Monthly archive for April 2013

‘Invasion of the body-snatchers’

In the early and latterly medieval days of the Christian Church, relics were powerfully attractive. How many knucklebones of Saint Baldo were revered? There were enough splinters of the holy cross sold to make a forest and enough iron nails from the body of Christ to set up a modern day foundry!
 

Long before the 25^th of April became the National Holiday of Italian Liberation, the day was the celebration of the Patron Saint of Venice, Marco, whose bones (earthly remains!) were traditionally thought to be on Muslim soil in Alexandria, Egypt.
 

Sent by the Doge (Prince) of Venice to steal from the Muslims the precious remains (Islam, strangely for some who know nothing of its history, venerates Jesus Christ and his disciples), two resourceful merchants, not being able to discover the true body, dug up a ‘lesser Christian celebrity’, covered the body up in a cargo of pork and passed through ‘customs’ without being inspected: this because kanzir (pork) was an ‘unclean’ and untouchable export. Thus they earned their fee by selling a ‘load of old bones’ which had nothing to do with Saint Mark.
 

To add further to the confusion, a British historian, Andrew Chugg, claims that the venerated tomb of St Mark in Venice contains not the great evangelist but the body of the most famous warlord in history. He claims that the mummified remains, buried beneath the altar of St Mark’s Basilica, in fact belong to Alexander the Great. The Macedonian king lived in the 4th century BC and had divine status in his lifetime and a following for many centuries after. By his 30th birthday he had conquered an empire stretching 3,000 miles from Greece to India.

“Both bodies were said to be mummified in linen, and one seems to disappear at the same time that the other appears – in almost exactly the same place, near the central crossroads of Alexandria,” he writes. “It’s a strong possibility that somebody in the Church hierarchy, perhaps even the Patriarch himself, decided it might be a good plan to pretend the remains of Alexander were those of St Mark”. If this is true, then it was Alexander’s remains – not those of St Mark – that were stolen by Venetian merchants and taken back to their native city some four centuries later.” In fact, three early Christian sources state that St Mark’s body was burnt after his death.

https://www.italytraveltours.biz/short-tours-in-venice.htm

The only covered bridge in Venice, pretty from the outside but gloomy and entirely enclosed inside. Narrow windows let in very little light through their wire netting and, for many who passed through, Casanova included, this was their last chance of a glimpse of  the outside world, San Giorgio and the Lagoon; a very macabre history.

The most accepted opinion is that the Ponte dei Sospiri got its name in the 17^thcentury when it was the connection between the old prison and interrogation (often/usually torture) rooms in the Doge’s Palace and the new prison.  Prisoners, who passed through it, would most likely see the beautiful sight of the city and freedom for the last time and let out a deep sigh…..

Eggs represent life, fertility and renewal; all essentially symbolic. Dyed or decorated eggs abound and eggs are often found in soups and in a traditional Easter pie (Torta Pasqualina). Roast lamb, or sometimes kid, is a symbol of birth and the shepherd, Artichokes are popular (an imagery, I can’t explain) and special Easter breads vary from region to region. Pannetone and Colomba(dove shaped) breads, are the most well-known.

As in many countries, hollow chocolate eggs, sometimes with a gift inside are given. The tradition is dying out but, years ago, an engagement ring was often enclosed as a marriage proposal!