(Yes, I am lighting candles for everyone!)
Walked a little further, and found the church with the intact remains of Santa Lucia, so stopped there for Pammy's mom, who's name was Lucia.
Lucia (283-303) is said to have been beheaded during the persecutions of Diocletian in Sicily. Because her name means "light" she very early became the great patron saint for the "light of the body"--the eyes. Her body was later brought from Sicily to Constantinople and finally to Venice, where she is now resting in this church.
Saint Lucia's whole body is there on the altar in a glass case, and you could walk all around it. She was a little pipsqueek - maybe four feet tall. They had placed a gold "death mask" over her face, but the rest was her actual body, and you could see everything right down to her toenails.
I think this may have been David's first time seeing "uncorrupted" body parts of saints, and it kind of creeped him out.
In the Ghet-toe
From there we headed over to the Jewish Ghetto in north east Venice.
On March 29, 1516 the Venetian government issued special laws creating the first Ghetto of Europe here. It was an area where Jews were forced to live and which they could not leave from sunset to dawn. The area was closed by gates watched by guards - the marks of the hinges are still visible there.
The Republic forced the Jews to live in this area of the city where the foundries (known in Venetian as "geto") had been situated in ancient times, and to wear a sign of identification and manage the city's pawnshops. Many other onerous regulations were also included, in exchange for which the Jewish Community was granted the freedom to practice its faith.
The first Jews to comply with the decree were the Ashkenazim from mid-eastern Europe. Their guttural pronunciation turned the Venetian term "geto" into "ghetto", creating the word still used today to indicate various places of emargination. The "ghetto" was closed during the night, and the boats of the Christian guards scoured the surrounding canals to stop nocturnal violations. This is how Europe's first ghetto was born.
Christians came to the ghetto to visit Jewish banks, doctors or shop for spices, jewelry and fabrics.
The Ghetto existed for more than two and a half centuries, until Napoleon conquered Venice and finally opened and eliminated every gate (1797): Jews were finally free to live in other areas of the city.
Venice's Jewish Ghetto
The ghetto consists of an open square surrounded by "skyscrapers" on three sides. Because of the lack of space in the ghetto, many six-story "skyscrapers" were built. Laws forbid building separate synagogues, hence the synagogues were built on the top floors of the buildings because there should be no obstructions between the congregation and the heavens.
Five synagogues (15th to 16th C.) are located in this small area, representing the different "nations" (Jewish ethnic groups) who settled down in the Lagoon along the centuries. The Ashkenazic Jews built two synagogues on the top floors of the building Scola Grande Tedesca in 1528-29 and the Scola Canton in 1531. The Levantine Jews, who had more money, built an extravagant synagogue in 1575 and it was housed in its own building in Ghetto Vecchio. The Spanish Jews built a synagogue in 1584.
The Museum of Jewish Art was opened in 1955 and has continued to enrich its collections through important donations ever since. The present exhibit was arranged in 1986 as the initial stage of a project whose goal is the creation of a single museum area comprising the three Synagogues of the New Ghetto and the opening of new exhibits.
At present a collection of rare and precious textiles and silverwork (mostly from the five synagogues) is on display in the two open rooms. Next to that, is a series of Italian Ketuboth (marriage contracts) and other religious objects of foreign manufacture, privately donated to the Museum.
Venice is the only Italian city where one can find an intact ghetto that has remained unchanged since its founding. The site is so prominent in the city’s history that there is a water taxi stop that lists the ghetto (in Italian and Hebrew) as one of the nearby sites and, at night, a neon sign with Hebrew letters is turned on above the dock.When we found the Ghetto - it was extremely quiet and deserted, and then we realized it was Saturday - their Sabbath, so everything was closed. We found everything we wanted to see - the Jewish museum and the old temples, but couldn't get in. "E chiuso" - it's closed. Oh well.
