Your Virtual Italy Vacation continues in Venice as Thor and I take the Secret Itinerary tour through the Doge’s Palace and the adjacent prison where Casanova was held.
NOTE: Since European travel is still a no-go with the pandemic continuing, I’m continuing my blog series offering a virtual vacation and time-travel to my first big trip with Thor in 2008. Italy! After starting with highlight photos posted here on Saturday, Jan. 30, I’ll now resume every week (after some blogging detours in real time to Hawaii). Join us in Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Venice, and Milan. Buon viaggio!
Thor is always fascinated with the dark and mysterious sides of life — after all, he still teaches his WWU online course in Monsters (animal and human). So he signed us up for the Secret Itinerary tour that exposed some of the unpleasant history beneath (sometimes literally) the glamor of Venice. Politics and prisons!
Since I somehow lost my journal and photos, I’m relying on Thor’s sketchy notes and a few photos. He did get a good shot of the exterior of the ornate Doge’s Palace where the tour started. Near the Basilica, the palace began in the 9th century as a fortress, then was really spiffed up in the 14th and 15 centuries, and it combines Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance architecture. It was the official palace of the 120 doges who ruled Venice from 697 to 1797.
These heroic statues guard the courtyard entrance. I guess it’s a cloak that one of them is holding….
They certainly didn’t hold back on grand embellishments:
The interior is an overwhelming display of wealth and art covering every surface. The Scala d’Oro (golden staircase) leads from the second floor residence chambers and galleries to the realm of former political power on the third floor.
The Council of Ten met here to investigate and prosecute crimes threatening the state. Here citizens were encouraged to post anonymous accusations about supposed crimes. They could also slip notes of denunciation into the slot in this wall plaque:
Which leads us to the case of Giacomo Casanova, the famous lover and rebel against “propriety.” He did lead a life of excess and controversy, and in 1755, when he was 30, he was arrested for affronts to religion and decency: “The Tribunal, having taken cognizance of the grave faults committed by G. Casanova primarily in public outrages against the holy religion, their Excellencies have caused him to be arrested and imprisoned under the Leads.” The Leads were prison cells directly under the lead roof of the prison, where higher-status offenders were locked up. Though uncomfortable and meager, they were better than the “Pozzi,” the wells on the lowest prison level, damp and tiny. Also there were torture chambers that we viewed, so maybe better that those photos are lost.
Casanova was sentenced to 5 years in prison, though he never had a trial and was never informed of the official charges. He would have passed over The Bridge of Sighs on his way to prison. (photo below courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Perhaps the last glimpse of the outside world for many an unfortunate person heading across the bridge into the prison across the canal from the Doge’s Palace:
Casanova was determined to escape, and made a couple of attempts involving improvised digging and gouging tools hidden in furniture and finally smuggled back to him under a plateful of pasta by a bribed guard. Casanova had convinced his cellmate that he had demonic powers so the cellmate would be too afraid to raise the alarm as Casanova broke out onto the roof and then down into official chambers after hours, with the help of a renegade imprisoned priest. The two found changes of clothing and fooled the guards into letting them out the next morning.
For a fun romp around Venice, check out the delightful (if not historically stringent) movie “Casanova” starring Heath Ledger. Such a tragedy that the actor died so young! Here’s a trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSt1NFGgVUs
Next week: Simply messing about in… a gondola.
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You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and a Pulpwood Queens International Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
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