On the 14th of August, Masséna moved into the Palazzo Gradenigo. Families that owned more than one gondola had to relinquish them to the occupying forces, together with the gondoliers, who were expected to provide food for themselves; the conscripts fled. Nevertheless, five theatres remained open. Sérurier arrived, with a large general staff; the Arsenal was emptied; they set fire to the Bucintoro. The end of the Serenissima (Memoirs of L. Manin, Venice, 1886).
Mallet du Pan, at the time, Molmenti, later on, and Guy Dumas, in our own time, have persuaded us that Venice was corrupt and ridden with vice; she was no more so than the rest of Europe, this Serenissima that had endured for thirteen centuries, and whose disappearance was lamented by all her people.
Whether it was 1797 or 1945, any more the soldiers of the Directoire than the New Zealand armoured car troops under the command of the English General Freyberg, Venice has scarcely put up fierce resistance; she wanted to avoid pillage and fire; the names of the conquering generals are forgotten in a few months, treaties turn yellow after ten years, and empires will never be other than empires; the duty of a unique city is to survive.6
APRIL 196…
THE HEIGHTS and the depths of Venice, where human life fluctuated for so long between two extremes, between piombi and pozzi, between the drains up above, and the wells beneath; a town of poor fishermen and a golden city; along the same canal passed both the Wagner of the duet from Tristan and the man of the funebral gondola, his own. Non nobis, Domine…
1908–1970
THE THREE AGES OF MAN
HOW MANY YEARS, social circles, fashions, pledges and hopes have I seen pass by beneath these Procuraties, among these after-dinner strollers… The soldiers from the time of the Triple Alliance carrying their sabres that were never drawn, under their arms; their bulging riding britches and their loose-fitting boots, Tor di Quinto style, with wide regimental stripes, yellow, blue and cerise, and their huge kepis and their plumes, wearing a monocle and a curled-up Wilhelm II moustache; the Venetian women in their black shawls (and the noise of their clogs on the pavement, now nothing but a memory); the beautiful foreign women, with their feathered boas and their high collars drawn taut with stays, holding their dress in one hand, a tortoise-shell lorgnette or a fan in the other.
Next came the Allied armies in their green and bronze, or khaki uniforms, and their medals.
Then the blackshirts, the Balbo-like beards, the riding britches once more, but this time worn down to the knees, in the knickerbocker style, like the Guards; and still those boots, now very tight-fitting; the rhythmic march, the banners, the stacks of weapons and the commemorative crowns, followed by the ministers in gaiters (in morning coats and bowler hats); more ladies, sportswomen wearing eye-shades in the style of Suzanne Lenglen, or balillas… Workers’ marches… In about 1935, the Mussolini style gave way to uniforms in the Hitler mould: white tunics over tobacco-coloured trousers.
Pursuing History at a trot, it is now the Liberation, with American jackets everywhere and high-laced military boots; armbands bearing the letters MP, cowboy shirts and open collars, Kodak cameras with telephoto lens, and Lucky Strikes in their holsters.
And now here we are today: weeping willow hairstyles, bell-bottoms worn over oilskins, dresses cut from old curtains that drag along among the rubbish, sandals, bare feet, a sleeping-bag over the shoulder, the pilgrimages to the source. It’s a time of letting go, of “let’s crash down here, no point in going any further”.
I shall bring this procession of ghosts through St Mark’s Square to a halt, not being a Carpaccio; nor a Saint-Simon, who nevertheless wrote: “These trifles are scarcely ever included in the Memoirs; however, they give an accurate idea of almost everything one looks for in them.”
There’s a dispute between the Venice city council and the military authorities which, like their equivalents in every country, do not want to relinquish anything. Venice is still scattered with islands or islets which are no longer of any strategic importance: Santo Spirito, Lazaretto Vecchio, La Celestia, San Giacomo in Palude, La Certosa… Those old monasteries, those fortresses that have nothing to defend… The Italian empire is long past and the Office of Tourism requires hotels and more hotels.
PIAZZALE ROMA, 197…
WHAT THE railway line began, the pneumatic tyre has achieved. The land takes its revenge over the sea; ever since 1931 those who supported terra firma were the victors, having their way against Mussolini who, being artistically minded, wanted to cut off Venice from the Italian mainland.
Confronted with a garage for mammoths, Europe hurls herself upon Venice, hurriedly devours her, and then goes away again. Thieves who steal spare wheels, those who falsify police placards, money-changers, hitchhiking prostitutes and other knaves add to the confusion of the pilgrims in a Europe that is trying to patch together her different parts.
Bridges built of ancient brick are interspersed with foot bridges made of concrete, which are themselves overlooked by the multi-lane flyovers. The eurobuses and trains on rubber wheels holding eighty passengers pass minibuses setting off for Nepal. The whole of this Santa Croce district smokes with gas and carbon monoxide, Cinzano fumes and marijuana. Collapsing suitcases that have fallen off the top decks of buses like moraines from a moving glacier, the Japanese with their top-heavy Leicas, the 16mm film strewn over the ground, the mattresses and rolled-up sleeping-bags, bulging more with cooking utensils than with stuffing, everybody converges in this hotchpotch of humanity where people who have driven through the night try to glimpse Venice on a morning such as this, when the sun has not managed to pierce through the kilometres of dust.
Unlike the Basilica of St Mark’s, the Piazzale Roma is a cathedral of drivers. You have to choose between the museum and life.
NOTES
1. Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702–89) was a Swiss artist and engraver widely admired for his precise and detailed portraits of Oriental people. [Tr.]
2. Which means broadly: “Whether I have the Palazzo Labia or not, I shall always be a Labia.” [Tr.]
3. Marcel Jouhandeau (1888–1979) was a prolific French novelist and essayist who in certain of his books (in particular, Chroniques maritales, 1935) provided a ruthless analysis of the difficulties of conjugal life and his relationship with his wife Élise. [Tr.]
4. And if they adorn the summits of your palaces / It is by right of virtue, not by right of conquest. [Tr.]
5. “lo sarò un Attila per lo stato veneto.”
6. This was what I tried to explain to Paul Reynaud, as gently as possible, one spring evening in London in 1940, when he maintained that not a stone should be left standing in Paris. There had been four of us dining at Ava Wigram’s house, with Hore-Belisha; the British Secretary of State for War had arrived late after making a speech in the House of Commons and had immediately wanted to hear himself again, insisting that a wireless set be placed on the table, thereby making all conversation impossible. Hore-Belisha approved of Reynaud. Both men are dead; Paris remains.
IV IT’S EASIER TO START THAN IT IS TO END, AT THE DOGES’ PALACE, 23 SEPTEMBER 1967
WHO WOULD ATTEMPT to build Venice again? One man ventured to do so, Volpi, in full flight, in October 1917, anno fra i più tristi della storia d’ltalia. On land that one would hardly dare call firm, he constructed Italy’s second port, Porto Marghera, in a terrain that bred malaria, mosquitoes and frogs. It developed into two thousand solid hectares of refineries and factories producing aluminium or refined nitrogen.