“The soul of man, Signor Baldassare, is incorruptible, immortal, and divine, created and infused by G_d into our body when the fetus in the maternal womb was made fit to receive it. This truth is as certain, infallible, and indisputable for me as it is, I believe, for every Jew and Christian.” – Poet Sarra Copia Sulam, Venice, Italy July 1621
Crossing over a canal bridge, we descended a steep set of stairs through a low hanging doorway to the Ghetto Nuovo. Emerging from the dark passage to the light of day, an expansive piazza surrounded a collection of multicolored buildings six stories high.
On March 29, 1516 by decree of the Venetian Senate all Jews living in Venice were required to immediately move to the confines of this 17 acre Campo and would be prevented from leaving or reentering by two locked gates from sundown to sunup each day. The existing Christians were ordered to vacate the former copper foundry and the Jews, not allowed to own property, were required to pay one third higher rents. The 1500’s began in a tumultuous time: there was a grave threat to European Sovereignty by the Ottoman Turks and the Church was fending for its existence against the Protestant Reformation movement. Charles V led his French army into Northern Italy and Florence and Milan fell under his control. The Black Death had reduced the population of Europe by 40% and the Franciscan order was anticipating the End of Days at the turn of the century. A great Renaissance of humanist ideology challenged the foundation of leadership and faith. Spanish ships began their rule of the oceans from the New World to the Mediterranean Sea forever undermining Venice’s dominance of trade. The Inquisition was in full force, tolerance was on a short string and Jewish houses of worship were forbidden in the Ghetto or anywhere else in Venice. But a long partnership between Jewish artisans and merchants with the Venetians had just enough root to allow them to stay. Fleeing persecution or expulsion from Spain, Portugal, England, Germany, France and the Levant (Holy Land) other not so fortunate Jews came to Venice in droves as a safe but restricted haven.
In the heat of the midday sun I was approached by a short pale young man in a black coat and hat with scarlet red beard and hair. A member of the Orthodox sect of Chasidic Jews, he asked me in a Brooklyn accent if I wanted to “lay out” Tefilin, two black prayer boxes that are worn on the forehead and above the elbow and bound to the head and arm with leather straps. The young Rabbi seemed a natural bridge between the present and centuries past so I engaged him in conversation deflecting his question by asking him to tell me about some of the local sites and history of the Ghetto. He was well versed.
Within 100 years of its establishment, the Jewish Ghetto had quadrupled in population. Because growth was restricted in area, housing was built up with floor additions. The top floors were surreptitiously made into houses of worship. When it was politically or financially expedient restrictions were loosened and the nearby Ghetto Vecchio was annexed as part of the Jewish area. Not long after, three Synagogues were allowed to be built. In the later part of the 17th Century Venice began new relations with the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and in a strange redirection Jews from the East were invited by the Doge to live in Venice.
Moshe, embellished his history a bit and mentioned a Jewess poet from the early 1600’s and her Literary Salon that entertained both Christians and Jews. My interest was piqued to learn more about her but I had tapped Moshe’s knowledge of the subject and perhaps his patience. It was later that I learned about the native Venetian Sarra Copia who married Jacob Sulam, a wealthy Jewish merchant in 1614 and a year later gave birth to a daughter Rebecca who died at the age of 10 months. Several years later Sarra miscarried and was never able to bear children again. Though she said it was her deceased father’s wish to start a Literary Salon in 1618 it would not be hard to surmise that she did so to somehow heal the pain she felt for the losses she suffered. Venetian relations had become tolerable, enabling the young Sarra to open the Salon in the Ghetto where Christian and Jewish artists, poets and musicians came to perform and discourse on philosophy, religion and politics. Her admirers praised her extraordinary beauty and humble nature. She bleached her hair blond and dressed in the latest style and fashion for a wealthy Venetian woman. She was an accomplished musician and singer, literate in 6 languages and a student of the Greek classics. This precocious young woman would match wit and intellect with the finest artists of the day in Venice and is regarded as one of early modern Italy’s more significant poets.
That same year Sarra began a highly irregular correspondence with Genoese Christian monk and poet Ansaldo Ceba after reading his sonnet L’Ester about the Jewish Biblical Queen of Persia. Despite Sarra’s marriage to Sulam, she wrote to Ceba of her great admiration and love of him and his work. Ceba in his 50’s was ailing in health and unable to travel. Sarra was just 18. They never meet and over the next five years carried on an unconsummated romance of the heart. It’s difficult to understand why she was so enamored of Ceba but it would seem to be part of a broader ambition to connect with Christian artists who appeared sympathetic to Jews and to fill a void left by the death of her father. It is pure speculation on my part but her marriage may have also been strained with her husband since she could no longer bear him an heir. For the moment at least the opportunity opened for Jews and Christians of similar mind and expression to engage with one another but it was dangerous. New ideas and religious beliefs were threatening the status quo. At any moment things could change with disastrous results. One such movement was the rapidly growing Jewish mystics of Kabala. Sarra’s close friend and spiritual advisor Rabbi Leone De Modena was a Jewish leader in Venice of the predominant Talmudic Tradition and an outspoken opponent of Kabala.
It is the very same Kabala teachings from long ago that is the foundation for today’s Chasidic Jews. I asked my new friend Moshe how he happened to be in Venice. He seemed slightly annoyed with my questioning but said he was originally from Australia but spent several years in yehiva (religious school) in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn where the Chasidic movement is headquartered. He had only recently been sent to Venice to work at the Chabad House in the Ghetto Nuovo, a place where Jews can come to worship and where it was his job to recruit secular Jews to Tefilin. The heat of the day weighed on my heavily clothed companion and I could see a bead of sweat trickle from the hatband of his fedora down his forehead. He removed his glasses and used his jacket sleeve to wipe the moisture from his brow. If I wore the Tefilin he said, even once I could find a more righteous path to G_d. There was now, more than a bit of impatience in his voice and I thought it would be a good idea to let him tell me what he intended to say from the start.
How is it I asked that I could make such a profound connection through two little boxes with leather straps? It is like a father, said Moshe, now comfortably settling into to his mission, who sits down to play blocks with his child. G_d sits with us at our level and like the father who gently encourages his child in simple direction; G_d speaks through mediums or Metaphors that humans can understand. And He uses Metaphor to explain the complex and often contradictory world. Tefilin, Moshe continued, is a Metaphor for binding the heart and mind with good deed. Further, it is the practice of good deeds in this life that allows the immortal soul to return to heaven.
The idea of an afterlife had been around for a very long time among the ancient Canaanites and Hebrews. The common practice was to place the dead within caves where the recently passed were reunited literally with the bones of their ancestors. Archaeologists have found in these caves gifts left for the dead and believe that these offerings were a form of ancestral worship. Caring for dead ancestors is a deeply rooted belief in Judaism. In the 6th Century BCE when the Bible was transcribed Heaven was considered the House of G_d and angels, not a place for human souls. The Old Testament in Psalms and the books of Isaiah and Job refers to a world called Sheol, not related to Heaven, where unfulfilled human spirits reside. Influenced by the Egyptians, Babylonians and later Greeks the concept of a soul ascending to Heaven for the Righteous evolved over time. Nearly two centuries before Jesus In the year 165 BCE the Book of Daniel is the first record in the Judeo Christian tradition of eternal afterlife for doers of Mitzvah (good deed) and is the basis of religious belief in an immortal soul for all three monotheistic religions, Jewish, Christian and Muslim.
The Talmud and the Kabala were two of the most important “Oral Tradition” works that were recorded over the next two millennium. The Talmud detailed beliefs and practices that were articulated by centuries of rabbinic study of the Old Testament. Kabala was in many ways a Jewish parallel to the Christian Reformation. At its heart was the rejection of seemingly out of touch leadership of the Talmudists and a desire for a personal connection to G_d. Among Kabalists that connection involved spiritual practices that were often misunderstood by Christians as sorcery. The Rabbi’s of Venice like other European cities had to maintain a delicate balance with the Church. Anything that could possibly trigger a backlash of new recriminations was carefully avoided. The Kabala represented just such a threat. At the same time another movement was starting to take shape, not only challenging the established Talmudic order but rejecting the notion of the immortality of the soul altogether. It was bad enough that the Christians thought of the Jews as sorcerers but not believing in Heaven was intolerable. That movement is considered the beginnings of modern Rationalist thought, a philosophy articulated later in the century by Baruch Spinoza that equated G_d and Nature as one in the same. Spinoza’s book Ethics is considered today to be one of the great works of Western thought. Spinoza like his predecessors was a Converso or Spanish/Portuguese Jew forced to convert to Christianity during the Inquisition. Fleeing further persecution they left Spain or Portugal and rejoined the Jewish faith settling in large numbers in Amsterdam, Venice and Hamburg.
The Rabbinic Council of Venice had to act quickly on this new front. An erudite voice that held the forces of Kabala in check was called upon by the Rabbinic Council of Venice to respond to those who accused the established Talmudic order of not practicing the true religion as originally conceived in the Old Testament. In his published reprimand of Rationalist thinking, Sarra’s Rabbi Modena took the threat head on; unless the heretics retracted there denunciation, the key issue being their rejection of immortality of the soul, they would be excommunicated from the faith. What was not calculated by the enigmatic Rabbi Modena was how this controversy would draw his dear friend and student Sarra Copia Sulam to its center.
