Category: Historical Tidbits

Part One of my tourist musings on Venice addressed its creation story: the refugees building the lagoon, then constructing their legends about St. Mark and his winged lion. Story upon story upon story.

Venice rose in wealth, trading, fighting, and conquering, both infidels and allies. The Crusades increased their wealth, until they mounted a Crusade of their own that turned into atrocity. They covered their deeds with art, religion, and parties, even as the money dried up and their status as a maritime power was eclipsed. Once the facade peeled, they invested in attracting visitors to view their beautiful, decaying things. Even that has now become part of the problem.

My bags are unpacked, laundry put away, and the trip is over. Yet there’s one more story I should write, about the last place we visited, Venice. We experienced so much in five days there that it has filled two posts, mostly because Venetian history is convoluted. Those who took up residence ricocheted from one kerfuffle to another, like the tides pinging the sides of the Adriatic. They invented themselves, so the question is, what are we to make of their invention?

The Most Serene, Queen of the Adriatic, the Floating City, The Dominante, the City of Bridges, of Masks, of Canals… Venice has had as many names as there are perhaps islands. It is most serene and tranquil, in the way that a swan is tranquil and graceful above the water while its feet flail madly below.

Venice’s most famous poet, Veronica Franco, was a courtesan; another famous writer, Giacomo Casanova, a rake. Famous traveling son Marco Polo was an exaggerator who did not even write his own story–his travels were written by a romance writer while they both languished in jail. I’ve written of Veronica, of Marco, and even of Venice before, but on the second visit, I noticed more than just the “beautiful decay” that I mentioned before. The masks that are one of its key symbols are revealing of its history. Venice is even masked unto itself, profiting from its self-invention.

But what else could a city be, built by those on the run, who threw trees and dirt in the water to build their fantasies on? Who grew rich transporting thieves? Who invented a patron saint, with a symbol to hawk to the tourists? Who looked both east and west, and, in battling both, lost its own identity? Who, even now, welcomes the visitors that it shuns? Same as it ever was. The most beautiful, the most serene, the most crowded, the most mysterious.