TORCELLO

Photo:static.panoramio.com/photos/original/3970425.jpg

In 1997 Dennis and I left Rome after the official end of the St. Dominic’s Choir Pilgrimage Tour and spent a few days in Vicenza. Then from Vicenza we took the train to Venezia for our second time together. We stayed two days at a small hotel near San Marco, and later moved to the Artigianelli Monastery in the Zatterre.

Dennis was so pleased when we were stopped by some students in a more remote part of the city and were asked to register to vote. In our cordoroys, sensible shoes, wool caps and Barbour coats, we didn’t look like tourists. They actually thought we were Venetians!

On our last day of the trip, we took the large water-bus to the island of Torcello, the furthest away from the main city. On the way we stopped at another island and had a terrific lunch at a restaurant apparently frequented by local fishermen. We arrived at Torcello near the end of daylight. It’s perfectly flat and very empty. There wasn’t much there besides an inn run by Cipriani, an old Byzantine church and the original 7th century cathedral. Torcello had been the first settlement for Venice, but was later abandoned because of malaria. Much of the island is now cultivated.

We entered the cathedral, which appeared to be empty. Scaffolding blocked an unobstructed view of the apse with its marvelous mosaics of Mary. In the darkened nave, Dennis and I sang a plainsong Salve Regina (one that Dennis had sung regularly at Summer Benedictine Camp). Previously unseen German tourists complimented our singing.

We exited the cathedral to see the sun setting over the lagoon. It was a perfect moment. We had time to go back to Venice for dinner before heading off to Milan to catch our flight home the next morning. Instead we decided to collect our things and leave directly for Milano. Nothing could surpass that sublime experience!

How different would be the second and third visits to Torcello.

While Dennis had been upset that I had paid his way to Italy and Venice in 1997, we returned three more times in 2000, 2003 & 2006.

In 2000 we were in Venice just a few foggy, rainy days before starting our Mediterranean cruise out of the port near Rome. We didn’t go back to Torcello then, but we did take the elevator to the top of the campanile by San Marco. (I had been there before in 1979, in much better weather.)

In Rome we stayed at a convent just around the corner from Piazza Navona. On the first full day we took a side trip to Subiaco to see the cave where St. Benedict had his extraordinary vision and later founded the Benedictine order. We missed the last bus from town, and ended up walking about three miles up hill. On the way we passed the ruins of one of Nero’s villas, where he committed suicide after being hunted down by his enemies. Dennis was about to give up, but with encouragement we continued to the top. Being there fulfilled one of Dennis’ lifelong goals.

In 2003 we had an offer from US Airways for really cheap tickets to Rome, so we decided to go to the opening of Carnevale in Venezia. My niece Allison Martin was studying at Christie’s in London at the time, and we invited her to join us in Venice. Actually, as I recall, the original offer was for inexpensive tickets to London to visit Allison, but Dennis said he’d rather go to Italy.

In Venezia we stayed again at the Artigianelli Monastery in the Zattere.We left a message for Allison and her boyfriend at their hotel on the Lido to meet us at Café Florian in Piazza San Marco. They got the message and had already saved us an inside table when we met them.

Dennis and I brought 18th Century costumes rented from the Bohemian Club thanks to my friend, John Blauer, head of costumes at the club. We had silk long johns to give a little substance to the clothes designed primarily for indoor productions. Allison and her friend brought costumes from London. We wore them to dinner at a restaurant next to Quadri.

We missed the official opening of Carnevale that Sunday in order to visit three Palladian villas in the Veneto. We rented a car which I drove. The tricky part was navigating through Mestre and making connections north. We first went to Villa Cornaro, where we had to make special arrangements for a private tour. We met the young lad at the Palladio Café across the street from the villa. Then we drove to Villa Barbaro with its extraordinary frescos by Veronese and the handsome chapel, where Palladio reportedly died after falling off a scaffold. We saved Villa Emo, Dennis’ favorite, for last. It was a perfectly wonder-filled day!

