Well, even though I just signed off in Florence just now [coming soon to a journal near you], up on top of the tower, I think I'll make a couple of quick notes about Venice and how that ended, because I certainly didn't have time, or was cut off yesterday as I was trying to record it.
But back in Venice we tried to do an early lunch so that things would thin out around San Marco. We came back down to the Piazza, which didn't really show much signs of having thinned out – I'm told the evening time is the time to enjoy that – and we walked around the entire length of the porticoed buildings surrounding the square called the Procuratie.
The Accademia explained why our other stops had had only a smattering of strong art: it seemed that every great piece of art in Venice had been enclosed within this one set of walls. We went in there and that was a really good, quick loop through Venice's chief art treasures. Whereas Erik had pronounced the first museum not worth our money, this second one was very much so, like the Uffizi here today in Florence. While nothing captured me there like the huge grins breaking over my face that I experienced today, I have to say that I was deeply impressed. We were moving fast, and this was art that I largely hadn't seen or studied before, and so impressions are already faded, but I can remember being struck by some of the medieval pieces. Yet it was my first serious encounter with Tintoretto that really was the gem of the visit. I had really only encountered him indirectly, either by references that one must see the Tintorettos in Venice – I think that was of some significance in the plot of Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You, if I recall correctly – or by the fact that his Crucifixion, which I now felt the full power of, was used as the cover art for Raymond Brown's volume The Death of the Messiah. The wild stampede of his Creation of the Animals, the Saint Mark cycle, like the Miracle of St. Mark Freeing the Slave, or the wild and overwhelming The Stealing of the Dead Body of St. Mark (again a popular theme for Venice, and its civic pride in holding Mark's relics), all grabbed me. Likewise, it made me blink to suddenly be in the presence of what has to be the most reproduced scene of Venice, Bellini's Procession in Piazza San Marco while having that same view fresh in my eye's memory. We both laughed at some point to see Canaletto's The Bucintoro Returning to the Molo on Ascension Day – I can't remember whether that was at the Accademia or not, and if so, how, since I don't think it's part of their collection – for the same reason. In fact, I'm struck by the accidental similarity to my shot from the prior entry.
The rest of our time went fairly quickly. After leaving the Accademia, we continued to move west and north, just taking in the neighbourhoods as we went. After crossing the student/university area, which didn't stand out as such terribly strongly, we crossed the long Campo di Santa Margherita, which my guidebook recommended as the liveliest square for local nightlife and bars, although I also remember blinking at reading the line, "Given the contagiously upbeat mood, blue-rinse matrons from Milwaukee often join peace-protesting students in sipping a lurid orange spritz in one of the arty cafés." I confess that I didn't recognize anyone. Here in the late afternoon, it was a more quiet and relaxed liveliness we noted, as folks stretched out in the chairs in small outdoor cafés, or bought fruit from local market stands. It wasn't so driven by a youth bar crowd as perhaps it might be later at night. Erik and I paused so that he could grab some slices of pizza in a hot, tiny delivery place we noticed, and we sat there drinking while he ate and enjoyed the view of the industrious and beautiful young blonde who had served him.
And then we were off to Florence.
Go to: Florence: Day One, Part One