Venice, May 2018, a trip report of sorts.

So, Emirated from Melbourne to Dubai, 17 hours, with a two hour stretch of the legs in Singapore. We were a bit lucky, with an aircraft less than half full, so we were able to stretch out a bit. Four hours in the Dubai shopping mall aka Dubai airport, and then the flight to Marco Polo, six and a half hours. So about twenty fours Melbourne to Marco Polo. It’s a bit of a long haul, and so worth it. Aussies would understand, Americans might show some sympathy.

I struggle with Dubai a bit, so much of the architecture seems to be a bit Freudian, designers exploring their inferiority complexes by creating ever more bigger and ostentatious structures. “Mine’s bigger than yours, so take that!” While homage is paid to Arabic motifs in the design, it is artifice rather than design, building for the sake of building. Venice is an interesting comparison, a city constructed on a basis of need, inhabitants moving to a bunch of mud islands to escape the marauding hordes, and over a thousand years creating a built environment that still works as a social entity. Well, sort of, tourist numbers make it pretty tough for the locals.

This trip is not much about anything. We have Phil’s book launch to attend, a picnic on Certosa, certainly visit the Querini Stampalia Foundation, maybe the photo gallery on Giudecca, maybe the Hospital Library. Maybe buy some linen crochet thread if the shop has it, last time they did not. Probably not the Palazzo Fortuny, because hopefully that will be under curation for the Archi Biennale. However I’m in Venice for two and a bit weeks in September and October, so if there is something at the Fortuny, I’ll see it then. There’s a craftsman we will call on, he makes glass insects that are museum quality, and he made some hundreds of glass bees for a natural history museum in Japan. We have three of his glass bees, and we have brought a jar of honey from our hive and a beeswax candle for him. Small connections, and they make Venice very intimate for us. Maybe attend church on Sunday, at St Georges where we have a connection of sorts. Phil helps officiate, his wife Caroline gave Lou some ancient church linen which she has made into lavender bags for gifts, returning it to Venice.

W have an apartment on Fond Briati, about 300 metres west of the Carmini, and we have stayed there before for a month or so. That makes it easy, no deposit, cash when we catch up with the owner in a couple of days. The location is OK, three bridges from P. Roma, one bridge from Conad on the Zattere for groceries, not as close to a decent bar as we would like, but you can’t have everything. There is a metal work shop next door, so there’s a bit of static when the welder strikes an arc. Also there is a print workshop close by, and we can hear the offset press thumping when it is an action.

Phil said once, “you don’t have to do anything in Venice, you just have to be there”. So we’ll see how it goes. I should explain how Phil fits into the frame. Philip Gwynn Jones has written a couple of novels set in Venice, “The Venetian Game” and “Vengeance in Venice”. It is the Venice launch of Vengeance that has brought us to Venice this time.

Friday 4th May 2018 and a pretty tough day. I lay blame at the feet of Titian.

We had our regulation seats on Emirates, 47J & K, and they give a view of Venice as you fly in. Arrival was simple enough, out of the airport in about an hour, the main delay being immigration. People from the sub-Continent and Africa seem to attract extra scrutiny and we had many of those citizens on board. One cannot complain, given the enormous load social and fiscal that the Italians have taken upon themselves caring for arrivals at Lampedusa; they have a right to be careful. Both bags made it to Marco Polo, bus to P. Roma, ten minutes stroll to the apartment. Still being cleaned, so went shopping and spritzing, then back and Internet password, keys, carta on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, vetro and plastica Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays , anything else you need to know? Non, bene, grazia.

Titian completed the Ascension of the Virgin and hung it in the Frari on 4th May, 1518, so there was a concert at 21:00, which we attended as Phil was singing in the choir. A concert for a five hundred year old painting was not to be missed. Putting words to describe a choral performance is not easy, it reminds me of how the BBC in their archive have the sound recording for the commentary of the fireworks for the Fleet Review off Spithead. “Boom. Red one. Bang. Green one. Crash. White fizzy thingy.”

The painting was restored a few years ago, and is magnificent, a study in glowing light. There are a couple of painted images of God that get plagiarised, one being the finger in the Sistine, the other being Tiepolo’s God in the Frari. At the top of the work, God seems to be observing Mary’s ascent, an Archangel to his side, quite intimate. There may be a conversation happening, “Come on, you’re God, give her a hand up, can you. You owe her, after that Virgin birth thing, her son getting crucified and all that”, “I have faith in her, she will ascend as ordained, in years to come some billions of Catholics will see this as a defining moment in their faith” And so it is, in that Tiepolo’s work would be the defining image, almost an ikon, for Catholics, one of the greatest, maybe the greatest, works of religious art.