Allison and her friend flew back to London the following morning. Dennis and I had two more days in Venice before returning to Rome on the night train to make our return flight from Leonardo da Vinci. Before leaving on the trip (which we nearly had to cancel because of a severe snow storm which had shut down the entire East Coast from Boston to Atlanta – then at the last minute, were able to make connections to Frankfurt through Pittsburgh PA) Dennis had emailed Karen Marshall with Save Venice in New York. Karen is a marvelous photographer, and Dennis wrote to ask for her suggestions in Venice. I printed out Karen’s email with a list of her favorite places in Venice and decided we should try to visit all of them. That proved to be a major problem and eventual disappointment for Dennis (and for me).

We accomplished a great deal on Monday, but Ca’ Rezonico was closed and Dennis just knew it would be one of his favorite places on earth. So we went on Tuesday morning, which threw off our – or my—planned itinerary. Karen had recommended we visit Torcello to climb the campanile, which had just reopened after several years’ restoration. As mentioned earlier, our first visit to Torcello in 1997 had been perfect.

On the way, we went to Burano and stayed for lunch. Afterwards we visited the main church, which reopened later than I had thought. By the time we reached Torcello, Dennis was irritated with me and agitated. He wouldn’t climb the campanile. He wouldn’t even go in the cathedral. Fuming, he sat and smoked. I decided we should return to the Zatterre right away. But we had just missed the boat. We waited….and waited ….and Dennis got more and more agitated.

His concern was we would be late for our gondola ride to dinner. This was to be our very first gondola ride. Dennis had never before wanted to pay the exorbitant fee. On a regular basis, we had taken traghetti (stand-up gondolas from point A to point B across the Grand Canal) but had never taken a sit-down view-ride up the Grand Canal.

Our train to Rome left at midnight, so our plan was to check out of the Artigianelli, leave our luggage by the front desk, and meet the group by the Gritti Palace vaporetto stop for the costumed ride to dinner.

We finally made our connections, returned to the monastery, and changed clothes with about fifteen minutes to spare to join the group. On the vaporetto we saw an American couple dressed in bumblebee costumes and asked them which location was the Gritti Palace stop. I should have asked where they were heading.

We got off. Nobody was there!!!

A lesson I’ve since learned is never to trust a web-site itinerary without first checking for any changes at the actual site. I had a printout of the scheduled event back when Dennis reserved it online. But details of the meeting place had changed without our knowledge.

We waited and waited. I checked with the doorman at the Gritti Palace Hotel. He knew nothing. (The event planners should have notified him!)

We fretted and walked around. After three quarters of an hour we both decided to try to find the restaurant near the fish market on the other side of the Rialto Bridge. We had already missed our paid gondola ride up the Grand Canal!

Eventually we found the restaurant and learned that they had waited about half an hour for us at the very next vaporetto stop by Harry’s Bar. We must have just missed seeing them going up the Grand Canal where we could have hailed them.

Dinner had already begun. People were in fine and colorful costumes. The bumblebee couple was sitting at the next table. Dennis seemed amazingly calm and carried on delightful conversations with everybody at our table. I was morose—and ended up getting quite drunk on wine.

After dinner we took the vaporetto back to the Accademia stop to go to the Artigianelli, change clothes, pick up our bags, and head to the stazione for our midnight train to Rome.

Although I had used the John at the restaurant, I badly needed to go again! But all the public restrooms were closed and padlocked. I couldn’t wait to make the Artigianelli, so in desperation I went to a calle near the Accademia Bridge to relieve myself. As drunk as I was— I was still ashamed— but couldn’t help myself.

At last we got on the train. It was filled with Italian soldiers, some of whom were coughing repeatedly. I didn’t sleep at all that night ---and ended up getting bronchitis after our return to San Francisco.

