Venice, Italy – The days are flying by and we are coming to the end of our trip. But every day is a new adventure. With or without a plan, Venice is an intriguing city. After spending two weeks wandering through narrow calles, along canals, over bridges, and into dead-ends, I can say that this is not a place for anyone who is claustrophobic. Thankfully, I am not one of those people.
Monday started out with a great plan: Jim and I would take the vaporetto into Venice to the St. Toma stop and visit two major sites: Scuola San Rocco, and the Frari Church. As it turned out, we were able to visit four sites from just the single vaporetto stop, and – this was not part of the “plan” – I got to see the head in the Tesoro Museo at the Scuola San Rocco!
The vaporetto into Venice was not crowded on Monday morning and we reached the St. Toma stop on the Grand Canal in good time from Lido (less than 30 minutes). We walked directly to San Rocco, passing by the Frari Church which seemed to have all its doors closed. Right across from San Rocco, we noticed a small Leonardo da Vinci Museo so we spent about 45 minutes on a self-guided tour. This was the first Museo that has honored the BayNet Press passes.
This is a hands-on Museum and we had fun trying out the machines which had been reproduced from da Vinci’s drawings. I especially enjoyed being inside the mirrored cabinet.
After finishing up in the small museum, we walked across the tiny square into the Scuola San Rocco. There was a street-musician cellist playing in front of the Scuola (and no! he was not playing Bach’s Air on a G String!)
These Venetian “schools” were charitable institutions similar to today’s Red Cross; they assisted the population during plagues and wars. After Napoleon’s suppression of religious orders, the Scuole were closed and the works of art were sent off to European museums. San Rocco is the only Scuola which was untouched so that today we are able to see the paintings in the exact setting for which they were originally intended.
After a brief walk around the lower floor, we climbed the beautiful marble stairs into what is known as Tintoretto’s “Sistine Chapel”. There are 34 huge oil canvasses in gold frames in the ceiling and along the walls of the Great Upper Hall. Practically every inch of the second story is decorated from floor-to -ceiling with glorious works of art depicting scenes from the Bible such as Adam and Eve, The Passover, and The Last Supper. Tintoretto (1518-94), who spent 20 years of his life decorating the Scuola San Rocco, rose to the challenge of using his great skills in perspective and in drawing human figures to make these paintings for the ceiling.
A special room (Albergo Hall) is devoted to scenes of Christ’s Passion including Christ Before Pilate, Christ Crowned With Thorns, and the magnificent Crucifixion painting. Tintoretto managed to paint himself into one scene (as the old, bearded man in Christ Before Pilate) and the ceiling here also boasts his painting of San Rocco himself (“St. Roch in Glory”), as viewed from below. (San Roch, born in 1295 was a French nobleman who spent his life treating plague victims during the 1300’s. After his death in 1327, a cult sprung up around him and his body was subsequently moved to Venice in 1485 in the hopes that it would protect that city from future plagues. The belief in the protections granted from San Roch were so strong that if someone merely spoke his initials aloud – S R – they would be cured.)
I kept my Rick Steves’ 2013 Venice guide in my hand and went from one end of each room to the other locating particular paintings or carvings and reading the historical references. And then I decided to go up one more floor to see the Tesoro while Jim stayed below to admire the electric lantern-lit room. The Tesoro contains many glass cases with reliquaries (containing pieces of saints, I assume, but I really couldn’t see well enough inside the cases). The reflection of the light in this room off of the gold and silver Treasures and the glass doors was almost blinding. I circled the tiny room a couple of times and was about to leave when I heard “ooohhing and ahhhhing” from the beautifully dressed sari-wrapped Indian women who were there for a private guided tour. The security guard was unlocking another wooden cabinet and opened it to reveal a precious treasure. It was very clear that I was not part of this tour group, but I stood nearby hoping to catch a glimpse of the special exhibit behind the locked door and it was…a head; just a head with blond hair and a Doge’s hat.
The women from India snapped their photos as I eventually worked my way up to the front row just as the guard was about to close the cabinet. He paused one moment to let me quickly click my photos (which was difficult to do; it was so hard to focus the camera because of the brilliance of the reflections in the room) and I whispered a sincere “grazie” as he closed the wooden door and locked it up tightly.
I spoke to two of the Indian women on the way back down the stairs (in English) and they were just as excited to have seen the head as I was. But whose head was it??? But Giada googled it for us and this is what she learned: it’s just a wax head. (How disappointing!) It is the funeral mask of Doge Alviso IV Mocenigo; his body is in San Giovanni Paolo Chiesa. Mystery solved. Of course, I assumed it was a real head; why else would it be so carefully protected behind the doors? I could hardly wait for dinnertime that night to ask my friends for more information.
Jim and I went next door into the St. Rocco Church, completely renovated in the 18th century, which contains the crypt of San Rocco himself. We enjoyed cold drinks at a little cafe in the square and he surprised me with a gorgeous red rose, purchased from a strolling vendor. And then we left for the St. Toma vaporetto stop – passing by once again the Frari Church. This time, I circled around to the canal side and found an open door. We entered to view and admire the phenomenal construction and massive monuments inside.
The Gothic 110-yeard long Church of Santa Maria Glorious Dei Frari was begun by Franciscan Friars who settled in Venice during the early 13th century; the first church was consecrated in 1280. During subsequent centuries, the church was enlarged and improved until 1819 when Napoleon suppressed monastic orders. The church was used as a barracks, then as a state building. It was eventually restored with its exterior of fired bricks. The interior is designed in a plan to resemble the Egyptian cross – a Franciscan symbol. Masterpieces by painter Vecellio are here along with his tomb. There are also works by Titian who died in 1576 of the plague; his tomb is also found here. Venetian painter Bellini was commissioned to create a work for the Pesaro Chapel inside this church. There is another small chapel dedicated to John the Baptist containing the only sculpture residing in Venice by Donatello.
The pyramid-shaped 1827 tomb of Canova contains an urn with his heart; this urn can be seen through an open door of the tomb; his body rests in southern Italy.
We all said “Buona notte” and promised to meet again before we leave for the USA next week. Now, how to top that day on Tuesday? I wanted to go into Venice again, but Jim said he would pass on the excursion that day.
I was out the door of the apartment by 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. As I was walking past the Roxy Bar, thinking about the new friends we’d met Sunday night at the Chinese Restaurant – who should walk by? – but the very same German couple we’d met just two nights before. So two times in three days in beautiful, downtown Lido, I’ve run into people just seconds after thinking about them (the first was running into Daniela as she was leaving the cemetery on Sunday).
We shared our stories of Monday’s sight-seeing activities and I brought up my photo of the head from my phone. They’d spent Monday on the Strada Nove. We promised we would get together again before everyone goes home next week.
And I was off for a day in Venice. I so hoped that all four of the churches on my to-do list that day would be open, and decided that yes, they would be. And they were. All 4 of them. It took me all day to find them, but I managed to do it.