iovanni Dario
G
10
gave the order for my construction in 1479, but he could not wait until my completion before dying. Instead, his daughter moved in with her husband Vizenzo Barbaro. e latter went bankrupt shortly a erwards and additionally had himself stabbed, whereupon the daughter died of a broken heart.
e Barbaro family kept me anyway, but a er the violent death of a descendant in the 17th century, they thought it better to sell me to an Armenian spice merchant, Arbit Abdoll. What can I say, hardly bought, the poor man went bankrupt and died in misery.
It took the scholar Rawdon Brown four years to run out of money a er my purchase.
He committed suicide in 1842 when his relationship with a man became public.
My owner Charles Briggs fared similarly badly. He le Venice in ight a er his outing, and his lover killed himself.
e tenor Mario del Monaco wanted to buy me in 1964. However, on the way to sign the contract of sale, he had a car accident (I am allergic to music!). Count Filippo nevertheless dared to buy me, but shortly a erwards he was beaten to death by his lover.
I already mentioned that I can't stand music, so it won't surprise you that also the manager of the rock group " e Who" paid with his life for the purchase in 1981. e bass player of the band, John Entwistle, this was not warning enough.
So, he succumbed to a fatal heart attack in my palace.
e next owner, Venetian businessman Fabrizio Ferrari and his sister, fared no better, nor did the wealthy chemical entrepreneur, Raul Gardini.
What can I say? Suicide. Or murder? at doesn't matter anymore.
But by now I had gained my reputation. No one wanted to buy me anymore. Woody Allen and Elton John had already cast an eye on me, but somehow word got around...
And then nally - hurrah! Americans again with their relaxed relationship to history.
Let's see how long this lasts.
So, if you're driving along the Grand Canal and my beautiful Renaissance façade appears in front of you, if you think of the unearthly and owing light of Monte, some well-meant advice:
don't look now.
G
Follow me through the corridors of my history and you will understand...
11
To turn back or to continue?
23
e vaporetto became slower and slower, and at Cemetery Island the captain's determination nally lost its course: he gave the order to turn back.
He thought the two gondolas were still far away, but in the meantime they had arrived right behind the indecisive vaporetto.
Rosso's gondola broke in two and all passengers were swallowed up by the oods. ey managed to pull four of them out of the lagoon onto the vaporetto, but the ve female passengers remained missing.
24
Maria Toso Bullo was recovered a few hours later by another vaporetto, she had clung to a pole. But she died a few hours later in the hospital of Murano. Lia Toso Borella and Amalia Padovan Vistosi could only be recovered dead.
25
But Teresa Sandon and a little girl named Giuseppina Gabriel Carmelo remained without trace.
Like the mist between water and sky, the dream lies between wakefulness and sleep. It makes the visible invisible and the invisible visible in the night‘s darkness: and so, ten months a er her death, Teresa Sandon showed herself to her sister in a dream.
26
"Pray for me," she spoke to her sister in the fog of sleep. "Pray for me, and I can free my body from the depths of the canal and it can be buried in consecrated ground."
27
A er ten days of prayer, shermen found the battered body of Teresa Sandon in the Bissa canal.
Only the little Giuseppina Gabriel Carmelo was never found.
But shermen still swear today that they saw her between worlds:
28
On foggy nights, the visible becomes invisible and the invisible becomes visible:
a small child's co n dri s on Venice's lagoon.
It emerges from the fog and a lit candle stands on it to prevent a ferry from crashing into it.
29
30
Old folk tales tell of a deep hole located right beneath the Punta della Dogana, home to a horrible creature that looks like a cross between the Nordic Kraken and the Scottish Nessie.
e monster appears rarely, and only on moonless nights, when the wind creases the surface of the water making the forms that move within it undistinguishable.
e last sighting occurred in 1933; two shermen were shing for squid by the light of a squid lamp on a dark night with a new moon. ey told how they saw the monster emerge just a few meters away from them, open a hugely disproportionate mouth, swallow a seagull, and try to grab a few others before sinking back down into the black waters of the Lagoon near Punta della Dogana.
From the panic-stricken description they gave, the monster had a dark smooth and spiral body and must have been about eight meters long, with a diameter of almost a meter at its thickest. As it moved, the creature's body "undulated rhythmically" and its head, a horse's head with enormous jaws and sharp white teeth, seemed to rest on the surface of the water.
31
At a time in which magic and reality peacefully shared the same dimension - those were the times when the city was founded – and the boundaries between these worlds were not as clear as they are today, there lived a young sherman named Orio.
32
One night he was throwing his nets o the shores of Malamocco; as he drew them into his boat, he felt they were unusually heavy.
"Please, set me free; set me free and you won't regret it".
at sweet anxious voice, which came from the water deep in the darkness where nothing could be seen, took him so greatly by surprise that he jumped back and fell sprawling down into the bottom of the boat.
