There are more and more hurried tourists, also known as hit and run, who in Venice spend days so frenetic that they pass from one calle to another, and from one campo to another, as if they were visiting a large outlet: with the difference that in the outlets behave more respectfully.
A city smeared with writings like an abandoned suburb, the smell not of fish but of dirt left by increasingly disrespectful tourists towards the city, churches absolved to shelter from the sultry heat without even noticing the presence of great works with paintings depicting characters always more spectators than actors. But what is shocking are the large full ships – crammed with Lilliputians – which implode like cosmic monsters on the basin of San Marco.
How can we forget the people's love for chatter, witty and interminable, and the slow pace of life, induced by the obligation to go on foot or by water. But returning to Venice still means discovering new sources of delight. And then hear who still speaks the dialect. The dialect itself is a discovery, even if dialect is not the right word because Venetian was the official language of the Serenissima until its conclusion, in the year 1797.
While now the pastry shops of the city offer huge sweets as prizes. But how can we forget "i baicoli", those thin dry biscuits that great aunts and elderly cousins gave to their nephews who arrive on Sundays from the mainland. Some used to secure the lace collar with a cameo or better still with an aventurine brooch. Aventurine is a kind of shiny chocolate brown glass speckled with gold. According to a family legend it was invented by Leone Bassano, who worked Murano glass and by chance created this magic.
Venice has changed for some time, an increasingly fast and rude tourism is replacing the calm, slow one that is more suited to this city, a city that is emptied of historical residents, who rather than choose to leave - they flee.
The Venetians of the past must have been able soldiers, as well as skilled merchants and navigators. They were able to maintain their independence from the Holy Roman Empire and the powerful Byzantine Empire. For centuries they disputed the sea lanes of the Orient with the Ottoman Empire and kept the Turks locked up in their corner of the Mediterranean. The Venetians were also able politicians and governors and the entire population was proudly aware of its mission to defend Christianity, freedom, Italy and the West.
In 1509, fighting against the League of Cambrai, the alliance between France, the Austrian Empire, Spain and the Pope invoked not only "San Marco", the ancient war cry raised against the Turks, but also "freedom, liberty” and “Italy”, words that still made no sense. The defense of liberty depended on their constitution. It established an oligarchy similar to that of the ancient Roman republic or English monarchy, an oligarchy which had deep down its obligations to the state and which had been rigorously educated to its role.
The Venetian nobles eligible for the highest offices had no title. In fact, each of them was called "nobil'omo". The same men sat in the Senate, commanded the armies and fleets, governed the colonies, were sent to foreign courts as ambassadors and built the palaces, churches and Palladian villas on the mainland. While noble men of culture, poets, artists and men of letters were sent to the court of the Queen of Cyprus to whom the city of Asolo had been given as exile.
In the XNUMXth century it was the aristocrat Gasparo Contarini who wrote a fundamental book on the government of Venice and the secrets on the longevity of the Republic, a volume that was read throughout Europe. It contributed to consolidating the ideal of the free, happy and indestructible Serenissima.
Today that city, famous for its hospitality, its cuisine, receptions, masquerade balls and above all for its omnipresent beauty, appears to us as overwhelmed by a frenetic and absurd presence of people who do not go beyond the observation of the appearance , while enchanting works now seem silent and immobile in their places of origin. Venice seems almost resigned to us – it wasn't like that even after the fall of the Serenissima – defenseless as a world advances that is taking away not only its breath but also its soul.
Memories run but they are now so far away. And while we really want to "remember" the great works of Tintoretto and many other masters, but above all try to save the eternal beauty of a city that risks being lost forever, we can only invoke the words: "San Marco: freedom, freedom".
On the cover: Francesco Guardi, departure of the bucintoro towards the lido on ascension day, c. 1775-80