In Rome we checked into the Istituto Santa Giulianna Falconieri, the convent around the corner from Piazza Navona. We spent the entire day in the Piazza. Dennis smoked—and we both drank strong Italian coffee. Dennis struck up conversations with several painters. He bought one handsome painting of Venice by Alberto Tropeo (who later painted the marvelous commissioned portrait of India Pudding). I bought another view of Venice from him, also a painting of Piazza Navona itself.

In Venice, Dennis had bought his first painting of Venezia when I went to the train station to get a new transit card. I had lost my VeniceCard (good for transportation, some museums, and rest rooms) at a rest stop after we had reserved the rental car for the Sunday we visited the three Palladian villas. Dennis was quite amused at my predicament. You must purchase the all-inclusive VeniceCard out of the country, so I had to settle for a transit card alone. While I was gone, Dennis drank bottled Bellini cocktails in Piazza San Marco, and bought his painting of Venice from Picchio Santangelo (the same artist from whom he would later buy four paintings on our last day in Venice 28 February 2006). This painting had a wonderful sky, but the figures in the foreground were rather primitive.

When I returned with my new transit card, Dennis told me he had bought a painting, but that I couldn’t look at it until we got home – that this was a “Yes, Dear” moment.

Back in Rome, we headed to the Stazione Termini to take the train to the airport. We had plenty of time to make the flight. But what should have taken about an hour ended up being closer to three. We later heard that a young girl had been hit by a train! We just made the flight as the gate was closing. After 9/11 that wouldn’t have worked. (In October 2006 Dennis and I flew to Phoenix Arizona for Carl Noelke’s installation in the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. I had suggested taking BART to SFO. We were delayed three quarters of an hour near Daly City for construction and missed our plane even though we arrived 25 minutes before takeoff.)

On the flight from Rome, I struck up a conversation with a young American woman who was returning with her husband from their honeymoon in Italy. I related the story of our missed gondola ride. When the young woman got up to stretch her legs, Dennis turned to me very seriously and declared that he never wanted me to talk about that again – he never wanted to hear about it from any of our friends, especially Deb – that it was as painful to hear it retold, as it had been to experience it in the first place.

For several years I never did……..until Dennis was dying.

PALLADIAN/VENETIAN WINDOWS

For several years now, I had been attempting to find a generic name with 'oomph' -- for an architectural motif I think has been mis-named.

What’s in a name anyway? Juliet and that nursery rhyme about “sticks and stones” aside, I think proper or accurate nomenclature can be essential-- for good or not-- for power and beauty-- for attribution. I propose that to a disinterested --that is impartial-- observer with no preconceived associations, the word “diarrhea” is a prettier word than -- let’s say --“pulchritude.” And I am certain that had Adolf’s father not changed his surname from Schickelgruber we might never have had to experience the trauma of World War II. Can you imagine “Heil, Schickelgruber?” Anyway, back to architecture. (Though it is a pity the selecting panel at the Vienna Art Institute didn’t bend it’s rules, swallow their pride or just plain do whatever it took, to accept young Adolf.)

So what I was seeking was a generic word to describe what in England is commonly called ‘Venetian,’ in Venice is usually referred to as a ‘Serliana,’ and in America is labeled ‘Palladian’~~ that is, a center-arched triple window. I grew up in Central Pennsylvania, where we had numerous splendid examples of this motif in windows and doorways. You find it at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, sometimes at banks, frequently in fine old brick Georgian mansions. I’ve always loved the design and wondered where it came from. As I learned about Andrea Palladio, the great Italian Rennaisance architect, I found that even his name was made up - a rather high sounding attempt to connect with classical times, perhaps Pallas Athena. In any case, Palladio used the motif for the first time in his re-do of the basilica in Vicenza about 1549. Serlio employed it perhaps earlier. There really are not many examples of the motif in Venice, though both Serlio and Palladio wrote books of architecture and first published them in Venice; so I suppose that is some kind of Venetian connection. So I thought about calling it: “Venetian (?)” -- that is with the paranthetical question mark. But that’s rather fussy and not completely accurate; because as I did some research, I discovered a good forty examples before the time of Serlio and Palladio and quite a few were more than a thousand years before their births. The earliest example I came across is depicted in low relief on the side of a Triumphal Arch to Julius Caesar in L’Orange France. That it was on the side at first misled me ~~ until after many years,I finally came up with an appropriate name. And interestingly enough, it originated --of all places-- in Venice.

