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.
Venice, Rising from the Sea
The name Venice refers to the original people called Veneti, who had spread across the land north of the lagoon way before Rome or even Athens had their Golden Ages. The Greek historians Herodotus and Tacitus both mention the Veneti, though Herodotus thought they came from Illyria, which was the name of the land above Greece. Herodotus also thought dragons lurked (literally) beyond the known world, so his Illyria theory might be taken as one more error. The Veneti name relates to the Latin (and later Germanic root) Ven: to strive for, to wish, to love. It is the same root that generated the name Venus. While no one seems to mention the connection, it seems to me clearly linked to Venus’ origin story.
The story is that Aphrodite–Venus’ Greek counterpart–was born from the genitals of Uranus, thrown into the sea when Uranus is murdered by his son Cronus. Venus emerges fully formed, on a half-shell at least according to Botticelli. This myth is thousands of years older than the creation of Venice itself, yet the link seems logical. Venice was created, even if not by the Veneti for which it was named.
That is to say, Venice was created by refugees from the Roman empire around 450 CE. There were indigenous fisherman who lived in the marshes, known as the incolae lacunae (“lagoon dwellers”), but they were crowded out. There were Veneti in the mountainous hills, who themselves had settled fleeting either from the Trojan War (i.e. Aeneas) or the Celtic and Gallic tribes. But the ones who “built” Venice were citizens of the empire. By the mid-fifth century, they were fleeing the more antagonistic tribes of Goths, Visigoths, and Huns that had begun to push back against the Roman army that had demanded tribute. Four hundred years into the empire, the unbeatable army had thinned out and begun to hire tribesmen as mercenaries. One of the Roman emperors brought in the Goths to take on the Visigoths, then didn’t pay the Goth leaders. Rome ended up sacked, repeatedly. Those who could afford it took their “civilization” and resources off to find safer places. They found the marshy islands in the lagoon to the northeast ideal.
Hence, Venice was built by those refugees, who came with engineering knowledge and a desire to create buildings, not live in fishing huts. The builders cut down most of the forest nearby and drove the hardest wood, alders, into the mud until the pilings reached hardened clay. More trees built wooden platforms, and thus Venice’s palazzos came to be built on these trees and clay. Rivers were also diverted to keep sediment from collecting because the Venetians wanted the water as defense against the horsemen.
What the natural moat couldn’t achieve was completed with the swamps and mosquitoes. The water city was not attacked and eventually the antagonistic tribes thinned out (or went off to settle Spain, France, Southern Italy etc. Frequent flooding occurred, too, but it was part of the Venetian charm from the start. The Venetians built themselves a city. Next, they needed to construct a better origin story to fuel their aspirations. What better way to start than choosing an A-list patron saint?
The “Triumph” of St. Mark
As every tourist knows, the patron saint of Venice is Saint Mark. His winged lion symbol is visible everywhere, from the flags atop buildings, to the windows filled with papier-mache and bejeweled lions.
Lion sculptures dot the streets, some giant cats even playing with human heads. Venice’s favorite sculpting son, Antonio Canova, became famous for sculpting lions. He put some around Pope Clement’s tomb, while others flank the doorways to museums. (Canova’s own tomb design originally even had copies of his sculpted lions.) Why the lion? Why Mark? and Why Venice is a convoluted but fascinating tale.
Let’s start with Mark. Mark was one of the four gospel writers in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke…that guy). There was a real Mark born on the island of Crete, who was a disciple who spread the words of Jesus and the Christian doctrine. This Mark, later called Mark the Evangelist, ended up in Egypt and founded the Church of Alexandria, from which most forms of African Christianity emerged. So that Mark was a big deal, indeed.
There were also definitely Marks who knew Jesus and Peter, a John Mark and a Mark, cousin of Barnabas. Originally, all three were thought to be the same person, though now it’s believed they were three different people, all extra-added apostles of Jesus, missionaries who went out to convert Christians. But wait there’s more! It’s now strongly believed by biblical scholars that the person who wrote the Gospel of Mark was none of these, but someone who lived later. This anonymous person apparently didn’t know anything about the geography of the Middle East or the local customs and was also not a fishermen, despite being called one. In other words, Mark the gospel-writer wasn’t a journalist who hung around with Jesus or Peter taking notes, but a biographer who wrote about them later. They aren’t even sure if he was named Mark, but Mark the Evangelist had become so well known that his name was added to the Gospel for prestige.
Lions and Bodies and Relics, Oh My
Next, about that lion on the flag. Mark, whoever he was, describes John the Baptist as a voice crying in the wilderness, “prepare ye the way of the Lord” and so on. Wilderness? Desert? Lions? Maybe there’s a connection there? Mark doesn’t say anything about lions, actually, but Revelations (supposedly written by John, another gospel writer) associates each of the gospel writers with an animal, so Mark gets the lion. Christian scholars now also note that Ezekiel put wings on animals, although Ezekiel lived a few centuries before all these Marks.
From a historical point of view, it’s hard to figure out why a winged lion got literally linked to Mark (as opposed to John the Baptist or even Ezekiel, e.g.) From an artistic point of view, however, that winged lion looks really good; once somebody noted that Revelations symbolism, everyone else later thought it fit perfectly. We can think today of Mark’s winged lion as a meme created after the fact, to the point where the meme has become so dominant that everyone forgets where it came from.
So what is the Venice/Mark connection? Mark the Evangelist was born in Crete, a Greek island, went to Rome, and then to Alexandria; John Mark hung out with Peter and Jesus. But there’s no historical evidence for either of them to have gone to Venice. Te Venetians invented it anyway. About four hundred years after they drove those pilings into the mud, the Republic of Venice decided to make Mark their patron saint.
As a result, in 828, they sent two adventurers to Alexandria with a daring plan. Mark had been killed by non-Christians (i.e. the people who already lived there and worshipped somebody else, i.e. pagans) back in the year 79. But Egypt eight centuries later was now under the governance of Muslims. So two Venetians stole into the city at night and with the help of local priests, took the remains of Mark the Evangelist back to Venice. They then created a story that said Mark had once traveled through the lagoon area and said “Pax tibi Marce, evangelista meus. Hic requiescet corpus tuum.” (“Peace be with thee, O Mark, my evangelist. Here thy body will rest.”)
Let’s recap this legend of St. Mark and the winged lion, the eternal symbol of Venice. The Gospel of Mark was not written by any of the three Marks. Mark did not actually refer to lions, nor did he probably ever visit Venice. Still, the 9th century Venetians created the legend, stole the relics, and built a church around them. If anyone wondered later why the Venetians thought Mark belonged to them, they simply pointed to the story.
Then came the Crusades.
Continued in Part Two: La Serenissima Dreams of a Golden Age