VENETIAN FEAST: CARNIVAL, HISTORICAL BOAT RICE, REDENTORE, SENSA, MADONNA DELLA SALUTE
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CARNIVAL
THE HISTORICAL BOAT-RICE
FEAST OF SENSA
FEAST OF REDENTORE
FEAST OF MADONNA DELLA SALUTE
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This feast has got very ancient origins in Venice. It even seems that Carnival was already celebrated in the tenth century. During the SerenissimaRepublic the celebrations practically lasted six weeks, from the 26th December to Shrove Tuesday when the bells announced the beginning of the Lent; in this period people made merry from morning to night and the Republic tolerated everything. Everybody wore a mask behind which any social difference was temporarily abolished. Saint Mark Square and the other little squares of the town became vast stages on which people organized entertainments of any kind.
The most theatrical and impressive performance was, with no doubt, ‘the flight of the Angel’ now become the ‘Flight of the Dove’, which consisted in the acrobatics of a man whose waist was tied with ropes, who first of all had to ascend, by means of a 
pulley device, from the dock to the belfry of Saint Mark’s bell-tower and then had to go down to the balcony of Palazzo Ducale and offered some little bunches of flowers and poetical works to the Doge who, from there, was watching the show. Carnival was abolished by Napoleon at the end of the Eighteenth century. Its organization was resumed and it was brought to its original splendour from 1979.Nowadays masks coming from all over the world use to crowd the Venetian squares, but above all Saint Mark square and its cafés; besides the traditional masks you can see queer and quaint disguises, and many dances, parties, concerts andperformances in theatres are organized. On the last day, then, out of respect for tradition, the image of Carnival is burnt in St. Mark Square.
THE HISTORICAL BOAT-RACE - THE " REGATA STORICA"
One of the most important events in Venice is, with no doubt, the Regata Storica: a sumptuous boat procession precedes the races performed by boats of the same kind (race of small gondolas and so on).
The first evidences related to rowing races date back to the middle of the thirteenth century even if
it is possible that, in a town like Venice which has always faced the sea, such kind of race has more ancient origins, due to the necessity of training rowing crews.
Themodern boat-race was born in 1841, when the Town Council asked for holding some boat-races every year and the expenses for them were not debited to private citizens any longer but to the public. With the annexation of Venice to the Reign of Italy in 1866, contrarily to what had happened previously, the boat-races began to aim at the celebration of the glorious past of the Republic of the Veneto. From 1899, on a proposal of the Mayor of Venice, namely Count Filippo Grimani, the boat-race took on the name of ‘historical’.
The boat-race has been one of the favoured themes of the Vedutisti to represent a celebrating Venice. Today this is a deeply felt event, as a matter of fact on the day of the ‘Historical Boat-race’in Venice the basin of St. Mark and the Canal Grande are full of boats of any kind, from which people can watch the races and be enthusiastic fans of them. At the moment the most appreciated and exciting boat-race is the little gondolas one.
The Feast of Sensa takes place every day on the Ascension day in May and has got very ancient origins. Its aim is the commemoration of two Venetian victories which actually occurred some centuries the one from the other.
The first victory dates back to the year 1000 when Doge Pietro Orseolo II decided to leave, just on the Ascension day, in order to defend the towns in Dalmazia, which, for some years, had asked for help to Venice against the continuous invasions of pirates from Croatia and Narentani. Defeated the enemies, the Adriatic Sea became free and safer for the Venetians. For this reason the Town Council decided that every year, on the Ascension day, (in Venetian language the day of the ‘Sensa’), such event had to be celebrated. Nonetheless it was still a plain and modest ceremony. What gave a new glamour and solemnity to this feast was a later event and precisely a diplomatic victory: in 1177 Doge Sebastiano Ziani welcomed the most important authorities of that time, namely Pope Alexander III and Emperor Federico Barbarossa,in St. Mark Basilica and succeeded in making them sign a peace treaty. The Pope, as a return for such favours, entrusted the rule over the sea to Venice by means of the solemn yearly ‘Wedding ceremony’ during the Feast of Sensa. On the occasion, every year, the Doge, on the Bucintoro, used to reach St. Elena off St. Pietro di Castello. There the Bishop, on a boat with golden borders, was waiting for him, ready to bless him. In order to evidence the rule of the Serenissima over the sea, the Feast would have had to end with a sort of propitiatory ceremony: the Doge, once he had reached the port inlet, had to throw a gold ring into the sea.
