Venice/ Clues

Hi everyone! Today’s post is about walking around Venice and looking for clues. I recently got to visit Venice for the first time, thanks to the book festival Incroci di Civiltà, where I enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation with the sophisticated and charming Mena Mitrano, inside a former thirteenth-century warehouse that was used by German merchants for hundreds of years, until Napoleon’s invasion, after which point I think Benetton bought it, and now it’s a luxurious shopping mall/ event space. The conversation with Mena was translated by a celebrity interpreter who brought a valuable manly perspective to the undertaking—e.g. at some point I was saying that Tolstoy gave Anna Karenina a richer consciousness than Vronsky, and the translator was like, “… than Vronsky, who is a guy like us. We’re all Vronsky,” and elaborated for some moments in a fashion that was sadly beyond my level of Italian comprehension, ma continuo a studiare.

I was really happy afterwards to meet some adorable readers, in near-total darkness, on the roof of the warehouse-mall, which is famous for its beautiful view. Huge thanks to everyone who came out!

This is what the view looked like before it was dark.

Earlier that day, I also had a great time chatting with Ilenia Zodiaco, a book influencer who is (a) really into nineteenth-century novels and (b) was lugging a big backpack full of hardcover books (and had all her interview questions written in a Moleskine notebook), filling me with hope for the future. 🎒📚🙏💫 Here is the beautiful video that Ilenia made of our conversation.

Unfortunately, given my level of self-ambivalence, it is not possible for me to watch a 45-minute video of myself… but I did watch a few seconds and LOL-ed at a part where I say “I’m like 20 years older than Sally Rooney” and the picture briefly goes black-and-white.

Most of the interview took place over lunch, but afterwards we walked around for two hours, followed by a cameraperson, having long exchanges about literature on a series of short bridges, eliciting a variety of reactions from the many people who were trying to walk across the bridges. At some point we were walking up a ramp, and the Einaudi social media person, Stefano Jugo, mentioned that the ramp was there thanks to another Einaudi author, Diogo Mainardi, who had written an amazing book about Venice, which was actually about his (Mainardi’s) son’s cerebral palsy. Stefano said this was one of his favorite books about Venice, and all his other recommendations checked out (including the one about the pastry shop), so I immediately bought the ebook.

The English title is The Fall: A Father’s Memoir in 424 Steps (trans. Margaret Jull Costa), and it’s written in 424 short numbered sections, with numbered illustrations, so it looks sort of Sebald-like… though actually it reminded me in a good way Nadja by André Breton, a book that, as many of you know, greatly impressed me in the 1990s (please imagine my head pronouncing these words in black-and-white).

This is how Mainardi’s book begins:

1. Tito has cerebral palsy.

2. I blame Tito’s cerebral palsy on Pietro Lombardo. In 1489, Pietro Lombardo designed the Scuola Grande di San Marco. And it was the Scuola Grande di San Marco designed by Pietro Lombardo that brought about Tito’s cerebral palsy.

3. On 30 September 2000, my wife and I set off for Venice Hospital in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Our son would be born that day. My wife’s name: Anna. Our son’s name: yes, that’s right, Tito. When we reached Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo… Anna said: “I’m really worried about the birth.” She had expressed the same fear in previous weeks, because Venice Hospital, now looming before us, was known for its medical errors. I studied its façade for a moment. Venice Hospital moved into the Scuola Grande di San Marco in 1808. The façade, designed by Pietro Lombardo in 1489, became the hospital’s main entrance. I said: “With a façade like that, I could even accept having a deformed child.”

4. Venice Hospital made a mistake during Tito’s birth. That mistake brought about his cerebral palsy. 5. Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading: A few bits of ornament applied by Pietro Lombardo… are worth far more than all the sculpture and “sculptural creation” produced in Italy between 1600 and 1950. I went further than Ezra Pound. What I said to my wife, as I contemplated the façade of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, can only be interpreted thus: “Pietro Lombardo is worth far more than my son’s cerebral palsy.”

Skipping some more sections (about Ezra Pound), this is section 12:

From Ezra Pound to Xbox. The hero of the game Assassin’s Creed II, Desmond Miles, goes back in time and takes on the identity of an Italian nobleman from the late fifteenth century, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who scours Venice in order to eliminate the murderers who asphyxiated his father. One of the places he has to pass is the Scuola Grande di San Marco. I am the Desmond Miles of cerebral palsy. I return to the Venice of the late fifteenth century and, like Ezio Auditore da Firenze, I scour the Scuola Grande di San Marco in search of clues that will lead me to the murderers who asphyxiated Tito.

This line blew my mind, largely because I had already been thinking of Venice as a place full of “clues.” Over the next few days I went down a long spiral of reading and thinking and walking that I am excited to share with you! So that’s what’s coming up after the paywall.

Thanks for reading!