{"id":8249,"date":"2021-03-23T14:39:39","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T13:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prosecco.wine\/buon-compleanno-venezia-1600-anni-di-un-mito-ancora-avvolto-nel-mistero\/"},"modified":"2024-02-23T09:57:11","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T08:57:11","slug":"happy-birthday-venice-1600-years-myth-still-shrouded-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosecco.wine\/en\/happy-birthday-venice-1600-years-myth-still-shrouded-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday, Venice: 1600 years of a myth still shrouded in mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 25, 2021: Venice turns 1600, and \u2013 of course \u2013 looks great for its age<\/strong>. It takes more than a global pandemic to undermine the undying charm of Venice; it takes much more than a global pandemic to extinguish the curiosity of tourists that will crowd it again and promptly ask themselves: “When was Venice born?<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

\"Venezia\"<\/p>\n

Spoiler<\/strong>: the answer isn\u2019t unique and lends itself to a series of interpretations and variations. Let’s start from the day:\u00a0for the Catholic Church, March 25 corresponds to the Annunciation of the Lord<\/strong>, an excellent omen to give birth to a city, which would thus be “blessed” on a divine level. Then the year 421: in those centuries the lagoon area was geographically shaping itself, and rivers such as Po, Adige, Brenta, Piave, Tagliamento, flowing down from the Alps and Prealps, dragged an enormous amount of sand and mud towards the sea. Slowing towards the mouth, the sediments gave life to swamps and islets which \u2013 due to the tides and currents \u2013 were transformed into long strips of land parallel to the coast: the shores (lidi<\/em>).<\/p>\n

In the middle ground, between the shores and the mainland, laid the lagoon, where an intricate labyrinth of more or less deep canals made the area difficult to access by boats, unless you know the area like the back of your hand. It is precisely for this reason that the Venetian populations, struggling with the continuous invasions by the Huns, the Sarmatians, the Goths, the Alans and the Vandals at the beginning of the 5th century, saw this area as the ideal place to take refuge. The Roman Empire, which until then had ensured a sort of \u201cprotection\u201d against invaders, was struggling with its very existence and had many other things to beat, so the Venetians accepted the fact that they had to protect themselves and began to colonize the lagoon.<\/p>\n

Just ten years after the famous Sack of Rome by the Visigoths under Alaric I, while the grandiose building of the Empire creaks under the blows of the barbarian invasions, legend has it that come Paduan consuls exiled from Padua migrated to the lagoon. Together with a group of inhabitants of the mainland, terrified by the looming threat of Attila’s Huns, they chose a place called Rivoalto (popularly interpreted as \u201chigher point\u201d, while its original meaning is \u201cdeep canal\u201d) to fix a new settlement.\u00a0Here, on 25 March 421, the first stone of the church of San Giacomo di Rialto or San Giacom\u00e9to<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 as the Venetians still call it today to differentiate it from San Giacomo dall\u2019Orio \u2013 was laid.<\/p>\n

Is the\u00a0birth of Venice<\/strong>\u00a0therefore\u00a0due to the Paduans?<\/strong>\u00a0In reality it seems like it\u2019s the result of a spite: the conquest of Padua by Venice in 1405 created significant frustrations, and several leading exponents of Paduan society contributed to building this myth as a sort of \u201cmoral redemption\u201d. In addition, a very casual fire in 1420 destroyed the archive in which it seemed there were more reliable documents relating to the foundation.<\/p>\n

Another disaster, another legend: on the occasion of a vast fire that burned many houses in Rialto, a Greek architect and ship builder \u2013 Eutinopo \u2013 would have erected San Giacom\u00e9to as a vow to God to prevent the flames from spreading excessively. The church was later consecrated not by one, but by four bishops: Severiano of Padua, Ambrogio di Altino, Giacomo di Trevigi and Epone d\u2019Opitergio.<\/p>\n

A further version tells that Eutinopo’s house \u2013 the only one made of masonry unlike the others, made of wood \u2013 would have been saved from the fire because the queen of Padua had lived there, sent there by her husband and king Giannusio. The authors of\u00a0Rialto<\/em>, Cessi and Alberti, in 1934 don\u2019t mince words:\u00a0\u00abIt\u2019s more likely to delay the construction of San Giacom\u00e9to until the second half of the twelfth century; its artistic poverty was compensated in history by the light of a legend, which has created a perhaps undeserved halo of fame\u00bb.<\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, the first document that mentions it dates back to 1152, against an \u201cofficial\u201d consecration dated 25 July 1177 depending in the early days on the Bishop of Padua. Its \u201cmiraculous\u201d aura, however, is mainly linked to the vast fire that affected Rialto in 1514, and which saw San Giacom\u00e9to incredibly escape the fury of the flames. Perhaps it is precisely from this posthumous link with Padua and with a fire that the legend took shape in the years to come, leaving the mystery still unsolved.<\/p>\n\n\t\t