In time Sarra’s correspondence with the Ceba took a turn when the old poet began to insist that she convert to Christianity to save her soul. He professed so much love for her that his only wish was to see her saved for eternity in a Christian Heaven before he died. Despite his repeated efforts Sarra refused to convert and in a desperate measure Ceba enlisted the help of Signore Baldassare Bonifacio, a Venetian poet, priest and legal scholar who frequented Sarra’s Salon. Perhaps picking up on the controversy raging inside Jewish Synagogues, Baldassare published on June 21, 1621 his public “Discoursa” accusing Sarra of not believing in the immortality of the soul as she had repeatedly not accepted the advances of Ceba to convert to Christianity. This was a terrible blow on Sarra’s reputation; contrary to what he was saying she did believe in the immortality of the soul. It was a very cruel accusation for a woman who still grieved for her dead children and father. The unrelenting persistence and even coercion to convert her was a gross perversion in light of the fact that ascending to Christian Heaven would mean renouncing her religion and making it impossible to reunite in the afterlife with her own family. Sarra acted swiftly with a published response she called her “Manifesto” in which she pointedly tells Baldassare that he is neither a theologian nor a philosopher but rather a fool for speaking on subjects he does not understand. And since the charge that she does not believe in the immortality of the soul in not true she did not wish to engage him in any further public debate about it.
A flock of pigeons descended onto the Ghetto Nuovo Campo and I felt the pressure to rejoin the rest of my party who had wandered off to different corners of the Jewish Ghetto. Rebecca and Sal were looking at a series of bronze plaques that lined two long white stucco walls remembering Italian Jews that died in the Holocaust. The boys were exploring some of the shops and galleries. Rabbi Moshe looked at me probably sensing that my mind was drifting elsewhere and explained to me that laying out the Tefilin would not only bring me to a more Righteous path but in so doing would bring the moment closer when the Messiah would bring Heaven down to Earth.
Look, Moshe, I said, I have enjoyed talking to you. I believe biblical stories are metaphors for explaining things that are hard to understand about the nature of this world. I believe in an immortal soul that lives on in memory, legend and history. There are great sinners and good doers who live in the large collective memory of the world but I believe most souls live on as memories with their children and grandchildren or friends, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters and sometimes with great pain fathers and mothers. By my doing good deeds in the world I believe my soul will live in a greater way in their memory which I think of as Heaven. Perhaps one day a person will come and leave a legacy so great that it will significantly and positively alter the way those that follow will act in the world but I will not wait or act in anticipation of it. In this way I am a Jew. I took Moshe’s hand in mine and shook it. I do not need, I said to him, to wear the Tefilin to be Righteous.
Sarra Copia Sullam heroically defended her name until her death in 1641 at the age of 41 even though she came under repeated attacks of others whose aim was to discredit her. It is believed she anonymously supported the literary world in Venice playing a significant role in the establishment of Accademia degli Incogniti, an important Literary Salon during the 1630’s and closing her own Salon following the Baldassare affair. Rabbi Modena continued his friendship with Sarra until her death and wrote her Epithet. An orator, writer, artist, musician and actor Modena in his autobiography admitted to an obsession for gambling. Despite having a few unsavory financial obligations including one with Baldasarre, Modena remained true to Sarra never seeking to settle his debts with her charity. The Jewish crisis within the Synagogue grew beyond Modena’s day. A former Modena student and Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam Saul Levi Morteira is best known for being the Rabbi who imposes a cherem (excommunication) on the philosopher Spinoza. Considered a heretic by Jews and Christians alike during his lifetime Spinoza lived a relatively obscure life and died young from a lung disease caused by his trade of lens grinding for spectacles and telescopes. The Kabalist movement spread rapidly throughout Eastern Europe eventually leading to a momentous showdown of Talmudist versus Kabalist rabbi’s in Poland. A moderated version emerged in the 18th and 19th Centuries as modern day Chasidic Judaism.
I rejoined my party and we made our way to the edge of the Ghetto to a kosher restaurant on the canal called GAM GAM. We had a wonderful meal of Italian and Middle Eastern inspired Jewish comfort food. As the sun set I thought about the gates that would close the world away from the Ghetto hundreds of years ago. A breeze along the canal stirred the air and a chill could be felt as Rebecca draped a shawl over her shoulders. I felt oddly at home here, thinking of the souls from years past that perhaps still walked among us searching for fulfillment. There must have been so many.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Venice Images 2
Di Vinci's Vitruvian Man
Masks from Ca'macana
Cherries and Bowl
Assorted Lamp Work Rebecca bought
Two birds I bought in Venice for my mother in 1972
Venician glassblowers
Monday, February 8, 2010
Venice Part 2 – The Artisan
An angular balding man could be seen just inside his shop door slowly and delicately moving a piece of red glass over a propane torch creating a hat to doff the head of a tiny crystalline woman in a cobalt blue dress. His eyes peered over his reading glasses to summon us in, transfixed outside as we were, watching him work. The small shop was filled with hundreds of pieces of individually crafted lamp work in dazzling colors and Rebecca poured over the array with a discerning eye picking out some of her favorite pieces. This glassmaker was among a new breed that have pursued the craft as an art form outside the mainstream of Murano production houses that cater to the throngs of tourists wanting to buy the highly valued Venetian glass for souvenirs.
We were on our way back from the Gallerie dell’Accademia looking for food to eat. We could not agree on someplace for all six of us, so we had gone separate ways when Rebecca, Jon and I wondered into the glass shop. At the dell’Accademia, I found out that Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man of universal proportions, the famous “cosmografia del minor mondo” (cosmography of the microcosm) was kept in a controlled environment to preserve its paper medium and offered for public viewing only every few years. Our glassmaker said there was a rumor it might be displayed in the next month as he carefully wrapped up a miniature 19th Century-looking black and red woman’s boot Rebecca had picked out. Look, he said handing me change, here is your Leonardo man on the Euro coin. I could not tell if his comment was supposed to be endearing or sarcastic. My face must have telegraphed my confusion. He went back to his work and we resumed our search for food.
The idea of universal proportions was the work of the 1st century BCE Roman Architect Vitruvius in his treatise De Architectura (The Ten Books on Architecture) and is considered one of the great treasures preserved from antiquity. Leonardo’s version is by far the most famous of many Vitruvian depictions from the Renaissance and has become the quintessential icon of the symbiosis of art and science. Simply put, it is the single most widely used representation of the artisan. Vitruvius’ extraordinary work also describes the proportional relationships of buildings and surrounds and in detail the techniques used by the Greeks and Romans in construction; great stuff for the engineer Di Vinci and equally interesting to me having been in the Building business for 35 years. In the past year I had left the corporate world of engineering and construction where I spent the majority of my career, to start a company with Sal in Construction Management. After making the move I had quickly realized how far removed I had become from the day to day job of managing people, projects and clients. In the recent past I spent the majority of my time as a Sr. Vice President managing up into the corporate organization that demanded more involvement and control of what I was doing. It is certainly an understandable ambition for any corporate structure but I had become wholly unsatisfied with the disconnection from the work we did. It was important to me to find in my life the right balance of job and personal satisfaction. The artisan of old represented that perfect balance and I hoped it was not yet entirely lost within this world dominated by technology that minimalized the personal connection to craft.
Settling into a café Rebecca, Jon and I were treated to one of our best meals in Venice of simple but deliciously prepared ravioli and arugula salad served by an elderly and unusually formal waiter. We could see our oldest son Nick sitting by himself through the window eating pizza in the café next door. Things had suddenly turned tense in our party when Nick announced that a vigorous texting relationship started in Israel with a long time friend of both our families had become more amorous. The romance consumed him and Domo, Nick’s best friend, became increasingly more upset with Nick’s obsession. To make matters worse, in a fit of frustration Nick bit his cell phone with his teeth when he could not get a signal, breaking the protective lens and rendering it useless. He had to borrow his brother’s phone to continue the chatter. Arguments ensued and Domo devised a punishment charging a Euro each for fighting. He got rich while I could not figure out where my boys were spending all their money. Traveling with six people was proving to be more complicated than it was with just Nick and me in Israel and Greece. The temptations of breaking his gluten free diet was too much and we watched him through the glass, strangely distanced, succumb to it.
We followed after him as he entered the mask shop next door to our café. No ordinary shop, Ca’macana had made the masks for Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in which the characters are up to no good while hiding their identities. It seems Venice had a similar problem and by the mid 18th Century the Republic of Venice had limited mask wearing to 3 months of the year following December 26 until the Carnevale presumably in an attempt to curb Venetian clandestine activities. Nick purchased a devilish red ornamental piece for himself and a plain white one for his text friend back home that he would paint himself. Sal and Domo had also converged on the scene and were purchasing a variety of masks to ship home. With full stomachs giving sustenance and buoying the mood of our party Nick and Domo were able to move past their differences. We left with the Ca’macana faces neatly concealed in bubble wrap stored in a shopping bag that Nick carried with great delicacy for the remainder of the trip.
