The Great Escape – unmasking the wonders of the Venice Carnival
Carnival has returned to Venice after a two-year absence — but this time, it has been something of un Carnevale ristretto, a cutback show owing to continuing Covid restrictions. This means no big outdoor events, and the famous flight of the firework dove between the flagpoles in St Mark’s Square has been dropped from the programme.
But the periwigs and flounces, tricorn hats and sinister pantomime masks have been out in force — a walking live show, part Don Giovanni, part Harry Potter.
“It has been tough through much of the winter,” says Giovanni whose silks and ties shop, Fiori, has done business since it was set up by his aunt in 1934. “Some of the shops have shut for the duration of Covid, and a lot of my neighbours won’t be opening again.
“The problem is that for months we have had nothing but Covid on the television news. It has really put people off – but the sun has helped bring out the crowds.”
Venetians show remarkable forbearance for the Covid rules — every passenger in the Vaporetto water buses wears a mask. Covid green passes are checked at almost every stop, on the Vaporetto, in bars and shops.
Plague is no stranger to the great city — as dozens of shrines, great and small, testify. On the Giudecca island rises the basilica of Il Santissimo Redentore — the Redeemer — the glorious masterpiece of Andrea Palladio; built in 1592, it was to thank God for deliverance from the plague of 1575 to 76, which killed some 46,000 people, over a quarter of the entire population.
Sneaking along the Giudecca I came across a quiet celebration of Vespers in the Redentore — half a dozen priests in full vestments, with a congregation only three times their number.
Strolling along the Giudecca makes visiting Venice at this season, with its hint of spring, such a particular and private joy. It is a vibrant little neighbourhood, with local bars spilling onto the pavements — frequented by people who really do work and live here. The half dozen trattoria offers some of the best eating in the city. They nestle close to yards building and repairing boats of all shapes and sizes for trading between the islands — and gondolas ancient and modern, each a capo lavoro of the shipwright’s craft.
Now is the season to visit Venice, as the old city, La Serenissima, is at its radiant best in the spring sunshine. I have been visiting for over 55 years, studied its past, reported on its present and future — not nearly as gloomy as some Jeremiahs would have it. It is always full of surprises and strange pleasures.
Carnival brings its own fashion season. This year the shows in the boutique windows are both practical and ironic. Most show different styles of boots, stivali di gomma (wellingtons) come up high and arch in the ankle, just like the buskins that were the mark of the courtesans of Renaissance Venice.
One of the flashiest shows is at the Prada boutique, with a brilliant mixture of highly coloured kilts and skirts on androgynous mannequins, part Michelangelo’s David, part Venus de Milo or Madonna. This year’s devil wearing Prada in Venice is strictly gender fluid.
The boots are a reminder of the devastation of the flood in November 2019, the worst since 1966, which wrecked much of the centre, and brought five-foot waves to St Mark’s. “It really set us back – a real blow, coming just before Covid struck,” says Federico, 28, head barista at Illy’s Caffè by the Royal Gardens. “But we are getting things together – and of course, we’ll have some good parties in Carnevale – even if it’s behind locked doors.”
The Royal Gardens, between the Grand Canal and St Marks, are a splendid piece of Venetian revival. For years they were abandoned but now they are restored as a quiet place for all to walk and reflect, with a great deal of British help in their resurrection.
Directly across the lagoon from the gardens lies the Island of San Giorgio, the object of my travel to Venice this time around. I had come to a meeting of British and Italian journalists known as the Venice Seminar. It has been held for 26 years in a row, with only one cancellation last year for Covid.
We discuss the view of the world from an Italian perspective — the Italian government, especially the present coalition of Mario Draghi, speaking with a candour that makes the institutional secretiveness of Whitehall almost shameful.
This year the setting made the event particularly special. San Giorgio is the site of the second great Venetian church of Andrea Palladio, and behind it lies a beautifully restored convent complex.
This is now run by the Fondazione Cini, complete with study halls, a library, archives, a modern sculpture park, a box hedge maze (dedicated to Jorge Luis Borges, naturally) and a concert hall in a converted boathouse.
The selling point, and big surprise, is a vast painting in the original refectory. The Wedding at Cana (1562) by Paolo Veronese was nabbed by Napoleon’s troops after they took Venice in 1797.
It is still displayed in the Louvre. But a group of art experts and philanthropists have cloned the painting, an amazing feat of engineering, for the setting originally intended by Veronese and his friend and collaborator Palladio.
“This is not a copy — it’s a clone, with the same textures, tones and colours,” says Marco Alvarà, a proud Venetian, scientist and entrepreneur.
“There has been quite a controversy with the Louvre (ie row) about which is the more valuable. They are the same painting — but here we have it with exactly the situation and lighting scheme that the painter and Andrea Palladio intended.”