Mary ascends in a most serene manner, a great contrast to the Ascension of Jesus by Tiepolo in the Frari. Tiepolo’s Jesus is most athletic, absolutely leaping Heavenwards, entirely under his own steam.

The concert was special, a choir of about seventy voices, soloists and organ, the program designed as a “vision sonore”, a vision set to music and it was brilliant. They gave works by Monteverdi, who was more or less a contemporary of Titian, plus more modern pieces by composers still living, a piece by Rachmaninov, and a great piece by Paolo Furlani, which combined an itinerant motet with Gregorian chant. The final work was by Giovanni Bonnato, “En ti genissi”, which I take to mean “job done; rest on the Seventh Day; Titian, go find some turpentine and clean off the brushes”. The first sound from the choir for this work was a great exhaling of breath, as one does when a big task has been completed. The Frari has a better than five second echo, it gives a fond feeling as though the sound is departing with some reluctance, saying farewell.

So that’s the sound. The Frari visuals always knock my socks off, even at night the vision is one of space, light and air; JMW Turner could have captured it on canvas. The choir stalls illuminated, Titian’s great painting looking over us.

So a 9:00 PM concert, combined with eight hours of jet lag was tough going, but we lasted the distance, worth it to wish happy birthday to a most special painting. Followed up by a prosecco at the apartment of some new friends in Palazzo Foscarini.

Then collapse at midnight.

Peter,

Sounds like you've had a very busy 48.

Love your description of the Ascension of the Virgin, however, every time I visit it on future trips, I'm going to hear "boom red" in my head.

Glad you're having a great visit.

Hi Peter,
Is the glass artist located just off Fondamenta Nove on Calle del Fumo?
If it's the one I'm thinking about, we discovered his shop a couple of years ago while staying in a nearby apartment. I am also a beekeeper and was amazed by the incredible detail in his art work. Thanks for the reminder.

Border Collie, yes, that’s the man. Vittorio Constantini, artist in glass. Calle del Fumo, 5311 Cannaregio. We watched him make a bird, a wren, with great precision. It is a strange art, bucause if he is adding say the blue glass for the wren’s abdomen, all the glass is semi molten, and of course red.

So we spent half an hour watching him at work, and gave him jar of our honey.

http://www.vittoriocostantini.com/en/home-2/ finds him.

Saturday 5th May 2018.
Pretty uneventful, but we did a “lap of the course”, so to speak. Coffee and brioche at the Ai Artisti in Campo San Barnaba to get things under way. Lou and I have not had breakfast there for over a year, and so it was fun when we breasted the bar and Ilaria, an apparently chronically grumpy lass, half smiled and enquired whether due cappuci might be the order. It’s nice to be remembered.

Vap from Ca’ Rezzonico down to San Zaccaria, under the Academia bridge, which is seeing some heavy restoration work, work which the Commune has been debating for years. I suspect it was the added load on the bridge from the lovers locks that forced the hand of the Commune in intervening, to prevent a catastrophe. Maybe once the bridge is restored, the handrails will be configured to foil the padlocks. Meanwhile, there is no view to be had from the bridge, and it is covered in fabric, with no commercial sponsorship in evidence yet. Diesel sponsored the recent Rialto repairs, and there is an opportunity there fore someone, adverts hanging over the Grand Canal for a couple of years.

Apropos of nothing, Venice is meant to be dying on her feet, overwhelmed by hit and run cruise liner tourists, Chinese Murano glass, and a general social malaise. Maybe the response of the hardy survivors is to look catastrophe in the eye and order another drink. In the last couple of days, we have noticed four or five new bars that have opened, including one that replaced a frock shop in Calle Lunga San Barnaba, Dorsoduro, 2715B, Officina San Barnaba. They opened a month ago, go on, just do it, buy a drink there, support local endeavours and help avoid the inevitable catastrophe, Venice sinking etc.

From San Zaccaria we strolled through to Campo Santa Maria Formosa, poked our noses into the Querini but there’s not much happening there, had a spritz at the bar in the campo, and then found the textile shop and bought linen thread. We have never seen this anywhere else in the world, and it’s frustrating. The label bears no info as to country of origin, makers name or anything, just “lino 100%”. Impossible to order on line, just have to return to Venice when the supply runs out.

Through to the Osperdale and poked our heads in. The library looked appealing, open Mondays to Saturdays, 9:30 to 17:30 and five or six euro. We passed on that, and want to return when we feel more enthusiastic. The library has a huge collection of medical instruments and historical engravings detailing how they are to be used. It is the sort of thing that might put one off one’s luncheon, and we had a bar at Rialto in mind.

