stanzas throughout.” “Incredibile,” says a sign in its window. “Over 250 in number!” Beneath the bridge glides an elegant launch, standing within it a long-haired Scandinavian beauty, her arms folded. On the canal’s bank, as the sidewalk runs out, we come face to face with “Sri Ganesh,” an Indian restaurant, in whose window sits a carved figure of the god, along with twenty sticks of “Extra Fragrance” incense, packaged in a box lettered in Tamil script. At 2424 Calle dell’Ogio o del Cafetier a magazine kiosk offers “Archeo,” “Uccelli,” “Orfeo,” “Ciclismo,” “Argento!” A butcher’s assistant in white cap, shirt and apron strolls by, picking his teeth with a toothpick. “This, then, was followed, in 1545, by Ludovico Domenichi’s editorial revision.” In the Campo San Stin a sign above an ancient boarded-up shop reads “Tipografia T. Livio,” the “L” broken so as to read like an “I.” “Who tended to Venetianize Boiardo’s text.” The dark Calle de la Vida leads out of the square, at one end of which, a graffito reads “Ind”; at the other end, another reads “Come.” “Between them, Berni and Domenichi succeeded in usurping Boiardo’s original for several hundred years.” We cross over Ponte San Stin to head toward the Church of the Frari. “Until, that is, in 1820, the text was reprinted in England by Antonino Panizzi.” Pausing at the canal’s abutment, we look down into the broad Rio di San Stin, toward Archivio di Stato, housed in a nondescript official building. “Librarian of the British Museum.” A woman in a black plumed hat passes a snack bar, outside which white letters on a green chalkboard read “Try our Arabian Food.” “By then, however, the radiance of the Orlando Furioso itself had long eclipsed the poem from which it originally sprang and in the light of which it could be more fully understood.” –Peter Marinelli
Author enters Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, which the guidebook calls “the pantheon of the glories of Venice.” In the first pew sit two Latin American tourists in a posture of awe before Titian’s “Assumption.” “Ariosto discussed with the Venetian painter the invention he was weaving into his divine poem.” Brick arches above the altarpiece lead the eye even higher to define a handsome but hardly charming space. “Drawing from his recollections many worthy observations and descriptions of places and the peculiarities of dress.” Eclectic works of art accreted through the centuries fill this encumbered but strangely denuded church, as though in depiction of an unsuccessful domestic arrangement. “He describes the beauties of Bradamante.” Author turns to view Titian’s majestic but chilly tomb, a languorous angel. “Angelica.” A defeated lioness. “Alcina.” Lapsed at its portal. “Which he wished to introduce into it.” –Carlo Ridolfi. Before Canova’s pyramid two darling French girls in pigtails dutifully suffer their mother’s cultural initiation. “Boop,” reads a graffito on a pillar.
At length we arrive in the Campo San Polo, its far end bathed in sunlight. On a small, temporary stage covered with confetti, three young children stand above their mommies to shower them with handfuls of lavender, aqua and pink. Through the square stroll other mothers and fathers with their babies, one little girl in a sea-green cape negotiating its undulant surface on a tricycle. A brisk woman in beige and gray fur coat is tugged across the Campo by a Dalmatian. Author takes a seat on a red bench to face the sun. On a diagonal a red-headed girl in an olive trench coat strides through the square, her path crossed by the diagonal course of another woman in black coat and purple scarf, pushing a baby carriage. Bundled up in green cap and white knit vest, a two-year-old tries to palm an underinflated yellow ball, dropping it repeatedly. As it splats on the pavement, two of five surrounding pigeons leap up. Pausing in her activity, the baby approaches author to reveal, on her rumpled blue trousers, tiny roses. Pedaling into the Campo on a bike, a girl of six stops in front of us, dressed in complete Spiderman outfit: cape, breastplate, arm greaves, mask. An envious seven-year-old boy in a green jacket greets her. Another masked seven-year-old arrives on his bike, a “Nevada.” Sitting on a bench beside her mommy, a four-year-old girl carefully observes the scene. Spiderman kicks the boy to demonstrate an action motif. As she swings her cape, her red bike falls over.
Off once again, before long we have reached the short, dark Calle Amor degli Amici. From around a corner, water is flooding the passageway. Overhead, on a black shutter, hangs a bag of oranges. In Campo San Rocco the sun casts its early-afternoon light on a high relief within a scalloped arch. As we turn left into Calle Fianco del Suolo, a pigeon floats by, almost grazing author’s head. “Don’t Stop,” says a graffito, “Hip Hop.” At “Caffè Blue” we pause to enter. In sneakers covered with mortar four workers are dancing and japing. They all are drinking José Cuervos. Latin rhythms interweave a relentless hypertext.
We continue on, up over Rio di Ca’ Foscari and down into Campo San Margherita, where the sun, filtered through sheets painted black and red, greets us. The long sunny Campo is filled with lunching businessmen, along with four figures of carnival in blue, yellow, a gauzy green, and black, on their heads comical hats. A bookstore’s awning advertises a permanent half-price sale. On the flagstones before it has been painted a chalice, beneath which, in capital letters, “MAGICA JUWE.” In the window of his atelier a local artist is showing bow ties, books, underpants, a rose, all carved in wood. We pass the silent Scuola Grande dei Carmine, on the face of whose parish church someone has scrawled “Dux.”
After a long detour around the Canale della Giudecca, we arrive at the Fondamenta Záttere. “MEANWHILE.” A black man sleeps in the sun. “WITHIN THE MARROWY BONES OF THE CALF.” His head rested against the wall of a church. “THE HUMORS / GROW WARM AND FERMENT.” At the entrance to a bank, a schnauzer, Budweiser kerchief about his neck, is asked by his owner to wait outside while he makes a withdrawal. We pass the Sole Luna bar. As we head for Dogana di Mare, the waters simplify themselves into uniform blue. We have reached the Ospedale degli Incurabili, before which a Christmas tree has been cut up, its branches stacked on a pile of refuse. “TILL APPEAR CREATURES MIRACULOUS.” A mob of fay-like school kids approaches, led and followed by short black-hooded nuns. “LIMBLESS AT FIRST, THEY SOON FIDGET.” “Falsa istruzione” reads a spray-painted graffito. A blond brush-cut sailor of 35 lounges in a doorstep, a Romantic book in his lap open to its middle. “THEIR WINGS VIBRATE.” At last San Giorgio Maggiore appears like a vision. “MORE AND MORE THEY SIP.” We have reached the end of Dorsoduro to peer across the bow of a black carabiniere skiff toward the Ducal Palace. “MORE AND MORE THEY DRINK THE DELICATE AIR.” Moored along the quay is a barge. “TILL AT LAST THEY COME POURING OUT.” On a red-draped dais atop its deck is stationed a four-winged, missile-like, single-seated plane. “AS THICK AND FAST AS ARROWS.” To our left rise two green-cabbed cranes. “LIKE PARTHIAN ARCHERS.” As we turn the final corner. “ADVANCING TO BATTLE.” The haloed dome of Santa Maria della Salute makes its appearance, red and green cat-masked carnival figures prancing on her grand staircase. “LIKE A SHOWER FROM SUMMER CLOUDS.” Across the way, before a fabulous medieval palace, four gold-tipped blue poles catch the light.
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