It was now late afternoon and Sal and I had given in to shelling out 18 Euro each for a 24 hour pass to ride the vaporetti (water bus). It was beyond our nature however to consider the extraordinarily expensive water taxi or worse, a gondola. We quickly found out that the best place to ride the vaporetti was the bow of the boat where our speed reaching 15 to 20 knots stirred a constant breeze and blew through the heat of the afternoon. The vaporetti pulled away from the Santa Margherita stop, first backing up and then full throttle forward. As the boat revved up its engine to move forward I watched the island of Guidecca (literally translated to Jew Town) glide by. It was not the area known as the Jewish Ghetto which was located in a cannon foundry on the other side of Venice. I could see in full view the famous Venetian architect Andrea Palladio’s impressive church San Giorgio Maggiore. A 16th Century Renaissance man, Palladio is considered the most influential individual in the history of Western Architecture. Commissioned for many of the most important buildings and churches in Venice of his time, he is best known for his design of Italian Villas. Constructed of brick and stucco, his villas were economical in cost and practical in design. As a dedicated student of Vitruvius he borrowed a great deal from the ideas of classical Greek and Roman buildings and of course universal proportion.
It did not take long to reach San Marco where we could slip off the boat for an espresso and gelato and then get back on. The Florian Café is reported to have brewed the first cup of coffee in Italy and Sal; an avid coffee drinker had to have one. Our waiter with an ego far grander than his job took our order as we all sat around a very small table amid hordes of tourists hustling by. The grand palazzo inspired by Palladio resonated with music from a score of bandstands as pigeons dove in and out of the empty spaces between crowds. An endless line up of shops displayed the volumes of glass artifacts interspersed between cafés and gelato stands. The famous names of glassmakers like Toso and Barovier could be seen advertised in the display windows.
Gianni Toso was only 10 years old when he started working with glass. His family had a legacy of more than 700 years of glass blowing and he was so enriched by it that he would skip school to work 12 hours a day in the factory. He was taught the secrets of the trade handed down generation after generation and at 14 years old attended the Abate Vincenzo Zanetti, Maestro d'Arte fine arts academy for master glass blowers on the island of Murano, where he studied the history and the craft for the next seven years. At 23 disillusioned with the production of tourist glass, Gianni broke from family tradition and set up shop in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice making lamp work. His piece “Jews vs. Catholics” a chess set with Hasidic Jews facing off with Franciscan Monks received a first place award from the Murano glassblowers and he achieved international acclaim when he was commissioned by Salvador Dali to make 12 of Dali’s works in glass. In 1972 he attended an international conference of glassmakers in Zurich where he shared some of the secrets of Venetian Glassmaking for the first time in the world. The collaboration was inspirational to him and he traveled to the United States where he felt the freedom to be able to pursue his art. Today he lives in Baltimore and is considered one of the great glass artists in the world. He works in the traditional medium of glass where many of his contemporaries are using tempered glass to reduce breakage. In joining two pieces together said Gianni in a recent interview with another glass artist, it is critical that the glass for both are heated to the same temperature for the same time so that when they are fit together the bond is strong and the glass does not break. He does not believe in using the tempered glass because it does not teach the right technique. It has taken years of tradition, practice and patience to do it correctly. In a world that believes the technology and not the craft produce the perfect art Gianni says: “Production is from the human being. It does not matter the technology…it’s just the instrument.”
I watched our waiter return with our tray of coffees and desserts. He approached us with an air of superiority. As he leaned down to set the tray on table, he missed the edge ever so indelicately and everything landed on the floor in a heap of molten beverage, pastry goo and broken cups and saucers. The Palazzo stopped right there for everyone to gaze at our party as if we had somehow ruined their vacations. Our waiter walked away and never returned. An eternity went by as people sidestepped the spillage and pigeons became curious, when a new waiter appeared showing us to another table and apologizing for the mess, saying that everything was on the house.
“You learn when you break the glass” the master, Gianni Toso said in the interview. The meaning is profound. It is not the final product that matters or even what you do as much as the process you take to get there. It is through the personal challenge of perfection that we achieve satisfaction in what we do. Our party headed back to the vaporetti when we finished our re-served coffees and desserts.
As dusk fell, we rode on, positioning ourselves with each stop to own the front of the boat. Several stops beyond San Marco we were all there and darkness descended on us. In the black water and night sky, rolling slowly out into the Adriatic Sea I felt as if I could be transported back in time to the empire that was once the greatest merchant enterprise in the world. The boat powered through the water and the engine blast brought me back to the sight of Lido directly in front of us, our last stop where the boat would turn around and come back. On the left in the distance were the lights of the glass islands of Murano.
European glasswork recast from “cullet” or glass blocks and shards existed since Roman times, but the making of the raw material was a closely guarded secret and only produced in ancient towns on the far eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Following the crusades all of this changed and by the late 13th century imported sand and soda ash were being used to make glass in the first Venetian frit furnaces. A new era of glassmaking was born. In 1292, the governing Council of Ten for the stated reason of fire danger ordered the growing industry be moved from the crowded international trade market of the Rialto district to the cluster of small islands known as Murano. The Venetians were to zealously guard the secret they now possessed and confined the glassmakers to Murano. Marriage was allowed only within families from their guild. Under the penalty of death these artisans were also restricted from leaving Venice. So high in importance was it to keep the secret that it was decreed that the Doge himself would pursue any such wanderer and assassinate the traitor on the spot when found. Nevertheless, the Venetians were not the only ones to have the secret in Italy after the Crusades and an industry paralleled Venice in the forests of Altare outside Genoa.
The earliest known discovery of manmade glass dates back to the late 2100 BCE found in cemeteries of the ancient Semite civilization of Akkadians who were also credited with early forms of cuneiform writing and accounting. It is believed that glass was discovered when the soda powder from decomposing plants could be added as flux allowing melting at lower temperatures. The resulting cooled material would dissolve in water and lime was added to solidify. Other minerals would be used to introduce color or clarity.
Following the invention of glass several hundred years later from the same land of Ur where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers converge, emerged the most important idea in Western Civilization. It was here that Abraham shattered the idols of his forefathers and said there was only one God to worship. There was no longer a god for everyone and everything. There was only one Universal God responsible for everything and you could talk to him. What God told Abraham was to leave this place for the land of Canaan. From then on wherever the Hebrews of Abraham went the making of glass came too.
We had reached our stop at Santa Margherita late in the night and across the way the lights of Guidecca could be seen but Palladio’s church had disappeared in the darkness. Domo and Jon talked about the masks we saw earlier in the day and Nick was busy texting. Things were not what they appeared to be. When the Council of Ten had moved the glass factories to Murano, Guidecca housed a population of about 6,000 Jews who were agents for trade, partners with the Venetians in the vast empire that dominated the Mediterranean for nearly 1,000 years forever opening the door between Europe and the Orient. With the rise of the Venetian Glass Industry on Murano, the vibrant Jewish community on Guidecca of merchants and artisans began to deconstruct giving way to the churches and elaborate villas that exist there now. Signaling the end of a great communion of business enterprise it was at once a foreshadowing of Venice’s decline and the beginning of a more vigorous persecution and displacement for the Jews.
But where the Jews went so did the glass. In the next several hundred years the secret of glassmaking could be found in Spain, France, Germany and then throughout Europe. While the craft survived many of the artists had to renounce their faith as years of Inquisition and banishment prevailed in Europe. Jews had to convert to Christianity or were exiled. Not willing to give up their lucrative business they converted but while the devout continued to secretly practice their faith many did not and both time and prejudice would erase their heritage.
Gianni Toso rediscovered his faith in the late 60’s buried deep within the 700 year history of making glass on the Island of Murano. Rejecting the industry for what it had become he found new inspiration working in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice making his craft and later in America finding the connection between his work and the satisfaction he felt in doing it. He speaks eloquently about the difference between Craft and Art, Craft being what we know and teach others and Art being the ultimate expression of what it means to be human. “In order to be a human being with a high level of humanity we must control the animal what we are,” said the Master Artisan, Gianni Toso. “Art is the most powerful instrument to develop humanity.”
We got back to our Venetian apartment around midnight and Rebecca laid her pieces of lamp work carefully out on the kitchen table. Nick admired his devil’s mask turning it in his hand and moving it on and off his face. Sal rested his tired feet on the couch and Domo and Jon jumped onto their computer games. I emptied my pockets of change and turned over a Euro coin to study Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. As it turns out there is no such thing as universal human proportion. There is only balance to make us upright to strive at a craft whatever that is and push ourselves to learn as much as we can in the lifetime we are given. Self –fulfillment is not what we become; only what we do getting there.