Swung past Vittorio Costantini in Calle del Fumo, Cannaregio 5311, http://www.vittoriocostantini.com/en/home-2/ Vittorio makes glass birds, insects and fish. That is putting it bluntly, he has a collection of bird and insect books, and the animals that he creates are accurate. Collectible. Not inexpensive, but on a previous visit he had explained that it had taken a week of trial and error to get just the antlers of a certain beetle correct. He also makes bees. Our bees make honey, so we gave him a jar. He is really worth watching at work, and there is no hard sell at all. I can’t see how he does it, when the glass is workable, it is red, no matter what the colour will be when it chills, so the craftsman has to think through the red colour to envisage the final result. It’s the same for potters, most glazes look similar until they are fired.

Rialto market, lunch at a tiny bar in Campo Bella Vienna, towards the Campo San Giacomo side of the campo. Panini, spritzes, take plates and drinks and find a doorstep to sit on. Perfect.

And so back to our apartment via Fondamenta Foscarini and Fondamenta Briati, about ten k’s on the pedometer (actually the iWatch).

Friends are staying in an apartment in Palazzo Foscarini, and there’s a bit of a story there. Francesco Foscarini was Doge from 1423 to 1457, in office for 34 years 6 months and 8 days, and was the longest serving Doge of all. Being Doge had great status, but in many ways was a dog of a job, which explains why Ludowici Manin, the last Doge, burst into tears on being told he had been elected.

The Doge was expected to fund his own court, and so a 34 year time in office was ruinous for Foscarini, and he was bankrupt at the time of his death. Venetian law made it impossible to make money from the position, and the Council would audit spending at the time of the Doge dying to ensure he had not got away with a single ducat. At the same time, he was compelled to take the advice from the Council, he could not fire his advisors, and the Ducal Palace leaked like a sieve (hello Donald, are you with me on this, bro’). So put it all together, and death must have been a sweet relief, and Palazzo Foscarini was left vacant for a while.

During the Napoleonic unpleasantness, starting with the fall of the Republic on 12 May, 1797, Palazzo Foscarini was used to quarter French troops. From the outside, it still has a slightly forlorn look, bricked up windows and so on. But inside, it is still pretty grand, a row of pencil pines in the garden.

This is a most enjoyable read, and reminds me of things I must do the next time I pop up in Venice. Keep the accounts coming please..

Sunday 6th May.
We did not much else but walk about today. Down to the Academia bridge, being extensively repaired. Walkways have been suspended on each side of the bridge, nominated for one way traffic, and the view up and down the Grand Canal is completely obscured, I think to improve traffic flow. No people selling the usual selfie sticks, padlocks or those slime ball things, and thankfully there is nowhere to attach locks anyway. One hopes that once the work is completed, there will be nowhere to attach locks. Slime balls are not seen so much now, they are so yesterday.

Had a look at the Olivetti showroom in the Piazza, and there is not much happening. Typewriters, adding machines and not much else, but the tiled floor is still pretty special. Maybe there will be some sort of installation for the Archi Biennale, starting in a couple of weeks. And near the Olivetti Showroom I found again the brass survey marker that marks the centre line of the Basilica. It’s a little ikon for me.

Through the back streets to Campo San Provolo and a bite of lunch at Bacaro Risorto, a tiny place pouring good spritzes, and then via the Arsenale and Via Garibaldi to the gardens. The greenhouse near the gardens was built around 1890, so is older than any of the permanent Giardini buildings. It fell into disrepair and was restored and now is leased out to a café operator, and a society has custody. It is a lovely building, classic wrought and cast iron and glass, most elegant.

Further on, Café Paradiso, with a garden overlooking the lagoon, shady and a great place to be if the crowds are getting to you. A little more expensive than many places, the universal measure of cost in Venice being the spritz, and at Paradiso it will set you back five euro. Well worth it for half an hour of peace and quiet, and very family friendly. On a hot day, it does feel like paradise.

Close to Paradise is Carlo Scarpa’s ticket booth and turnstile. It is quaint to think that once admission to the Biennale could be obtained through a turnstile, freed to turn by a bronze lever passing into the booth. The design incorporates the ocular, one of Scarpa’s favourite motifs, two intersecting circles. You can see it all over his work, an ocular big enough to walk through at the Brion tomb, in a light fitting at the top of the stairs in the Querini, in the screens in the upper level of the Olivetti. In the case of the entry booth, the roof and plan are in the form of the intersect of the circles, the roof being made of canvas laced to a frame. All in all, a work with delightful details. In winter, it is enclosed in a big box to keep the weather off, but there are peep holes, yes, in ocular form, so you can get a glimpse of what it is about.

