Venice

Venice is known for four things, plus the tourists: canals, gondolas, bridges and the Carnival. There are many lengthy and utterly boring historic ink on the origins, the purpose, the masks and the many times it was shut down. However for those that seek the saucy side of history, Carnival seems to have some tales to tell. it is said that masking (a written record is dated 2nd May 1268) for Carnival began in innocence, a means of identifying people in the neighborhoods, but later became useful for committing adultery without the fear of exactly who was behind that mask. By the 1300's Venice had seemingly sunk to new moral lows, and laws had to be enacted to rule in the indecencies carried out with cover. Men would dress as women, and sometimes as nuns in order to enter convents to carry out "immoral acts" which included...gulp...dancing in the courtyard. The other (immoral acts" were not mentioned, but I am sure they had a gay old time. Venetian gamblers wore mask to avoid creditors, and poor people pretended to be rich entering their buildings and homes. Just crashing any party was possible. By 1608 the Doge had enough and banned wearing masks year round, or at night on Carnival. And the penalties inflicted for breaking this law were heavy - for a man this meant two years in jail, 18 months' service to the Republic galley-rowing (with ankles fettered) and not only that, a 500 lire fine to the Council of 10. As for women, they were whipped from St Mark's all the way to Rialto, then held to public ridicule between the two columns in St Mark's. They were banned from entering the territory of the Venetian Republic for 4 years and had to pay the 500 lire fine to the Council of 10.

To plan one's social life in Venice, a close study of the death notices in the daily Il Gazettino, to plan one's social life because the city has long been an arena for drama. And like New Orleans (who coincidentally is also famous for Carnival), Venice has always loved a good funeral. Any chance to pull back your hair, and suit up in a black suit for a leisurely stroll. But the rest of us would admit that there is something undeniably haunting and melancholic about the crumbling majesty of this city and its threatening floods, something which allows us to put "Death" and "Venice" in the same sentence like they were good bed fellows.

More Pigeons Than People

Today's Venice is a continuation of a long tradition dating back some 400 years: it's a tourist trap. Home to about 50,000 people, 100's of thousands of tourists and thousands more pigeons just waiting for a photo-op. It is an open-air museum as seen in the faded grandeur of the Doge’s Palace, the water-trapped palazzi of the Grand Canal, the Bienalle, or the glossy Guggenheim--one of Venice’s top recent attractions. But, despite what they say, Venice is no museum. It is a living, and above all fragile. Its history lives not just in the aging palaces, fading facades, and ominously tilting bell towers, but in every fat pigeon which struts Saint Mark’s square with a sense of belonging, disappearing among the native Venetians who are leaving the city in increasing numbers as modern houses, jobs and more as attempts to preserve Venice for its citizens clash with those aimed at preserving the city for tourists. Today’s Venice is a miracle of survival.

The pace of life in the city is slow for urban taste, with no cars, few children and one third of population over sixty. The only thing that seems to rattle the locals are the ominous high tides (acqua alta) which come to Venice from November to April and flood a huge area of the city (some say three times greater than it was a century ago), effecting low-lying areas such as the historical Piazza San Marco.

Walking through the narrow alleyways one senses the fascinating morbidity of the slowly submerging amphibian, forever under threat of being overwhelmed: by the sea, by the flood of tourists, and by the tide of international finance. Yet, when I ask my friend about the city’s ties with death, he says with faint smile, "one is never really dead in Venice, just fashionably late."