We were on our way back from the Gallerie dell’Accademia looking for food to eat. We could not agree on someplace for all six of us, so we had gone separate ways when Rebecca, Jon and I wondered into the glass shop. At the dell’Accademia, I found out that Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man of universal proportions, the famous “cosmografia del minor mondo” (cosmography of the microcosm) was kept in a controlled environment to preserve its paper medium and offered for public viewing only every few years. Our glassmaker said there was a rumor it might be displayed in the next month as he carefully wrapped up a miniature 19th Century-looking black and red woman’s boot Rebecca had picked out. Look, he said handing me change, here is your Leonardo man on the Euro coin. I could not tell if his comment was supposed to be endearing or sarcastic. My face must have telegraphed my confusion. He went back to his work and we resumed our search for food.
The idea of universal proportions was the work of the 1st century BCE Roman Architect Vitruvius in his treatise De Architectura (The Ten Books on Architecture) and is considered one of the great treasures preserved from antiquity. Leonardo’s version is by far the most famous of many Vitruvian depictions from the Renaissance and has become the quintessential icon of the symbiosis of art and science. Simply put, it is the single most widely used representation of the artisan. Vitruvius’ extraordinary work also describes the proportional relationships of buildings and surrounds and in detail the techniques used by the Greeks and Romans in construction; great stuff for the engineer Di Vinci and equally interesting to me having been in the Building business for 35 years. In the past year I had left the corporate world of engineering and construction where I spent the majority of my career, to start a company with Sal in Construction Management. After making the move I had quickly realized how far removed I had become from the day to day job of managing people, projects and clients. In the recent past I spent the majority of my time as a Sr. Vice President managing up into the corporate organization that demanded more involvement and control of what I was doing. It is certainly an understandable ambition for any corporate structure but I had become wholly unsatisfied with the disconnection from the work we did. It was important to me to find in my life the right balance of job and personal satisfaction. The artisan of old represented that perfect balance and I hoped it was not yet entirely lost within this world dominated by technology that minimalized the personal connection to craft.
Settling into a café Rebecca, Jon and I were treated to one of our best meals in Venice of simple but deliciously prepared ravioli and arugula salad served by an elderly and unusually formal waiter. We could see our oldest son Nick sitting by himself through the window eating pizza in the café next door. Things had suddenly turned tense in our party when Nick announced that a vigorous texting relationship started in Israel with a long time friend of both our families had become more amorous. The romance consumed him and Domo, Nick’s best friend, became increasingly more upset with Nick’s obsession. To make matters worse, in a fit of frustration Nick bit his cell phone with his teeth when he could not get a signal, breaking the protective lens and rendering it useless. He had to borrow his brother’s phone to continue the chatter. Arguments ensued and Domo devised a punishment charging a Euro each for fighting. He got rich while I could not figure out where my boys were spending all their money. Traveling with six people was proving to be more complicated than it was with just Nick and me in Israel and Greece. The temptations of breaking his gluten free diet was too much and we watched him through the glass, strangely distanced, succumb to it.
We followed after him as he entered the mask shop next door to our café. No ordinary shop, Ca’macana had made the masks for Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in which the characters are up to no good while hiding their identities. It seems Venice had a similar problem and by the mid 18th Century the Republic of Venice had limited mask wearing to 3 months of the year following December 26 until the Carnevale presumably in an attempt to curb Venetian clandestine activities. Nick purchased a devilish red ornamental piece for himself and a plain white one for his text friend back home that he would paint himself. Sal and Domo had also converged on the scene and were purchasing a variety of masks to ship home. With full stomachs giving sustenance and buoying the mood of our party Nick and Domo were able to move past their differences. We left with the Ca’macana faces neatly concealed in bubble wrap stored in a shopping bag that Nick carried with great delicacy for the remainder of the trip.
It was now late afternoon and Sal and I had given in to shelling out 18 Euro each for a 24 hour pass to ride the vaporetti (water bus). It was beyond our nature however to consider the extraordinarily expensive water taxi or worse, a gondola. We quickly found out that the best place to ride the vaporetti was the bow of the boat where our speed reaching 15 to 20 knots stirred a constant breeze and blew through the heat of the afternoon. The vaporetti pulled away from the Santa Margherita stop, first backing up and then full throttle forward. As the boat revved up its engine to move forward I watched the island of Guidecca (literally translated to Jew Town) glide by. It was not the area known as the Jewish Ghetto which was located in a cannon foundry on the other side of Venice. I could see in full view the famous Venetian architect Andrea Palladio’s impressive church San Giorgio Maggiore. A 16th Century Renaissance man, Palladio is considered the most influential individual in the history of Western Architecture. Commissioned for many of the most important buildings and churches in Venice of his time, he is best known for his design of Italian Villas. Constructed of brick and stucco, his villas were economical in cost and practical in design. As a dedicated student of Vitruvius he borrowed a great deal from the ideas of classical Greek and Roman buildings and of course universal proportion.
It did not take long to reach San Marco where we could slip off the boat for an espresso and gelato and then get back on. The Florian Café is reported to have brewed the first cup of coffee in Italy and Sal; an avid coffee drinker had to have one. Our waiter with an ego far grander than his job took our order as we all sat around a very small table amid hordes of tourists hustling by. The grand palazzo inspired by Palladio resonated with music from a score of bandstands as pigeons dove in and out of the empty spaces between crowds. An endless line up of shops displayed the volumes of glass artifacts interspersed between cafés and gelato stands. The famous names of glassmakers like Toso and Barovier could be seen advertised in the display windows.
Gianni Toso was only 10 years old when he started working with glass. His family had a legacy of more than 700 years of glass blowing and he was so enriched by it that he would skip school to work 12 hours a day in the factory. He was taught the secrets of the trade handed down generation after generation and at 14 years old attended the Abate Vincenzo Zanetti, Maestro d'Arte fine arts academy for master glass blowers on the island of Murano, where he studied the history and the craft for the next seven years. At 23 disillusioned with the production of tourist glass, Gianni broke from family tradition and set up shop in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice making lamp work. His piece “Jews vs. Catholics” a chess set with Hasidic Jews facing off with Franciscan Monks received a first place award from the Murano glassblowers and he achieved international acclaim when he was commissioned by Salvador Dali to make 12 of Dali’s works in glass. In 1972 he attended an international conference of glassmakers in Zurich where he shared some of the secrets of Venetian Glassmaking for the first time in the world. The collaboration was inspirational to him and he traveled to the United States where he felt the freedom to be able to pursue his art. Today he lives in Baltimore and is considered one of the great glass artists in the world. He works in the traditional medium of glass where many of his contemporaries are using tempered glass to reduce breakage. In joining two pieces together said Gianni in a recent interview with another glass artist, it is critical that the glass for both are heated to the same temperature for the same time so that when they are fit together the bond is strong and the glass does not break. He does not believe in using the tempered glass because it does not teach the right technique. It has taken years of tradition, practice and patience to do it correctly. In a world that believes the technology and not the craft produce the perfect art Gianni says: “Production is from the human being. It does not matter the technology…it’s just the instrument.”
I watched our waiter return with our tray of coffees and desserts. He approached us with an air of superiority. As he leaned down to set the tray on table, he missed the edge ever so indelicately and everything landed on the floor in a heap of molten beverage, pastry goo and broken cups and saucers. The Palazzo stopped right there for everyone to gaze at our party as if we had somehow ruined their vacations. Our waiter walked away and never returned. An eternity went by as people sidestepped the spillage and pigeons became curious, when a new waiter appeared showing us to another table and apologizing for the mess, saying that everything was on the house.
“You learn when you break the glass” the master, Gianni Toso said in the interview. The meaning is profound. It is not the final product that matters or even what you do as much as the process you take to get there. It is through the personal challenge of perfection that we achieve satisfaction in what we do. Our party headed back to the vaporetti when we finished our re-served coffees and desserts.
As dusk fell, we rode on, positioning ourselves with each stop to own the front of the boat. Several stops beyond San Marco we were all there and darkness descended on us. In the black water and night sky, rolling slowly out into the Adriatic Sea I felt as if I could be transported back in time to the empire that was once the greatest merchant enterprise in the world. The boat powered through the water and the engine blast brought me back to the sight of Lido directly in front of us, our last stop where the boat would turn around and come back. On the left in the distance were the lights of the glass islands of Murano.
European glasswork recast from “cullet” or glass blocks and shards existed since Roman times, but the making of the raw material was a closely guarded secret and only produced in ancient towns on the far eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Following the crusades all of this changed and by the late 13th century imported sand and soda ash were being used to make glass in the first Venetian frit furnaces. A new era of glassmaking was born. In 1292, the governing Council of Ten for the stated reason of fire danger ordered the growing industry be moved from the crowded international trade market of the Rialto district to the cluster of small islands known as Murano. The Venetians were to zealously guard the secret they now possessed and confined the glassmakers to Murano. Marriage was allowed only within families from their guild. Under the penalty of death these artisans were also restricted from leaving Venice. So high in importance was it to keep the secret that it was decreed that the Doge himself would pursue any such wanderer and assassinate the traitor on the spot when found. Nevertheless, the Venetians were not the only ones to have the secret in Italy after the Crusades and an industry paralleled Venice in the forests of Altare outside Genoa.
