The top of the Campanile

Fourth day of travel, May 27

Tuesday, May 27, and Mark had arranged for a walking tour of Renaissance Venice. It started at 9:45, so we had to be careful to get across town on time.

The weather was bright, unlike the previous overcast day, and before we left the hotel, I noticed that the roof outside our window was growing grass in the crevices (big image, small).

Because almost all the places we visited on our tour refused permission for photography inside, today’s page can not be said to be rich in pictures. Whe we got to Saint Mark’s Plaza, I tried to take a picture of the Campanile, but for convenience’ sake, I had not brought the widest-angle lens for my camera. So I couldn’t get both the base and the top, at least not while I was standing in the Plaza.

Far known to sea and shore,
  Foursquare and founded well,
A thousand years it bore,
  And then the belfry fell.
        The steersman of Triest
        Looked where his mark should be,
        But empty was the west
        And Venice under sea

From dusty wreck dispersed
  Its stature mounts amain;
On surer foot than first
  The belfry stands again.
        At to-fall of the day
        Again its curfew tolls
        And burdens far away
        The green and sanguine shoals.

It looks to north and south,
  It looks to east and west;
It guides to Lido mouth
  The steersman of Triest.
        Andrea, fare you well;
        Venice, farewell to thee.
        The tower that stood and fell
        Is not rebuilt in me.

What you see in these pictures (the thumbnail to the left, big image, small) is not the original eleventh-century structure, but one that's hardly a hundred years old. The original one collapsed in a cloud of dust in 1902, and was rebuilt to look pretty much like the original in 1916. I can’t resist quoting the poem of Housman, to the right. Andrea was a married Venetian whom Housman supported somewhat, and the story goes that after Andrea died, his wife asked the poet to continue the payments.

When we passed through Piazza San Marco, I took the nice picture of a detail of the Cathedal that’s to the left (big image, small). It’s a very clear shot, and you should really admire the fine architectural sculpture visible in the big image.

We got to the starting place for our walking tour in plenty of time, and soon met our guide, Louisa Warman. The one other person in the group, Lindsey as I recall, showed up soon after. Louisa is English, specializing in art history, and she’s been living in Venice for ten years. And loves it.

As we walked about this corner of Venice, Louisa pointed out a house that had belonged to a particular wealthy family, and I took some pictures of the fine architectural details. (Left-hand shot: big image, small; right-hand shot big image, small.)

The three places that Louisa was to take us to were San Giovanni in Bragora, San Zaccaria, and the Scuola Dalmata dei Santi Giorgio e Tiffone. I have no pictures from any of these, but I’ll say a few words about each. San Giovanni in Bragora has some relation to the Orthodox community in Venice, and there actually was an Orthodox service taking place in one of its chapels when we got there. In very hushed tones, Louisa pointed out some of the notable paintings and decorations in the church.

From there we went to San Zaccaria, one of the big churches in Venice. He was John the Baptist’s father. It’s one of the most important churches in town, and we duly went down into its crypt. There was water down there, almost up to the level of the footpath, and the odor of sewage was of a strength and pungency just below what would be called overpowering. I’m sorry to say that from that moment on, wherever I went in Venice, I smelled, or thought I smelled, sewage. Such is the power of suggestion, I suppose. A rather poor picture of the façade is at the right (big image, small). I don’t know why I didn’t try to get a shot taking in more of the front.

From there it was to the Scuola Dalmata. This was a confraternity, something between a fraternal organization, a neighborhood group, and an ethnic mutual protective society for the people who had come over to Venice from the lands on the eastern shore of the Adriatic. It dates from the fifteenth century, I suppose, and is a smallish building in two levels, with meeting rooms on both. Many paintings by the minor artist Carpaccio. Paneled in wood throughout, and I’m sorry I didn’t think to ask Louisa whether the paneling was original or restored. But a lovely little space, very memorable, and doubly so because we never would have known to go in there if we had been sight-seeing on our own.

All three of the in-town walking tours we did were interesting and valuable, but I think, on reflection, that this is the one that I liked best. Be that as it may, the four of us sat in an outdoor bar and enjoyed snacky drinks and telling each other about ourselves before taking leave of each other with the usual sentiments.

Mark and I wandered a bit and settled on a simple outdoor café for a sandwich and a drink. Then back to the room to deposit our cameras before setting out for the railway station around the corner to check on how we could get first to Ferrara tomorrow and thence to Ravenna. This was not so easy—the information gleaned for us from the web by our concierge suggested that we’d have to get to Mestre for a change, and none of the timetables we saw seemed to help. But we had learned from Lindsey that the Italian railroads’ website was very informative. And since we had been planning to go to an internet café anyway, we decided that Mark could fill in the gaps in our information there. We spent half an hour at the café and then came back to the hotel to discover that the bar there was open for the first time. So naturally we took advantage of that, writing up our journals over a nice aperitif.

A simple cheap supper, and on to bed. Tomorrow, remember, was to be our big day in Ravenna. And you’ll see some memorable pictures!