33
en he heard a delighted, crystalline laugh and two feminine hands followed by a beautiful face caught in the net, peered out from one side: "I'm sorry, I didn‘t mean to scare you - said what appeared to be a very beautiful girl in my situation I should be the frightened one. Set me free, please!"
Orio started, overwhelmed by her beauty, and - attempting to stay calm - he began to ask questions as he freed her from the net: "What are you doing in the water at this hour of the night? You're not a witch who fell o her broomstick, are you?".
"Oh, no, my young friend - she answered - I'm simply a mermaid . Melusina is my name", she said, as a beautiful sh's tail rose over the edge.
Orio was shocked: nevertheless, the sh-woman's beauty had hit home.
e young sherman was hopelessly in love.
ey talked until dawn, and parted with the promise that they would meet again every night on a nearby beach. And so they did: Orio sat in the shallow water near the shore waiting for Melusina, and she never failed to come; towards the end of their encounters, in the morning, she quickly lled his nets.
Many a time the sherman had asked for her hand in marriage, and she had declared her willingness to relinquish the freedom of the sea to acquire legs.
34
35
THE ONLY CONDITION SHE SET WAS THAT UNTIL THEIR WEDDING DAY, HE SHOULD NOT COME TO SEE HER ON SATURDAY.
36
Everything went ne for two weeks, but on the third Saturday a er their rst encounter, the sherman was unable to resist, and went to their appointed spot as usual. When he arrived, there was no-one there. He waited and waited, but nothing happened.
He was about to leave when a huge sea serpent emerged from the nearby rocks and swam quickly past him. Terri ed, the sherman jumped to his feet and ran breathlessly down the beach. He stopped to catch his breath, when he heard a voice call to him from the water:
"You fool, why did you come today? I told you not to come on Saturdays: that is the day an evil curse turns me into a snake. But a er you marry me, I will remain beautiful, just as you knew me."
So the wedding took place, and it was a successful union from the start: they were happy together, and soon had three children; Orio always had work, and easily fed his large family.
But one day Melusina fell gravely ill, and died shortly therea er. Before her death, she asked her husband to bury her at sea, at the spot where they met, and he ful lled her wish.
He was desperate: besides having lost the person he loved so dearly, he now had to take care of his children and his house, and he really did not know where to turn; but two days later he realized that everything was being regularly put in order, and the children were always neat and clean. Orio thought a compassionate neighbor might secretly be coming to help him with the housework.
But one Saturday morning he came home earlier than usual, and found a huge snake in the kitchen: without a moment of hesitation he took the ax he used for the rewood and chopped o its head; before throwing it away, he showed everyone in the neighborhood what a tragedy he had prevented by coming home just in time.
37
But from that moment on both house and children suddenly seemed abandoned.
Only then, in despair, did he realize what he had done: the snake was his Melusina who had secretly been coming to do the housework and take care of the children, and he had unknowingly killed her forever.
is story is immortalized by the heart of stone which now marks the spot where Orio and Melusina's house once stood.
Legend has it, that when a couple in love touches it together at the same time, their love will last forever.
And if someone without a partner touches it, they will nd love within a year.
38
39
40
e sound of water - the sound of music, both ow through us, bursting the narrow boundaries of our self. Listen to the music of the greatest composer of Venice, Antonio Vivaldi, and you will see: Like diving in water your boundaries begin to dissolve, your soul resonates with the ow of the melody.
You will unite with something that transcends us.
41
42
A V
Antonio Vivaldi, as a priest, had dedicated his life to God and his music owed like a stream into the sea of divine harmony. But if God is the uniting, the dividing is the devil. And Vivaldi's genius was naturally a thorn in the side of the devil.
Already at his birth he is said to have interfered: the little Antonio was brought weak and ill into the world and baptized in the nearby church of Bragola as quickly as possible.
e devil also prevented him from performing his priesthood regularly: We know from a letter of Vivaldi that he was always struck by inexplicable pain during the celebration of Mass.
So, the priest with the ery red devil hair was relieved of the duty of performing the Mass and started teaching music in an orphanage for girls.
He soon rose to become one of the most important and popular composers in Europe, but the devil didn’t stop vexing him: Still on his deathbed, Vivaldi lamented that all his life he could only hear his masterpiece in his head, but never put it on paper.
e devil had divided his art from the implementation of his genius. And he demanded Vivaldi's soul for the li ing of this blockade.
43
3 8 So if you hear an unear- thly meloon on some nig#hts, then you Bec- #ause in the- se nights Vivaldi‘s #piece‘s mel- ody on the shim- mer3 8 3 8 3 8 44
mel- ody wafting over the wat-
ers of the lagsho- #uld not be over- come by hor- ror.
Vivaldi‘s saved soul writes his mastering wat- ers of the can#als of Ven- ice.
45
~ Ray Bradbury