I was looking at a book on Titian and came across a photo of his tomb in Santa Maria dei Frari the church where his magnificent Assumption of the Virgin is the altar piece. The ornate and rather clumsy memorial was erected by the Austrians in 1852. But the motif is clearly a “Venetian-Palladian-Serliana.” The caption to the photo said:.....”Crowning the triumphal arch above him is the Lion of Saint Mark.... with the Habsburg shield.” Triumphal Arch--- of course! That’s exactly what it is. That’s what the doors are-- that’s what the windows are. The motif is TRIUMPHAL. And think about it-- a three syllable word describing a triple motif. In architecture, “triumphal” almost invariably connotes “ARCH,” and the word actually begins with the Latin prefix for three. It’s perfect. So my new name for my favorite window is “TRIumphal.” That can be a TRIumphal door, window, series---you name it. Dennis asked me: “So what’s an ‘umph’?” I don’t know; but the name has exactly what I was looking for: a generic name with “oomph.”

Seven years ago, I was back in Venice with some of Dennis' ashes. (My latest trip was just a month ago when most of my posts were on FaceBook.) Dennis died in early April 2006 almost exactly one month after our final trip together to Venezia. He's at the base of an olive tree in one of our favorite cloisters in the Zattere, and sprinkled around several rose bushes. I also left an inlaid box of his ashes under a very large chest in the Frari within sight of the marvelous Titian altar piece. Someday I'll join him.

Image:thingsthatinspire.net

ANDREA PALLADIO'S 506th BIRTHDAY

Today in 2014 is the five hundred and sixth birthday of Andrea Di Pietro della Gondola, better known as Andrea Palladio. Clearly he got his first name from the date, St. Andrew’s Day. But his name Palladio was given to him as a young man by Gian Giorgio Trissino, a leading scholar of the time, who had written an epic poem in which he described an archangel called Palladio. Young Andrea learned the principles of classical architecture when he worked on new additions for a villa owned by Trissino, who gave the name Palladio to Andrea in an attempt to connect him with Classical times and perhaps in reference to the goddess Pallas Athene.

On our first trip together to Venice in 1987, Dennis and I took a boat tour up the Brenta canal from the Venetian Lagoon to Padua. We stopped at several villas including Villa Foscari, called La Malcontenta, which soon became one of Dennis’ favorites. We especially loved the vaulted cruciform central salon.

Of course we visited the great Palladian churches, San Giorgio Maggiore with its wonderful bell tower and Il Redentore. In fact we timed our visit to coincide with the Festa del Redentore. This festival commemorates the end of the 1576 bubonic plague that killed tens of thousands of Venetians. There was a week-long program of events leading up to the third Sunday in July. Every year, the Doge had made a pilgrimage to Palladio’s Franciscan church by way of a bridge of boats erected especially for the occasion. In late July visitors can make this same pilgrimage to the island across the pontoon bridge from the Zattere - the only time the Giudecca is accessible on foot. During the festival, there are bands, a regatta, and musical performances. The fireworks display on the final Sunday night was one of the most impressive we’d experienced anywhere. We had a perfect view around the corner from the old Custom House.

In 1997 we spent a few days in Vicenza. We even stayed at a B&B called Palladio. We had chosen it for its location near the central piazza and, of course, for its name (though it turned out, not to be very Palladian.) When I returned to Vicenza two years ago last August, it was gutted and being gentrified …and hopefully becoming a better reflection of the great architect.

(We had much better luck choosing a restaurant by its name when we were in Virginia five years ago for the Montpelier Hunt Race. After visiting the shell of Mr. Madison’s house being restored, and watching the races, we visited Barboursville winery named for Mr. Jefferson’s ruined Palladian house nearby–burned down by a Christmas tree— and then managed to get a reservation for dinner at the restaurant Palladio. It happened to be one of the best restaurants we ever experienced.)