On the way out, we ran into this little 6-year-old boy playing outside his father's kosher restaurant, who asked us if we were Jewish. His name was Menachim Mendel, and he was the rabbi's son, and he told us all the secrets to the old ghetto. He was adorable.He said he had lived in Venice his whole life. I asked him how it was that he spoke such perfect English, and he told us his mother was from Pompano Beach. I thought that was pretty funny!!!
We wanted to take his photo, but it was his Sabbath and he couldn't let us. But he said if we came back tomorrow.... I wish we could have. Meeting that little Jewish kid was a highlight of the trip.
Peggy Guggeheim Museum
From there, we went to the Peggy Guggeheim museum, which is full of Peggy's personal collection of modern art like Jackson Pollack, Picasso, Dali, Rothko, and Calder, and all the big boys. Very interesting.
The collection is housed in Peggy's home, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal, an unfinished 18th century palace which was never built past the ground floor level.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is one of the most important museums in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the 20th century. Pieces in her collection embrace Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.
Peggy, former wife of artist Max Ernst and niece of mining magnate Solomon Guggenheim, lived in Venice until her death in 1979. She is buried in the garden (now the Nasher Sculpture Garden) next to her beloved dogs.
Its most famous (or notorious) exhibit is the 1948 bronze "The Angel of the City" by Marino Marini, positioned at the front of the palazzo, facing the Grand Canal. It depicts a nude and clearly excited horse rider looking over the canal with his arms outstretched like a sun salutation.
We first approached it from inside the museum, so from the back I was stuck by how exultant he looked, facing the canal in glory. I told David I thought it would be a fitting and wonderful grave marker for Peggy. But when we walked around, we saw what made it so notorious - the angel had a huge bronze phallus, very erect.
Okay, maybe not such a good grave marker....
"Urban legend" has it that originally, the "member" was removable, so as to be removed to avoid offending visitors with delicate sensibilities. Legend has it that too many times, it was stolen, and so had to be permanently affixed.
The "Angel in the City" statue is referenced in the song "And if Venice is Sinking" by Canadian band Spirit of the West:
We made love upon a bed that sagged down to the floorIn a room that had a postcard on the door
Of Marini's Little Man with an erection on a horse
It always leaves me laughing.
Santa Maria della Salute
On the way back to the boat we stopped at the Church of Salute - the big one you can see from St. Mark's. Very beautiful inside. It's name means Holy Mary of Health, and here's why:
Venice was attacked many times and with disastrous outcomes by the terrifying "Black Death". The plague arrived for the first time in Venice in 1347, on a ship coming from Caffa. It was a catastrophe of frightening proportions: more than 3/5 of the population died in the next year and a half.
The Black Death hit on other occasions, including the terrible epidemic of 1630 that killed a third of the population. It was on this occasion that the Venetians turned to the Virgin Mary, promising to build a church in her honor in exchange for salvation. And in 1631, the plague defeated, the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute was erected in thanks to the Virgin.
The Basilica, on the island of Giudecca, stands out on the Venetian skyline for its white color and for its architectural forms, closer in style to the Classical Renaissance than to the typical Venetian style.
This is how Henry James saw Salute:"...waiting like some great lady on the threshold of her salon. She is more ample and serene, more seated at her door, than all the copyists have told us, with her domes and scrolls, her scalloped buttresses and statues forming a pompous crown, and her wide steps disposed on the ground like the train of a robe."
In memory of the salvation given to the Venetians, the sculpture of the Virgin with Child by the famous Flemish artist Le Court was put in place on the altar: on the one side, Venice is represented as a noble woman, kneeling in a suppliant pose, while on the other side, the plague is depicted as an old woman in flight, chased by an angel.
On the tip of the island of Giudecca is the Dogana, built in the 15th century. It was here that merchant ship loads were checked. Its triangular form recalls the bow of a ship and, at its front, the statue of Fortune governs the world – it is depicted as a golden globe supported by two giants.
I'll write more soon, but this internet costs $15 an hour, and I don't type that fast!!!Tomorrow morning we are going to a big church with a Latin Mass and Gregorian chants!!!
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