Fluir nº1 - Renascimentos - 2018
Venice; Memories
of a Different Republic
Tradução para português
http://issuu.com/influir/docs/veneza
A.M.G.L. Cruz
Introduction
Somewhere in his three-volume magnum opus, The
Stones of Venice, Ruskin paints an imaginary scene of
the founding of the church at Torcello. Not without
poetic skill, he describes a lonely island with ruined
buildings, stranded in the vast lagoon of Venice, the
roar of surf breaking in the distant sandbar audible in
the background. A scene of beauty. He continues:
Thirteen hundred years ago, the gray moorland (in the
distance) looked as it does to this day, and the purple
mountains stood as radiantly in the deep distances of
evening; but on the line of the horizon, there were
strange fires mixed with the light of sunset, and the
lament of many human voices mixed with the fretting
of the waves on their ridges of sand. The flames rose
from the ruins of Altinum; the lament from the
multitude of its people, seeking, like Israel of old, a
refuge from the sword in the paths of the sea.
Reality was more complicated, the agony more
prolonged. The inhabitants of north eastern Italy began
settling the islands of the Venetian lagoon sixteen
hundred years ago, fleeing from the cataclysms
associated with the fall of Rome. First came the Gothic
invasions which culminated in the sack of the sacred
city itself in 410; Saint Augustine's “City of God” was
written in response to that traumatic event. But that
trauma was psychological compared to what was to
come. The vast and prosperous Roman cities of
Aquilea and Altinum were repeatedly destroyed and its
inhabitants massacred. They found themselves on the
path to Rome in the invasion of the Huns (451 - 453),
the Gothic wars (535 – 554) and the Lombard invasion
(568). By the end Aquilea was reduced to a tiny village
and Altinum was so thoroughly wrecked that its
location was only confirmed with 20th archeological
techniques. The church of S. Maria Assunta in Torcello
was founded in 639 by refugees from Altinum using
marble columns and decorations from their church,
transplanted by boat together with the body of their
patron saint. Similarly, the refugees from Aquilea
settled in the island of Grado. The Rialto (Rivoaltus or
high bank), the site of the city of Venice we know
today, was selected following the Frankish invasion of
810, because of its even greater inaccessibility.
The Eastern Roman emperors in Constantinople were
unable to help. But that remnant of the Empire
survived, if barely. Its citizens, long after they had
forgotten Latin, referred to themselves as Romans to
the bitter end, as did their mortal enemies the Arabs
and the Turks. Today we know it as the Byzantine
Empire. It is a historical detail that is critical to the
understanding of the soul Venice. For though Venice
did not exist at the height of the Roman Empire, it was
founded by ancient Romans. It began as an
unconquered, and for many generations loyal, outpost
of Byzantium. As the rest of medieval Europe went its
way, Venice always looked both to the east and to the
west.
Ruskin, with his picture of a group of pale survivors,
gathered for the consecration ceremony of their new
church, the flames of the burning cities they left behind
reflected on the clouds in the horizon, provides a vivid
image of how Venice came to be. For Venice was not
founded by idealists seeking Liberty, or a nobleman
seeking a kingdom for himself and his heirs, but by
refugees trying to stay alive.
Whatever their original circumstances on the Italian
mainland, these Roman refugees ended up as poor
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