The earliest known discovery of manmade glass dates back to the late 2100 BCE found in cemeteries of the ancient Semite civilization of Akkadians who were also credited with early forms of cuneiform writing and accounting. It is believed that glass was discovered when the soda powder from decomposing plants could be added as flux allowing melting at lower temperatures. The resulting cooled material would dissolve in water and lime was added to solidify. Other minerals would be used to introduce color or clarity.
Following the invention of glass several hundred years later from the same land of Ur where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers converge, emerged the most important idea in Western Civilization. It was here that Abraham shattered the idols of his forefathers and said there was only one God to worship. There was no longer a god for everyone and everything. There was only one Universal God responsible for everything and you could talk to him. What God told Abraham was to leave this place for the land of Canaan. From then on wherever the Hebrews of Abraham went the making of glass came too.
We had reached our stop at Santa Margherita late in the night and across the way the lights of Guidecca could be seen but Palladio’s church had disappeared in the darkness. Domo and Jon talked about the masks we saw earlier in the day and Nick was busy texting. Things were not what they appeared to be. When the Council of Ten had moved the glass factories to Murano, Guidecca housed a population of about 6,000 Jews who were agents for trade, partners with the Venetians in the vast empire that dominated the Mediterranean for nearly 1,000 years forever opening the door between Europe and the Orient. With the rise of the Venetian Glass Industry on Murano, the vibrant Jewish community on Guidecca of merchants and artisans began to deconstruct giving way to the churches and elaborate villas that exist there now. Signaling the end of a great communion of business enterprise it was at once a foreshadowing of Venice’s decline and the beginning of a more vigorous persecution and displacement for the Jews.
But where the Jews went so did the glass. In the next several hundred years the secret of glassmaking could be found in Spain, France, Germany and then throughout Europe. While the craft survived many of the artists had to renounce their faith as years of Inquisition and banishment prevailed in Europe. Jews had to convert to Christianity or were exiled. Not willing to give up their lucrative business they converted but while the devout continued to secretly practice their faith many did not and both time and prejudice would erase their heritage.
Gianni Toso rediscovered his faith in the late 60’s buried deep within the 700 year history of making glass on the Island of Murano. Rejecting the industry for what it had become he found new inspiration working in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice making his craft and later in America finding the connection between his work and the satisfaction he felt in doing it. He speaks eloquently about the difference between Craft and Art, Craft being what we know and teach others and Art being the ultimate expression of what it means to be human. “In order to be a human being with a high level of humanity we must control the animal what we are,” said the Master Artisan, Gianni Toso. “Art is the most powerful instrument to develop humanity.”
We got back to our Venetian apartment around midnight and Rebecca laid her pieces of lamp work carefully out on the kitchen table. Nick admired his devil’s mask turning it in his hand and moving it on and off his face. Sal rested his tired feet on the couch and Domo and Jon jumped onto their computer games. I emptied my pockets of change and turned over a Euro coin to study Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. As it turns out there is no such thing as universal human proportion. There is only balance to make us upright to strive at a craft whatever that is and push ourselves to learn as much as we can in the lifetime we are given. Self –fulfillment is not what we become; only what we do getting there.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Venice Images 1
Protest of walking to our apartment instead of taking the vaporetti water bus
Timeless Venice
Sinking Venice
The window from the Bridge of Sighs
Pigeons at San Marco Square
The Doges Palace
Venice Part 1 - The Moor
Sal turned to me and said that the tickets for the water bus (vaporetti) from the train station to the next stop at Campo Santa Margherita was 6 Euro per person so we both agreed we should walk. It was not a popular decision and the complaints were loud and boisterous all the way over to our apartment where we met Annalisa from Views on Venice. She spoke English to Sal and Italian to me for some strange reason and walked very quickly from where she met us in the middle of the Piazza named for the Patron Saint of Expectant Mothers. Our trail of weary travelers with wheeled suitcases stretched out from one end of the huge Campo to the tiny quick footed Annalisa. Sal was nearly jogging with her, his suitcase leaping over the cobblestones, as she said she had another appointment to make. We reached the end of this grand open space, and entered a long narrow alley with a great iron door at the end. Annalisa slipped the key in the door and we were treated to the wonderfully cool conditioned air of our recently renovated Venice apartment. We had heard much about Venice, how it was crowded with tourists, reeked of low tide and that a one day stay would be plenty. We had planned for three and it was no where nearly enough.
The three bedroom two story flat was like heaven; windows closed, air conditioning on, no mosquitoes, the perfect trilogy for our formerly maligned Florentine Villa inhabitants. Annalisa explained first to me in Italian (for which I politely pretended to understand) and then to Sal in English that garbage was picked up daily right outside the front door and showed us in a hurry how to regulate the temperature, turn on/off the dishwasher and rushed through the rest of the electronics so fast that we had to learn the hard way that the hot water heater was not yet turned on. We never did figure out the TV set and I discovered with a great deal of consternation that the internet was available in every corner of the flat except the master bedroom where I unknowingly had set up my computer to write.
Not wasting any time the three adults struck out to explore the area while the boys stayed behind. Campo Santa Margherita is named by Project for Public Spaces as one of the 60 best public spaces in the world and it is off the beaten track of tourists to San Marco Square. In fact it’s hard to find if you are looking for it and most people stumble onto to it by mistake. Not sure if Santa Margherita was ever a real person; her story is a bit like Jonah and the Whale only she is swallowed by a Great Dragon. Inside the Dragon’s stomach she makes the sign of the crucifix and presto bingo the Dragon is blown to bits and she escapes unharmed. The imagery is a bit disturbing given her patronage to expectant mothers.
Next door to our apartment was the Carmelite confraternity of Santa Maria dei Carmini, a 17th century church and school. The roofline is heavily adorned with images of the Jewish Prophets Elijah and Elisha. The Carmelites began as hermetic monks who returned to Mount Carmel in Israel during the crusades believing the 900 BCE Prophet and his disciple to be the original founders of the order. Nearly becoming nonexistent by the15th century the Carmelites experienced a revival popularizing the Brown Scapular nun’s tunic and habit which was symbolic of the protection of Blessed Virgin Mary. Rising high overhead on the top of the bell tower a modern version of the Madonna replaced an older one struck by lightning.
Below we made our way around the fountain of Santa Margherita and her dragon surrounded by merchant shops and cafes catering to the locals and tourists. A small building erected in 1725 as a tanners school sits oddly in the middle of the Campo as the canal that once bordered the southern perimeter was filled in with concrete.
We were heading in the general direction of Piazza San Marco and at each turn into a new narrowed alley an arrow pointed in that direction. If all roads lead to Rome than most certainly all alleys lead to San Marco Square.
We passed the “House of the Moor”, a rundown former residence of Cristoforo Moro who by some accounts was the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Othello. Like Othello, Moro was a Venetian cadet sent to the island of Cyprus as Governor in 1505-1507 and whose wife dies under mysterious circumstances. Upon his return to Venice, Moro took a second wife by the name Demonia similar in spelling to Othello’s Desdemona.
In a stroke of Shakespearean drama Cristoforo Moro is also the name of the 67th Doge of Venice who ruled what was then the turbulent Republic from 1462 to 1471. Doge Moro is also linked by literary experts to Othello as a character model. The two Moro’s although they share the exact same name are apparently unrelated since the Doge never had children. The name Moro means Moor or Black African thus the connection to Othello but the feminine “Mora” translates from Italian to mulberry or blackberry. On the other side of Venice the tomb of Doge Moro is decorated in a mulberry motif. Othello gives Desdemona his mother’s kerchief also in a berry motif. This kerchief later becomes the symbol of a fabricated infidelity involving Desdemona and one of Othello’s highly regarded soldiers.
Perhaps Shakespeare, always the master of double entendre used the “Moor” Othello to parable the Doge Moro’s difficulties at the time. To put things into historical perspective, while the Muslim Moors were being driven out of Spain, the Muslim Arabs under Mehmed II “The Conqueror” had already taken Constantinople and much of Eastern Europe substantially loosening Venice’s control of the lucrative Mediterranean trade they enjoyed for 400 years. Doge Moro most assuredly was not the favored son of the Pope with the Muslim threat mounting on his watch. In the end Othello ends his own life after killing Desdemona when the truth is revealed that she was faithful to him after all and Doge Moro’s war racks up heavy casualties to lives and treasury. The Venetians never really recover.
The last time I was in Venice was 37 years ago. Holding out bread crumbs in a frightening commune with nature I stood covered from head to toe with hundreds of pigeons clinging to me in San Marco. In an instant a stranger swept them out of my way to appear like an apparition pressing me to buy a “Swiss” watch. I had just purchased two Murano Glass birds for my mother at a nearby shop. They were carefully wrapped up in tissue and I held them securely under one arm. I threw the crumbs I had in my other hand on the ground and the birds abandoned me. I then walked away with the man following. I waved him off but he persisted. At 20 years old I was young, impressionable and naïve. The man would not give up so I gave in and paid him $20 cash rationalizing that I bought the watch for my father since I had bought the birds for my mother.