In 1997 we visited the Basilica, Palladio’s first great civic commission in Vicenza from 1549, which established his reputation. To support a crumbling medieval structure he enclosed the older building in a new classical shell and disguised the irregularity of the window units by employing a series later called the Palladian motif. It was a three-part-design with a central arch. Palladio unified the elevation with consistent central arches, but camouflaged the irregularities by varying the widths of the horizontal side elements. (Please refer to my blog posting Palladio/Venetian Windows 9/5/08.) In August 2007 the Basilica was closed for renovations, which included a new roof.

Dennis and I also visited Palladio’s enclosed interpretation of an ancient Greek theatre, Teatro Olimpico, in Vicenza, with its extraordinary perspective and permanent architectural stage set. My friend and former Chanticleer colleague, Randall Wong, has performed on that stage in several Baroque operas.

A number of Palladio’s architectural innovations were his mistaken attempts to reconstruct ancient Greek and Roman building elements. He assumed that Greek and Roman temples were glorified versions of Greek and Roman houses. Since the temples had columned porticos, the houses must have too, even though he wasn’t aware of any surviving examples. So the wonderful temple porticos on Georgian country houses and Ante-Bellum plantations in the American South were originally based on faulty historical scholarship. How lucky for us!

Andrea Palladio is widely considered to be one of the most influential people in the history of Western Architecture. Apart from his actual buildings, of which there are relatively few in northern Italy, his influence derives more from his published treatise: Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (the Four Books of Architecture) published in Venice in 1570. Also his many drawings were bought from his student Vincenzo Scamozzi by the English architect Inigo Jones, and were later acquired by Lord Burlington. So today they are in London. (There was an extensive exhibition of Andrea Palladio at the Royal Academy of Art from January 30 through April 13, 2009.)

“Palladio's architecture was not dependent on expensive materials, which must have been an advantage to his more financially-pressed clients. Many of his buildings are of brick covered with stucco. In the later part of his career, Palladio was chosen by powerful members of Venetian society for numerous important commissions. His success as an architect is based not only on the beauty of his work, but also for its harmony with the culture of his time. His success and influence was a result of the integration of extraordinary aesthetic quality with expressive characteristics that resonated with his client's social aspirations. His buildings served to visually communicate their place in the social order of their culture. This integration of beauty and deep meaning is apparent in three major building types: the urban palazzo, the agricultural villa, and the church.

In his urban structures he developed a new improved version of the typical early renaissance palazzo (exemplified by the Palazzo Strozzi). Adapting a new urban palazzo type created by Bramante in the House of Raphael Palladio found a powerful expression of the importance of the owner and his social position. The main living quarters of the owner on the second level are now clearly distinguished in importance by use of a flattened classical portico, centered and raised above the subsidiary and utilitarian ground level (illustrated in the Palazzo da Porto Festa and the Palazzo Valmarana Braga). The tallness of the portico is achieved by incorporating the owner's sleeping quarters on the third level, within a giant two story classical colonnade, a motif adapted from Michelangelo's Capitoline buildings in Rome. The main floor level became known as the "piano nobile", and is still referred to as the "first floor" in continental Europe.

Palladio also established an influential new building format for the agricultural villas of the Venetian aristocracy. He consolidated the various stand-alone farm outbuildings into a single impressive structure, arranged as a highly organized whole dominated by a strong center and symmetrical side wings, as illustrated at Villa Barbaro. The Palladian villa configuration often consists of a centralized block raised on an elevated podium, accessed by grand steps and flanked by lower service wings, as at Villa Foscari and Villa Badoer. This format, with the quarters of the owner at the elevated center of their own universe, found resonance as a prototype for Italian villas and later for the country estates of the English nobility (such as Lord Burlington's Chiswick House, Vanbrugh's Blenheim, Walpole's Houghton Hall, and Adam's Kedleston Hall). The configuration was a perfect architectural expression of their perceived position in the social order of the times. His influence was extended worldwide into the British colonies. The Palladian villa format can seen at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and as recently as 1940 in Pope's National Gallery in Washington DC, adapted to convey the importance of art. The rustication of exposed basement walls of Victorian residences are a remnant of the Palladian podium.

