Ghosts in Venice Halloween Fun

Dressing up is Fun

Ghosts in Venice
La Serenissima, sublime and steeped in history, has its share of ghost stories and hauntings. Many of these appear in literature down the ages. Tartini’s 18th century text Curiosita Veneziane refers to a ‘palace of spirits’ on the corner of Sacca della Misericordia, and speculates that its name originates from the strange noises to be heard from within. Perhaps these are generated by wind or echo, or simply voices transmitted from the Fondamente Nuove, but for the purposes of Halloween we will let our imaginations run wild!
Not far from this point in Campo dei Mori, is the Palazzo del Cammello, called Camel Palace because it has the noble ship of the desert portrayed on a bas-reiief on its front. In 1757 the palace was the alleged scene for the presence of a poltergeist. Tassini reports from that time that ‘for several evenings and at the same times, all the five bells inside the rooms of the palace were heard ringing.’: ‘there was much fear, women fainting, blood curling,’. The poor residents of the palace had to request the Chaplain from the Scuola di San Fantin to come and exorcise the apparition.

Poor Old Bruno-Ahead of His Time
The palace of Ca’ Mocenigo too was reputedly troubled by a distinguished, walking dead. Giordano Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600), born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, who is best known as a proponent of the infinity of the universe. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in identifying the Sun as just one of an infinite number of independently moving heavenly bodies: he is the first European man to have conceptualized the universe as a continuum where the stars we see at night are identical in nature to the Sun. Far-sighted views in those days and sufficient for him to be burned at the stake by the authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy.

The Venetian connection was that Bruno had been in-house tutor to Mocenigo for about two months. When Bruno announced his plan to leave Venice to his host, the latter, who was unhappy with the teachings he had received and had apparently developed a personal rancour towards Bruno, denounced him to the Venetian Inquisition, who had Bruno arrested on May 22, 1592. Among the numerous charges of blasphemy and heresy brought against him in Venice by Mocenigo, was his belief in the plurality of worlds, as well as accusations of personal misconduct. Bruno defended himself skillfully, stressing the philosophical character of some of his positions, denying others and admitting that he had had doubts on some matters of dogma. The Roman Inquisition, however, asked for his transferral to Rome. After several months and some quibbling the Venetian authorities reluctantly consented and Bruno was sent to Rome in February 1593. Strange perhaps that his troubled soul should return to Venice to cause mischief, but perhaps it was simple retaliation for his host’s ingratitude and criticism of his teachings, never denunciation.

Ca’ Dario is one of Venice’s most mysterious and eerie palaces but despite large numbers of owners ending their lives tragically there are few reliable tales of hauntings. Its bloody history is a litany of violent deaths and suicide. One of the more recent of these events was the suicide of Christopher Lambert, erstwhile manager of the Who rock group. Lambert bought the palace in the 80s, and later committed suicide by slashing his wrists. The palace is now owned by a multinational who, one presumes, hope a spread ownership may prevent a recurrence.

Massariol-Mind Your Breasts
More amusing is the legend of Massariol, a cheerful prankster, elf. His favourite trick was to change into a coiled rope and when a woman clutched it to her bosom, he (the rope) would chant ‘touch the breasts, touch the breasts! Truly we have here an elf who would have fitted comfortably into many a junior school. But what we may ask, were Venetian women doing, clutching coils of rope to their breasts?

More recently in the fifties an elderly Jewish man with a beard, perhaps a Rabbi, appeared in a house in the ghetto an in the synagogue.

Zani the Bellringer
Another ‘famous’ Venetian ghost is that of the Saint Mark’s Campanero, bell-ringer, a very tall man named Zani, whose skeleton is conserved at the Museum of Natural History at the Fondaco dei Turchi, across from San Marcuola. I cannot find any references to the period he lived in but reputedly he leaves the museum and twelve tolls occasionally at midnight. Gianni Nosenghi reports on this and other Venetian mysteries in his book entitled ‘the great book of solved and unsolved Venetian mysteries’ ‘il grande libro dei misteri di Venezia risolti e irrisolti’ and that book would make a great starting point for caring to undertake further research

Sleep Well at Venice Youth Hostel
Finally, you will probably be able to sleep without interruption in the Venice Youth Hostel for we have heard no reports of ethereal beings there, beyond those of a few undernourished students. For haunted hostels you will have to go to Florence. There the youth hostel in the 7 Santi convent is reputed to be haunted and the whispers of souls trapped in its walls may be heard if you are lucky-or is that unlucky? Certainly the intolerance, treacheries and poisonings of the Borgias would have provided a rich seam of potentially tortured souls!

For more news, views, features and inside visitor information on Venice visit veniceinfosite.com

Thanks to Goldberg for the photo

Venice Sinking Under Weight of 13 Million Plastic Bottles

The Problem with Bottled Water
Bottled water is a worldwide environmental problem. The plastic water bottles consume large amounts of oil in their manufacture, may leach chemicals into the water they contain, and do not biodegrade for hundreds of years.