I stood again in the magnificent Square of Saint Mark. Time had changed very little in La Serenissima, the serene city of Venice. Without cars or modern architecture the people were the only anchors to the present day. All else had remained for centuries. The pigeons still swarmed the Piazza, artists and street hawkers pedaled their wares and musicians played at the bandstand cafés. Hordes of tourist parade through the sinking city every day.
The boys had somehow reached San Marco before we did even though they left much later. We decided to visit the Doges Palace and moved quickly through the great structure before closing. Weapons and armor were plentifully displayed and the boys ate it up. We crossed the infamous Bridge of Sighs and peered out on the Grand Canal as prisoners had done centuries before. The magnificent grandeur and beauty of Venice is without equal to anywhere else I have seen. Nothing compares to the legacy that ushered in the artisans of the East bringing their trade and great craft in silk, metals and glass. It occurred to me that this journey I had taken from Israel to Greece and Italy was the path of Western ideas and culture culminating here in the city of canals: Venice.
As I peered through stone bars on the Bridge of Sighs I thought of how I had carried the two glass birds in my backpack across Europe carefully preserving them for my return and how thrilled my mother had been when I gave them to her. It was my testament to growing up. I was not so fortunate with the watch. In a pinch I traded the watch and my ticket back to SFO for an airline ticket to Bangor, Maine via Vancouver, Canada (don’t ask). Midflight our London Travel Agent found out the true value of the “Swiss” works and left us stranded in Vancouver.
As for Shakespeare, as much as he wrote about it, he never even traveled to Italy. There is even some speculation that he did not write the “Italian” plays at all. And Mehmed II, The Conqueror was really not so bad. Once taking Constantinople ending the Byzantine Roman Empire for good, Mehmed instituted a policy of tolerance for all religions. Conversant in 6 languages, Mehmed was a great supporter of education and established many schools and universities in what is now present day Istanbul. He took great interest in the Renaissance and supported the “humanist” philosophies and patronized the art. He nearly took the city of Rome in 1480 which would have completed his claim to be the “New Caesar” He died in 1481 of a sudden illness.
It is interesting to speculate how the world might have changed if Mehmed had been successful in taking Italy as part of the Ottoman Empire. The Papal years that followed were filled with brutal retribution, inquisition and intolerance. The first ghetto (which means foundry) was established in Venice in 1515. Many others were to follow. Had he lived in this time Elijah the revered Prophet of Carmelite monks and a Jew would have been forced to pay for the Christian guards of the ghetto to lock him up every night. He could not have owned property and there were only a few things he would have been allowed to do to make a living. Of course it would have been a good time for the old irascible Prophet to show up. Like he did 2900 years ago at Mt. Carmel he could have set things straight; he would have found a hilltop, built an alter, thrown on a few oxen parts, doused it with 12 barrels of water and let Yahweh do the rest with a streak of fire from the sky. Then he would have prayed for the drought of human decency to end.
The three bedroom two story flat was like heaven; windows closed, air conditioning on, no mosquitoes, the perfect trilogy for our formerly maligned Florentine Villa inhabitants. Annalisa explained first to me in Italian (for which I politely pretended to understand) and then to Sal in English that garbage was picked up daily right outside the front door and showed us in a hurry how to regulate the temperature, turn on/off the dishwasher and rushed through the rest of the electronics so fast that we had to learn the hard way that the hot water heater was not yet turned on. We never did figure out the TV set and I discovered with a great deal of consternation that the internet was available in every corner of the flat except the master bedroom where I unknowingly had set up my computer to write.
Not wasting any time the three adults struck out to explore the area while the boys stayed behind. Campo Santa Margherita is named by Project for Public Spaces as one of the 60 best public spaces in the world and it is off the beaten track of tourists to San Marco Square. In fact it’s hard to find if you are looking for it and most people stumble onto to it by mistake. Not sure if Santa Margherita was ever a real person; her story is a bit like Jonah and the Whale only she is swallowed by a Great Dragon. Inside the Dragon’s stomach she makes the sign of the crucifix and presto bingo the Dragon is blown to bits and she escapes unharmed. The imagery is a bit disturbing given her patronage to expectant mothers.
Next door to our apartment was the Carmelite confraternity of Santa Maria dei Carmini, a 17th century church and school. The roofline is heavily adorned with images of the Jewish Prophets Elijah and Elisha. The Carmelites began as hermetic monks who returned to Mount Carmel in Israel during the crusades believing the 900 BCE Prophet and his disciple to be the original founders of the order. Nearly becoming nonexistent by the15th century the Carmelites experienced a revival popularizing the Brown Scapular nun’s tunic and habit which was symbolic of the protection of Blessed Virgin Mary. Rising high overhead on the top of the bell tower a modern version of the Madonna replaced an older one struck by lightning.
Below we made our way around the fountain of Santa Margherita and her dragon surrounded by merchant shops and cafes catering to the locals and tourists. A small building erected in 1725 as a tanners school sits oddly in the middle of the Campo as the canal that once bordered the southern perimeter was filled in with concrete.
We were heading in the general direction of Piazza San Marco and at each turn into a new narrowed alley an arrow pointed in that direction. If all roads lead to Rome than most certainly all alleys lead to San Marco Square.
We passed the “House of the Moor”, a rundown former residence of Cristoforo Moro who by some accounts was the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Othello. Like Othello, Moro was a Venetian cadet sent to the island of Cyprus as Governor in 1505-1507 and whose wife dies under mysterious circumstances. Upon his return to Venice, Moro took a second wife by the name Demonia similar in spelling to Othello’s Desdemona.
In a stroke of Shakespearean drama Cristoforo Moro is also the name of the 67th Doge of Venice who ruled what was then the turbulent Republic from 1462 to 1471. Doge Moro is also linked by literary experts to Othello as a character model. The two Moro’s although they share the exact same name are apparently unrelated since the Doge never had children. The name Moro means Moor or Black African thus the connection to Othello but the feminine “Mora” translates from Italian to mulberry or blackberry. On the other side of Venice the tomb of Doge Moro is decorated in a mulberry motif. Othello gives Desdemona his mother’s kerchief also in a berry motif. This kerchief later becomes the symbol of a fabricated infidelity involving Desdemona and one of Othello’s highly regarded soldiers.
Perhaps Shakespeare, always the master of double entendre used the “Moor” Othello to parable the Doge Moro’s difficulties at the time. To put things into historical perspective, while the Muslim Moors were being driven out of Spain, the Muslim Arabs under Mehmed II “The Conqueror” had already taken Constantinople and much of Eastern Europe substantially loosening Venice’s control of the lucrative Mediterranean trade they enjoyed for 400 years. Doge Moro most assuredly was not the favored son of the Pope with the Muslim threat mounting on his watch. In the end Othello ends his own life after killing Desdemona when the truth is revealed that she was faithful to him after all and Doge Moro’s war racks up heavy casualties to lives and treasury. The Venetians never really recover.
The last time I was in Venice was 37 years ago. Holding out bread crumbs in a frightening commune with nature I stood covered from head to toe with hundreds of pigeons clinging to me in San Marco. In an instant a stranger swept them out of my way to appear like an apparition pressing me to buy a “Swiss” watch. I had just purchased two Murano Glass birds for my mother at a nearby shop. They were carefully wrapped up in tissue and I held them securely under one arm. I threw the crumbs I had in my other hand on the ground and the birds abandoned me. I then walked away with the man following. I waved him off but he persisted. At 20 years old I was young, impressionable and naïve. The man would not give up so I gave in and paid him $20 cash rationalizing that I bought the watch for my father since I had bought the birds for my mother.
I stood again in the magnificent Square of Saint Mark. Time had changed very little in La Serenissima, the serene city of Venice. Without cars or modern architecture the people were the only anchors to the present day. All else had remained for centuries. The pigeons still swarmed the Piazza, artists and street hawkers pedaled their wares and musicians played at the bandstand cafés. Hordes of tourist parade through the sinking city every day.
The boys had somehow reached San Marco before we did even though they left much later. We decided to visit the Doges Palace and moved quickly through the great structure before closing. Weapons and armor were plentifully displayed and the boys ate it up. We crossed the infamous Bridge of Sighs and peered out on the Grand Canal as prisoners had done centuries before. The magnificent grandeur and beauty of Venice is without equal to anywhere else I have seen. Nothing compares to the legacy that ushered in the artisans of the East bringing their trade and great craft in silk, metals and glass. It occurred to me that this journey I had taken from Israel to Greece and Italy was the path of Western ideas and culture culminating here in the city of canals: Venice.
As I peered through stone bars on the Bridge of Sighs I thought of how I had carried the two glass birds in my backpack across Europe carefully preserving them for my return and how thrilled my mother had been when I gave them to her. It was my testament to growing up. I was not so fortunate with the watch. In a pinch I traded the watch and my ticket back to SFO for an airline ticket to Bangor, Maine via Vancouver, Canada (don’t ask). Midflight our London Travel Agent found out the true value of the “Swiss” works and left us stranded in Vancouver.