This Feast is currently celebrated even if, we must confess, decidedly with less glamour. Anyway, still nowadays, the Mayor of the town, on the Ascension day, reaches, on a small Bucintoro used during the Historical Boat-race, the port inlet and gets ahead with the tradition, along with the Venetian rowing Associations, by throwing the gold ring representing the union of Venice with the Sea.
The Feast of ‘Redentore’, one of the most ancient popular Venetian feasts, is celebrated every year on the third Sunday of July: it is the most appreciated and felt by the Venetians who, following a rite which has been repeated for four hundred years, meet on the basin of St. Mark in order to wait for and admire the midnight fireworks.
History tells that, after three years of terrible epidemic, Doge Sebastiano Venier released the vow, made by his predecessor Alvise Mocenigo, of building a thanks church for the Redentore on Giudecca island. This task was entrusted to Palladio who in 1579 placed the first stone: then the church was consecrated in 1592.
On the 21st July 1578, on the place where the church had to be erected, an altar with a tabernacle was built in the open air and in four days over GiudeccaCanal a bridge made of eighty galleys was formed. An immense crowd of the Venetians who had escaped the terrible epidemic, crossed it, being aware that all mourning and misfortunes were ended.
When the church was built, the Doge established that the third Sunday of July should have to be reserved to pilgrimage. Soon people, fearing not to find any more room to watch the ceremony, began to reach Giudecca during the previous evening in order to spend there the whole night and wait the sunrise at Lido.
Though more than four centuries have passed from its consecration, the Feast of Redentore keeps on taking place on the same places and according to the same modalities, still nowadays, in fact, the town is linked to Giudecca by means of a bridge supported by modern floating platforms. The characteristic of popular feast has remained intact: the Venetians are the real protagonists of this feast together with their boats which are exquisitely adorned, the roof-terraces and the squares lit by thousands of lights.
Every year about one thousand five hundred boats meet on the basin of St. Mark, while we can estimate that thirty thousand persons, from the sea and the shores, watch this feast that reaches its peak towards midnight with the fireworks placed on some pontoons along a line four hundred metres long between the basin of St. Mark and the Canal of Giudecca.
FEAST OF MADONNA DELLA SALUTE
21st November 2006
Salute Church
The Feast of Salute is, with no doubt, the one with the less tourist impact, recalling a real popular religious feeling.
Also such festivity, like that of Redentore, reminds us of another terrible plague occurred during the two-year period 1630-1631, and the succeeding vow made by the Doge in order to get the intercession of the Virgin.
Still nowadays on 21st November thousands of citizens march before the high altar of the majestic Salute Church in order to perpetuate the age-old bond of gratitude existing between the town and the Virgin Maria. Those who have the opportunity to be in Venice during the day of Salute can breathe an atmosphere of genuine and heartfelt popular participation, as well as not pharisaic religiosity, but deeply related to the history and traditions of the town. Every year, for this feast, a temporary bridge on boats is built: it crosses the Canal Grande and links the areas of St. Moisè and St. Maria del Giglio (sestiere of St. Marco) to the Basilica of Longhena (sestiere of Dorsoduro), in order to allow the passage of the procession. Tens of thousands of people go on a pilgrimage to pay homage to the Madonna and to light a church candle in order to make Her intercede for their good health. The ceaseless queue of people which on 21st November march on the votive bridge made of boats, towards the imposing Salute Church, testifies the still living and strong bond existing between the town and the Madonna.
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