These Plastic Bottles Floating at Sea Will Take Hundreds of Years to Biodegrade

Re-used bottles can leach even more chemicals into any water or other liquid you put into them. Bottled water may simply be filtered tap water, or of inferior quality to tap water. The bottles are ‘disposed of’ in increasingly scarce landfill sites, or clog up the sea, breaking into smaller and more dangerous particles but still not biodegrading. Some 85% are never recycled. Last year scientists confirmed that there are millions of tons of plastic floating around the Pacific Ocean in an area known as the North Pacific Gyre, a slow moving vortex. Four major currents have carried millions of tons of rubbish into the remote area, with the mostly plastic refuse now covering an area estimated to be larger than Texas. Moreover, water is heavy and the transportation of bottled water is an energy intensive activity.

20 Million Tourits = 13 Million Plastic Bottles
Over 20 million tourists visit Venice every year, drinking an estimated 13 million bottles of water, in addition to those consumed by the 60,000 inhabitants. No wonder Venice is sinking. Tourists tend to be suspicious of tap water and the public water fountains in Venice are unmarked, and appear old and corroded. No surprise that the sight of tourists clutching plastic bottles is ubiquitous. In fact, tap water in Italy is strictly controlled and Venetian water comes from the same sources as some bottled waters.

Unmarked and Corroded Water Fountain in Venice

As well as massive environmental impact, the disposal of all those plastic bottles is a huge cost to the local economy. Waste disposal costs around $335 per ton in Venice compared with $84 per ton on the mainland.

How Other Regions in Italy Are Tackling the Problem
And yet there is much that can be done to change this. The Italian region of Cinque Terre is an area of World Heritage coast, which lies south of Genoa in the province of Liguria. Some 3 million tourists visit the area every year discarding two million plastic bottles, some of which tumble down the cliffs and end up littering local beaches and polluting the sea.

Under a new initiative, tourists entering the national park which encloses the region will be encouraged to buy one litre reusable flasks, stamped with the park’s logo. Automated water fountains offering chilled, fizzy and still water will be installed in the coming months so they can replenish their water supply as they hike the nine mile long coastline.

Franco Bonanini, the president of the Cinque Terre national park, said the ban was being introduced because the area was being “buried” in plastic. “With so many visitors, the footpaths and villages of the Cinque Terre are at risk of being transformed into a great big open air dustbin. We are going to update the existing water fountains and install new ones: they will provide people with still or sparkling filtrated water. By the start of next Spring, we hope to have liberated ourselves from this nightmare,” said Mr Bonanini. “If the Cinque Terre is reduced to a rubbish dump in five years’ time, they will suffer the consequences. This is a sacrifice that will benefit shopkeepers and everyone else. To the three million tourists who come here every year, we ask them for a little bit of understanding, in order to save this paradise for the future.”

In Florence too, action has been taken but mainly for residents rather than the millions of tourists that descend on the city each year. “Fontanelli” have been installed around the city that dispense cooled water and at one even sparkling water. In 2009, 6 million litres of water were distributed from these fountains in and around Florence, saving families over a million Euros in cost, and avoiding 15.000 kilograms of plastic, or 1.5 million bottles, from being introduced into the environment. These water fountains all lie outside the Florence ring road, hence their limited impact on tourists. But it’s still a great step in the right direction.

Fountains are Unused Even in Popular Locations

Three years ago Venice created Veritas, a municipal umbrella company that is responsible both for city water and for rubbish collection in the region. Officials of the new company realized that by promoting the former, they could reduce the latter and rubbish collection costs. A campaign in Italian run by the last Mayor was aimed at the 60,000 inhabitants. Venetian officials claim some success for the scheme with the amount of plastic refuse down to 261 tons a month now from 288 tons a year ago. But with tourists outnumbering residents by a factor of over 300 the real impact will only happen when the campaign is rolled out to tourists in languages other than Italian. Shopkeepers may not like it losing sales of bottled water but they can be rewarded through a generous cut of sales of a recyclable flask.

The Main Issues in Venice are:

•No publicity about the public water fountains in any language

•Absolutely no labelling on the fountains saying ‘drinking water’

•Water fountains that are old and corroded and do not appear attractive and are therefore hardly used

•Fountains that run continuously adding to the impression that this is not quality drinking water and adding to waste

The Time for Tap Campaign says let’s stop this crazy environmental destruction now. Our clear pragmatic objectives can easily be implemented in stages:

• A publicity campaign aimed at tourists i.e in English and other common languages alerting them to the public water fountains, their location and the fact they dispense excellent quality drinking water

• The provision of more public fountains

• The replacement of old fountains, with ones that dispense water with valve operation

• The provision of recyclable flasks as in the Cinque Terre initiative

• To work towards a ban on the use of plastic bottles on the all the Venice islands

To join the Time for Tap Campaign click here

For more news, features and information on Venice visit veniceinfosite.com