As for Shakespeare, as much as he wrote about it, he never even traveled to Italy. There is even some speculation that he did not write the “Italian” plays at all. And Mehmed II, The Conqueror was really not so bad. Once taking Constantinople ending the Byzantine Roman Empire for good, Mehmed instituted a policy of tolerance for all religions. Conversant in 6 languages, Mehmed was a great supporter of education and established many schools and universities in what is now present day Istanbul. He took great interest in the Renaissance and supported the “humanist” philosophies and patronized the art. He nearly took the city of Rome in 1480 which would have completed his claim to be the “New Caesar” He died in 1481 of a sudden illness.
It is interesting to speculate how the world might have changed if Mehmed had been successful in taking Italy as part of the Ottoman Empire. The Papal years that followed were filled with brutal retribution, inquisition and intolerance. The first ghetto (which means foundry) was established in Venice in 1515. Many others were to follow. Had he lived in this time Elijah the revered Prophet of Carmelite monks and a Jew would have been forced to pay for the Christian guards of the ghetto to lock him up every night. He could not have owned property and there were only a few things he would have been allowed to do to make a living. Of course it would have been a good time for the old irascible Prophet to show up. Like he did 2900 years ago at Mt. Carmel he could have set things straight; he would have found a hilltop, built an alter, thrown on a few oxen parts, doused it with 12 barrels of water and let Yahweh do the rest with a streak of fire from the sky. Then he would have prayed for the drought of human decency to end.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Padova images
The trial of Galileo for Heresy
Galileo's middle finger on exhibit in Florence
The Palozza della Ragione with the largest roof unsupported by columns in Europe
The Farmers Market
Flea market and Basilica in the distance
78 statues of famous Padovans in the Prato delle Ville
The Basilica where we did not find St. Anthony's Tomb
The Cathedral of St. Anthony patron saint of lost things
In Search of Heavenly Spectacles, Saints and Severed Body Parts
PA – DOE –VA were Sal’s instructions as I persistently mispronounced the city and origin of the patron saint of lost things, St. Anthony. I was not the first English speaker to butcher the name of this place since all the English maps call it Padua, not Padova, anyway. We were here accidentally, having discovered after boarding our train from Florence to Venice (or Firenze to Venezia as the Italians would have you call it) that we left Florence a day too soon. Our conductor looked sympathetically, no sadly at us as we presented our tickets to him. I took my Italian designer glasses off and wiped my lenses to help focus on the problem. After a great deal of consternation and discussion the determining factor was a poor internet connection on his hand held computer. Had it been working he would have had to charge 500 Euro for our grievous error. Instead the copotreno told us that he would charge us only 100 Euro but we had to get off at the next stop which was Padova about 40 km from Venice. I put my black Ermenegildo Zegma glasses back on automatically.
My mother, Sal said, had always wanted to visit St. Anthony’s Tomb so it is fate and perhaps a little help from my mother that we are here.
At the train station we checked our Rick Steve’s guide to Italy and the local tourist office. Rebecca and Sal strode off to find a recommended hotel which turned out to be across the street and we got three rooms for 300 Euro. Next door was a McDonald’s and the boys decided to get something to eat there and pushed to go explore on their own. A bit rejected the three adults struck out on our own in search of St. Anthony’s tomb and the center of town. In just a short distance from the hotel It was apparent from all the banners that there was a lot going on around the celebration of 400 years since the invention of Galileo’s 8 power telescope while at the University of Padova. The University established in 1222 is one of the worlds oldest and its rich history includes the tenure of Nicolaus Copernicus the famous Polish Astronomer and Physician who first formulated the heliocentric theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun. It was however through Galileo’s telescope one could see visible evidence of Copernicus’ theory.
As was customary in new surrounds we bought a map and several scoops of Gelato; the former being necessary to know where we were going and the latter, well to eat as much Gelato throughout Italy as we possibly could. We were very impressed with the Padova samplings of melon, peach and limone. It was tough to beat our favorite Gelateria in Rome but this was very close. We had been cooped up in the train so walking was a relief. We slowly navigated our way through the Piazza Garibaldi where the Revolutionary War hero’s statue stood guard over an upscale shopping area of Italian designer stores like Gucci and Ferragamo. As we entered the “Ghetto” we passed through narrow streets and Hebrew lettered arches. Emerging on the other side past the University of Padova, we approached the Palozza della Ragione, an extraordinary structure reported to have the largest roof unsupported by columns in Europe. Below were numerous stands of locally grown fruits and vegetables displayed in striking variety and color. Thinking the boys were missing out we called their cell phones and there was no answer. Rebecca was concerned but the two dads were in the mood to let them learn a lesson in survival and independence. So we consulted our map and pressed on to find St. Anthony’s Tomb.
It is said that Galileo’s telescope could not have been discovered without the already 300 year old Italian industry of making lenses for eyeglasses. While it is unknown who the craftsman was that invented spectacles as we know it, it is first documented in the early 13th Century by an order of Dominican Monks who credit the invention in the 1290’s to a Pisa glassmaker. By the time Guttenberg invented the printing press in 1454, eyeglasses for reading were widely in use. Renaissance Italians could then buy a book and read it for the first time…ever. The lens that brought the written word into focus was the same instrument that allowed Galileo to look outward at the stars and begin to understand the Universe in clear and precise terms. Equally important, the Protestant movement was in full swing in the 16th century with the held belief that people could read the words of God themselves. Knowledge no longer belonged to the privileged few and the Church struggled to hold its authority.
Galileo, a Florentine, came to the University of Padova as Chair of the School of Mathematics in 1592 at the age of 28. Over the next 18 years in Padova he had a period of great discovery and growth culminating in 1609 in the invention of his high powered telescope. It was also during this time that he met and fathered 3 children with Marina Gamba. Because they were born out of wedlock, his two daughters in Galileo’s eyes were unfit for marriage and both later entered convents. Paradoxically Galileo thought of himself as a religious man and yet his own standard of judgment appeared not as high as the one he held for his children. Ironically his daughter, a nun, Sister Maria Celeste was to be his greatest ally in his effort to save his tortured soul for the after life and take care of the ailing Galileo while imprisoned and later under house arrest for Heresy.
In great contrast to the brilliance of Renaissance thought a war raged among religious institutions both new and old. Inquisition and repression were the reins on new ideas and Galileo was swept up in the net. What was so clear to Galileo through his telescopic lens of how the moons of Jupiter revolved around the planet was not so clear to a Church that above all demanded faith in the gospel as taught by a holy order. New ideas and discoveries were ok as long as they fit within the framework of the Church teachings and doctrine.
So when the Pope Urban VIII engaged Galileo in a series of conversations and requested Galileo to write a book of the scientist’s life work it was mostly a test of his faith not his physics. Galileo misjudged the moment entirely and wrote about what he saw through his lens and how that supported the Copernican theory that the Sun not the Earth was the center of the Universe. The idea was certainly not new. But the instrument he used was. It was one thing to think it but quite another to prove it real. The Pope must certainly have asked the question: what else will he or others see with that thing? Within the year the elderly Galileo was tried for Heresy in front of a Vatican Inquisition. He was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” and Galileo was forced to renounce his belief in Copernican theories of the Universe imprisoned and excommunicated from the Church.
We emerged upon an enormous piazza with tents set up for a flea market. Browsing the merchandize we thought again about the boys and tried to call. No answer. We were now several hours into our journey and had no idea how long it would take to return. Rebecca again voiced her concern for the boy’s whereabouts while Sal and I thought it was their intent not to be found. We saw a great Basilica in the distance and hiked through the expansive Prato della Ville with its 78 statues of famous Padovans. It was at this Basilica we thought we would find St. Anthony’s Tomb and then we would return.
Inside through great Iron doors a mass was underway and Sal attended while Rebecca and I searched everywhere for some sign of St. Anthony without luck. Upon leaving, our aching backs, sore feet and empty stomachs prompted us to call once again. This time Nick answered the phone. We thought you guys were coming back to the hotel to get us so we were waiting around for you. Well why didn’t you answer your phone? Because the battery was dead and I was charging it. Why didn’t anyone else answer their phone? Because their phones are not working. Ok. So why don’t you guys start walking toward the city center and we will meet you there. Ok. And we hung up.
It was in 1737, 95 years after Galileo’s death that the Church allowed his body to be entombed in the honored space of the church of Santa Croce in Florence. A curious matter however took place during the move. Several scholars in attendance most notably Anton Francesco Gori managed to secretly cut off the index and middle finger and thumb of Galileo’s hand and remove a vertebra and tooth. The middle finger has been on display in Florence many say as a defiant gesture to the Vatican and the vertebra has been on display at the University of Padova. The index finger, thumb and tooth have only recently been found after many years of disappearance. It was common in the day that body parts were frequently removed from the remains of saints with the appendages considered good luck. More than just a prank the scholars most certainly performed this desecration in a mock homage of sainthood for the genius that lived in defamation for so long. One grave robber conceited that it was almost beyond his control not to take the skull of Galileo in honor of his great mind. The Vatican moves very slowly in admitting mistakes and centuries later in 1992 Pope John Paul finally exonerated Galileo of any lack of faith and posthumously reinstated him into the Church.