Similarly, Palladio created a new configuration for the design of Roman Catholic churches that established two interlocking architectural orders, each clearly articulated yet delineating a hierarchy of a larger order overriding a lesser order. This idea was in direct coincidence with the rising acceptance of the theological ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas, who postulated the notion of two worlds existing simultaneously: the divine world of faith and the earthly world of man. Palladio created an architecture which made a visual statement communicating the idea of two superimposed systems, as illustrated at San Francesco della Vigna.” Wikipedia

In 2003 Dennis and I had an offer from US Airways for really cheap tickets to Rome, so we decided to go to the opening of Carnevale in Venezia. My niece Allison Martin was studying at Christie’s in London at the time, and we invited her to join us in Venice. Actually, as I recall, the original offer was for inexpensive tickets to London to visit Allison, but Dennis said he’d rather go to Italy.

Before taking the train to Venice, we stayed at a large convent in the Trastevere and had dinner at a café, where I had had lunch my crazy jam-packed day in 1997 when I visited more than twenty churches, and five museums. (It had been our only free day in Rome when on a concert tour with the choir from St. Dominic’s Church in San Francisco!) In 2003 Dennis and I climbed the hill and saw the outside of Bramante’s Tempietto, (then closed) whose interior I had entered in 1997.

In Venezia we stayed again at the Artigianelli Monastery in the Zattere. We left a message for Allison and her friend at their hotel on the Lido to meet us at Café Florian in Piazza San Marco. They got the message and had already saved us an inside table when we met them.

Dennis and I brought 18^th Century costumes rented from the Bohemian Club thanks to my friend, John Blauer, head of costumes at the club. We had silk long johns to give a little substance to the clothes designed primarily for indoor productions. Allison and her friend brought costumes from London. We wore them to dinner at a restaurant next to Quadri.

We missed the official opening of Carnevale that Sunday in order to visit three Palladian villas in the Veneto. We rented a car which I drove. The tricky part was navigating through Mestre and making connections north. We first went to Villa Cornaro, where we had to make special arrangements for a private tour. We met the young lad at the Palladio Café across the street from the villa. Villa Cornaro was the inspiration for Jefferson’s original version of Monticello. It is owned by a family from Atlanta. Sally and Carl Gable have written a fascinating book about their house called Palladian Days. Then we drove to Villa Barbaro with its extraordinary frescos by Veronese and the handsome chapel, where Palladio reportedly died after falling off a scaffold. We saved Villa Emo, Dennis’ favorite, for last. It was a perfectly wonder-filled day!

Dennis and I also visited the former Roman Catholic Cathedral during that trip to Venezia. Palladio designed and supervised construction of the façade of San Pietro di Castello, which was his first commission in the city of the Lagoon. It’s not in the most convenient location, which may symbolize Venice’s troubled relationship with the Roman Church. It was only relatively recent – about one hundred years ago – that San Marco, the former Ducal Chapel, became the official Cathedral for Venice. (The original cathedral, of course, had been on Torcello. I have a story about that, which I’ll relate in a posting next February.)

I returned to Venice and Vicenza seven years ago August with some of Dennis’ ashes. He’s now in six or seven locations throughout the Veneto. I also sprinkled a hand full under a rose bush in the garden at Villa Almerico-Capra, popularly known as Villa Rotunda.

My iPhone photo of rose garden at Villa Rotunda

TEATRO OLIMPICO Inaugurated 1585 ~ Vicenza

Photo: italianvisits.com/images/

(For more on Palladio, please see my posts on November 30, 2008 and September 5, 2008.)