5.2 vaporetto back to San Basilio, a bit of shopping at Conad, and that’s the day.

I don't know Bacaro Risorto. Do they do cicchetti? If so, and if they are any good, they will be on my list.

Yes, they do chicetti. Not a great range, but good. We had gorgonzola with walnut and balsamic syrup on bread. There is no bar as such, no seating, just take your food and drink into the campo and enjoy.

Even though it is “take away”, they use proper glassware and china plates.

Nice.

china plates is a nice touch.... my fav in Dorsoduro, Cantine del vino già Schiavi, uses paper....

Wednesday 9th May 2018
Sundry Museums.
We took ourselves to the back blocks of Cannaregio, strolled through the nursery there, took photos on the well known bridge with no parapet, and found ourselves at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia. A magnificent building, frescoed, recently restored. Upstairs was a display of glass from the Salviati workshop. Salviati have been making glass since 1859, claiming to be the oldest still operating workshop. A great display, beautifully lit, and the contrast between the old frescoes and the modern glass is stunning. Worth a visit, www.salviati.com finds them. The Scuola has been extensively restored, with a floating steel staircase replacing the treads on the internal monumental stairway. Externally, an access stair of weathered steel, very modern, complements the old building.

Over to San Giogio Magiori. We have previously ascended the campanile and visited the church, and the excursion was to see inside the Georgio Cini Foundation, which has now opened for tours. Tours depart on the hour, and last about three quarters of an hour. More info here (thanks Katia)
https://www.theveniceinsider.com/san-giorgio-maggiore-worth-visit/

The cloisters, designed by Palladio are delightful, very Palladio, and the monumental stair by Longhena is special. Longhena also did the Salute, and there are Baroque references in both.

The old library has beautiful bookcases, the new library has been configured to express the entrances to the monk’s cells on each side. The Library is a great resource for scholars and researchers, and is well used. Venice may be sinking, on her last legs, broke, failing. But research facilities like the Cini Foundation contradict that impression.

The audio tour is excellent, well structured and most informative. Costs 13 euro, ten for persons aged 65+, and worth doing. The café on San Giorgio, where we had anticipated having a spritz, is closed for restoration.

Next, the Hospital library. This is in the ex-Scuolo San Marco, and it is a magnificent. Out the front is the equestrian statue of Corleoni, who funded one of Venice’s frequent wars, and was a successful commander. A condition of the deal was that the Republic would allow a statue of him in front of Saint Marks. (Corleoni “Ego? Moi?”). The Republic was not inclined to erect a statue in front of St Marks, but a deal is a deal, go read the fine print. So his statue is in front of the Scuolo San Marco, deal satisfied, Corleino, go hush your mouth.

The hospital library is now a medical museum, but worth going for the ceiling alone and a couple of not well lit Tintoretti. Surgical instruments and engravings detailing their use, medical books, the oldest from the fourteenth century I recollect. The display cases are an engineering marvel, bowstring trusses, compression members and tensile wire, and the display cases appear to float.

Older people such as I might have, or are considering, dental implants, said to be an Italian invention. There is a display case of implants, dating from 1947, and I am pleased to say that the technology now is much improved. As I took an interest in this display, an attendant asked me if I might be a dentist. No, but I have a good periodontist, a bunch of implants and a passing knowledge of osseo integration.

In a side room is a group of manuscripts, “The Impossible Collection”, which had me in mind of the Art Biennale “Treasures from the wreck of the Unbelievable”. In the case of the manuscripts, facsimile editions of old manuscripts have been created, including one lettered in gold on purple paper, and they are true to the originals. The same materials have been used in the bindings, the same weight of paper, the same look and feel of the originals, even the same marking and age foxing on the pages. They are technical and artistic masterpieces. It would appear that it is OK to touch them.

The library is open Tuesday to Saturday, five euro.

Peter, thanks so much for talking about Vittorio Constantini. I looked at his website and at the photo gallery. Absolutely amazing. Our hotel happens to be just a few minutes away from his workshop so I definitely plan on stopping by.

Peter, this is an amazing account. So nice to hear about unique places to visit.
Just added the hospital library to our itinerary. It is close to our hotel and same route as our planned visit to Libreria Acquaintance Alta. We must stop by at Vittorio Constatini. Looking forward to more ideas for our upcoming visit.

Grazie!

Great report! Keep it coming, per favore! Any signs of turnstiles that went up at the end of April? Or have they disappeared?

Susan, the turnstile thing was for only one weekend, a holiday weekend. But a year ago, a guy I know in Venice, Greg Dowling, photoshopped some turnstiles into the clock tower in the piazza. Put it on facebook et al, and the rumours spread like wildfire.