Looking a bit disappointed, Sal studied his map while we drudged on toward the city center where we hoped to meet the boys. On turning a corner we were greeted with another great cathedral. This no doubt was the resting place of the Saint of things lost. People have been known to have visions and powerful life altering experiences from visiting St. Anthony’s Tomb and as Sal emerged he was visibly drained perhaps by the experience but more than likely from the long day. I read a description of a great miracle performed on this spot by St. Anthony. In a fit of anger a young man had kicked his own mother. Repentant he confessed his sin to St. Anthony who replied “The foot of him who kicks his mother deserves to be cut off” to which the young man did. St. Anthony in a miracle of faith purported to have rejoined the young man’ severed foot.
The boys had wandered the city for some time now and were more than agitated from hunger and their parent’s cruel abandonment. Amid a fury of cell phone calls our lost children were rejoined to us not long after. St. Anthony had done his work. As my mother smiles down upon us, Sal said. Instinctively I removed my glasses and gave them a good wiping. Perhaps it was a tear or a bead of sweat down my face. Night was falling and I could see the faint flicker of Mercury rising. With Galileo forgiven and all his body parts returned the world was good and whole again. What the boys really did and where they were that day remains a mystery however days later when asked about favorite moments in Italy all three boys recanted their day of adventure and freedom alone in Padova as one of the highlights.
My mother, Sal said, had always wanted to visit St. Anthony’s Tomb so it is fate and perhaps a little help from my mother that we are here.
At the train station we checked our Rick Steve’s guide to Italy and the local tourist office. Rebecca and Sal strode off to find a recommended hotel which turned out to be across the street and we got three rooms for 300 Euro. Next door was a McDonald’s and the boys decided to get something to eat there and pushed to go explore on their own. A bit rejected the three adults struck out on our own in search of St. Anthony’s tomb and the center of town. In just a short distance from the hotel It was apparent from all the banners that there was a lot going on around the celebration of 400 years since the invention of Galileo’s 8 power telescope while at the University of Padova. The University established in 1222 is one of the worlds oldest and its rich history includes the tenure of Nicolaus Copernicus the famous Polish Astronomer and Physician who first formulated the heliocentric theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun. It was however through Galileo’s telescope one could see visible evidence of Copernicus’ theory.
As was customary in new surrounds we bought a map and several scoops of Gelato; the former being necessary to know where we were going and the latter, well to eat as much Gelato throughout Italy as we possibly could. We were very impressed with the Padova samplings of melon, peach and limone. It was tough to beat our favorite Gelateria in Rome but this was very close. We had been cooped up in the train so walking was a relief. We slowly navigated our way through the Piazza Garibaldi where the Revolutionary War hero’s statue stood guard over an upscale shopping area of Italian designer stores like Gucci and Ferragamo. As we entered the “Ghetto” we passed through narrow streets and Hebrew lettered arches. Emerging on the other side past the University of Padova, we approached the Palozza della Ragione, an extraordinary structure reported to have the largest roof unsupported by columns in Europe. Below were numerous stands of locally grown fruits and vegetables displayed in striking variety and color. Thinking the boys were missing out we called their cell phones and there was no answer. Rebecca was concerned but the two dads were in the mood to let them learn a lesson in survival and independence. So we consulted our map and pressed on to find St. Anthony’s Tomb.
It is said that Galileo’s telescope could not have been discovered without the already 300 year old Italian industry of making lenses for eyeglasses. While it is unknown who the craftsman was that invented spectacles as we know it, it is first documented in the early 13th Century by an order of Dominican Monks who credit the invention in the 1290’s to a Pisa glassmaker. By the time Guttenberg invented the printing press in 1454, eyeglasses for reading were widely in use. Renaissance Italians could then buy a book and read it for the first time…ever. The lens that brought the written word into focus was the same instrument that allowed Galileo to look outward at the stars and begin to understand the Universe in clear and precise terms. Equally important, the Protestant movement was in full swing in the 16th century with the held belief that people could read the words of God themselves. Knowledge no longer belonged to the privileged few and the Church struggled to hold its authority.
Galileo, a Florentine, came to the University of Padova as Chair of the School of Mathematics in 1592 at the age of 28. Over the next 18 years in Padova he had a period of great discovery and growth culminating in 1609 in the invention of his high powered telescope. It was also during this time that he met and fathered 3 children with Marina Gamba. Because they were born out of wedlock, his two daughters in Galileo’s eyes were unfit for marriage and both later entered convents. Paradoxically Galileo thought of himself as a religious man and yet his own standard of judgment appeared not as high as the one he held for his children. Ironically his daughter, a nun, Sister Maria Celeste was to be his greatest ally in his effort to save his tortured soul for the after life and take care of the ailing Galileo while imprisoned and later under house arrest for Heresy.
In great contrast to the brilliance of Renaissance thought a war raged among religious institutions both new and old. Inquisition and repression were the reins on new ideas and Galileo was swept up in the net. What was so clear to Galileo through his telescopic lens of how the moons of Jupiter revolved around the planet was not so clear to a Church that above all demanded faith in the gospel as taught by a holy order. New ideas and discoveries were ok as long as they fit within the framework of the Church teachings and doctrine.
So when the Pope Urban VIII engaged Galileo in a series of conversations and requested Galileo to write a book of the scientist’s life work it was mostly a test of his faith not his physics. Galileo misjudged the moment entirely and wrote about what he saw through his lens and how that supported the Copernican theory that the Sun not the Earth was the center of the Universe. The idea was certainly not new. But the instrument he used was. It was one thing to think it but quite another to prove it real. The Pope must certainly have asked the question: what else will he or others see with that thing? Within the year the elderly Galileo was tried for Heresy in front of a Vatican Inquisition. He was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” and Galileo was forced to renounce his belief in Copernican theories of the Universe imprisoned and excommunicated from the Church.
We emerged upon an enormous piazza with tents set up for a flea market. Browsing the merchandize we thought again about the boys and tried to call. No answer. We were now several hours into our journey and had no idea how long it would take to return. Rebecca again voiced her concern for the boy’s whereabouts while Sal and I thought it was their intent not to be found. We saw a great Basilica in the distance and hiked through the expansive Prato della Ville with its 78 statues of famous Padovans. It was at this Basilica we thought we would find St. Anthony’s Tomb and then we would return.
Inside through great Iron doors a mass was underway and Sal attended while Rebecca and I searched everywhere for some sign of St. Anthony without luck. Upon leaving, our aching backs, sore feet and empty stomachs prompted us to call once again. This time Nick answered the phone. We thought you guys were coming back to the hotel to get us so we were waiting around for you. Well why didn’t you answer your phone? Because the battery was dead and I was charging it. Why didn’t anyone else answer their phone? Because their phones are not working. Ok. So why don’t you guys start walking toward the city center and we will meet you there. Ok. And we hung up.
It was in 1737, 95 years after Galileo’s death that the Church allowed his body to be entombed in the honored space of the church of Santa Croce in Florence. A curious matter however took place during the move. Several scholars in attendance most notably Anton Francesco Gori managed to secretly cut off the index and middle finger and thumb of Galileo’s hand and remove a vertebra and tooth. The middle finger has been on display in Florence many say as a defiant gesture to the Vatican and the vertebra has been on display at the University of Padova. The index finger, thumb and tooth have only recently been found after many years of disappearance. It was common in the day that body parts were frequently removed from the remains of saints with the appendages considered good luck. More than just a prank the scholars most certainly performed this desecration in a mock homage of sainthood for the genius that lived in defamation for so long. One grave robber conceited that it was almost beyond his control not to take the skull of Galileo in honor of his great mind. The Vatican moves very slowly in admitting mistakes and centuries later in 1992 Pope John Paul finally exonerated Galileo of any lack of faith and posthumously reinstated him into the Church.
Looking a bit disappointed, Sal studied his map while we drudged on toward the city center where we hoped to meet the boys. On turning a corner we were greeted with another great cathedral. This no doubt was the resting place of the Saint of things lost. People have been known to have visions and powerful life altering experiences from visiting St. Anthony’s Tomb and as Sal emerged he was visibly drained perhaps by the experience but more than likely from the long day. I read a description of a great miracle performed on this spot by St. Anthony. In a fit of anger a young man had kicked his own mother. Repentant he confessed his sin to St. Anthony who replied “The foot of him who kicks his mother deserves to be cut off” to which the young man did. St. Anthony in a miracle of faith purported to have rejoined the young man’ severed foot.
The boys had wandered the city for some time now and were more than agitated from hunger and their parent’s cruel abandonment. Amid a fury of cell phone calls our lost children were rejoined to us not long after. St. Anthony had done his work. As my mother smiles down upon us, Sal said. Instinctively I removed my glasses and gave them a good wiping. Perhaps it was a tear or a bead of sweat down my face. Night was falling and I could see the faint flicker of Mercury rising. With Galileo forgiven and all his body parts returned the world was good and whole again. What the boys really did and where they were that day remains a mystery however days later when asked about favorite moments in Italy all three boys recanted their day of adventure and freedom alone in Padova as one of the highlights.
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