Graffiti, the history written on the stones of Venice
VENICE – Venetian chronicles entrusted to the walls of the city, writings and drawings delivered to immobile and faithful messengers who have crossed the centuries to reach us by escaping the night of time. In every age and at every latitude graffiti authors have deposited memories that are revealed as precious testimonies of a historical moment, of a civil or personal passion, of an urgency to be delivered to the community. Expression of a popular feeling – sometimes of an art – handed down using marbles of the rich and bricks of the poor as a means of transport to experience an emotion or engrave a fact or a story on stone. And many suggestions are conveyed by the titanic work of Alberto Toso Fei and Desi Marangon The Graffiti of Venice – five hundred years of history stones written on the cities, which with a search lasting five years have plumbed every ravine of the historic center of Venice, including the islands, identifying five thousand images, of a pictorial or scratch nature, made from 1400 up to first half of the last century. Walls that speak and tell: the great cold of a winter of 1700, the joy of supporters for the election of a doge, the chilling scene of a capital execution.
FEELING POPULAR
“We must start from the premise – begins Alberto Toso Fei in front of a surprisingly elegant drawing engraved on the portal of Palazzo Ca ‘Raspi in San Polo – which at the time, in the absence of newspapers and means of communication within everyone’s reach, people expressed your feeling on every street corner. It was common practice and, apparently, granted by the Venetian nobles, they probably limited themselves to eliminating only offensive abilities and filth of triggering torture and disorder ». Fortunately, something has escaped censorship, like a surprising mona reader drawn in the middle of the eighteenth century that tears a smile. “Unknown authors, but with evident artistic gifts – continues Toso Fei – spent the hours engraving landscapes, majestic sailing ships, gondolas and animals, photographing on stone what they saw before their eyes, even a pantegana in the San Felice area”. Frequent, to say, the trie drawn in the resting places, by the gondoliers waiting as well as by those stationed near the entrance bench of the Doge’s Palace.
CHRONICLES FROM THE PAST
An original and surprising survey of stone, even for those who – however wrongly – think they know everything about Venice. A path that leads to seafaring stories that the city breathes in every corner (the extraordinary variety of ships and boats impressed on the marbles), legends, celebrations of the moment and worries of a lifetime (the plague always looming from the skulls engraved and removed by crosses and religious symbols affixed to many entrances), expressions of work and commerce (German merchants, for example, have covered their Fontego with brands).
“It was an adventurous job but also of enormous satisfaction – observe in unison Toso Fei and Desi Marangon, the epigraphist who has made a decisive contribution to research with his skills – without neglecting anything, slipping into every hole, with the collaboration of the owners but also with a pinch of madness by taking the opportunity of an open gate. We have been around a lot even at night, when lighting the buildings with torches paradoxically makes it easier to identify an inscription that the light of day tends to flatten. In our nocturnal excursions we have even been mistaken for malicious people, luckily the presence of Desi helped to clarify the situation quite quickly. In the end we identified five thousand writings and drawings, selecting about 500 for our historical-editorial project ».
HAND OF ARTIST
Testimonies of extreme historical interest but in many cases also from an artistic point of view. “This cataloging work of ours – observes Toso Fei – will also serve to avoid that they are covered by new building interventions, as unfortunately has also happened in recent times: the case of the figures on the portal of the Scuola Grande di San Marco is sensational, with a defense in extremis fortunately went to a good end ».
Of course you have to admire them in the field, these engravings and these drawings – often of difficult photographic rendering – secretly scattered among streets and fields but also numerous in San Marco (see the writings on many columns of the new Procuratie or on those in front of the Doge’s Palace, generally of the columns of the Procuratie and fans of the various doges) to appreciate their singularity, and one would think that once the volume (imminent release for Linea d’Acqua) by Toso Fei and Marangon is published, many Venetians will not resist the temptation to go on tour immediately to at least see me more meaningful. It is no coincidence that as soon as some of these graffiti were posted on the social networks, the response of interest and curiosity was immediate. «It was a tiring but very, very exciting research – reiterates Toso Fei – with the conquest of doing something totally new and unprecedented given that there had been very few works on graffiti in Venice dedicated only to the best known. Often it was a matter of discoveries from beginning to end because at first many engravings escape a first reconnaissance, you can only grasp them after passing and reviewing them in front of them. Every time Desi and I have experts, we have found a new and perhaps particular one, there has been an almost childish exultation … Then the problem of interpretation opened up, and here the contribution of (among others Lara Pavanetto, Giorgio Crovato, Raffaele Dessì, Mauro Bondioli, Sinisa Reberski) to decrypt totally mysterious symbols or codes, even in ancient or foreign languages. But when we came to find a key and a certain date, well it was a feeling to take your breath away ». There was a soul of Venice that asked to re-emerge from the past: she was freed.