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Editor's note: This excerpt first appeared in photographer and author Harold Davis' recent Focal Press book, Photographing Flowers: Exploring Macro Photography with Harold Davis.
The closer you...
"In the afternoon Aschenbach spent two hours in his room [on the
Lido], then took the vaporetto to Venice, across the foul-smelling lagoon.
He got out at San Marco, had his tea in the Piazza, and then, as his custom was,
took a walk through the streets. ...
"There was a hateful sultriness in the narrow streets. The air was so heavy
that all the manifold smells wafted out of houses, shops, and cookshops--smells
of oil, perfumery, and so forth--hung low, like exhalations, not dissipating.
Cigarette smoke seemed to stand in the air, it drifted so slowly away. ...
Beggars waylaid him; the canals sickened him with their evil exhalations. He
reached a quiet square, one of those that exist at the city's heart, forsaken of
God and man; there he rested awhile on the margin of a fountain, wiped his brow,
and admitted to himself that he must be gone."
-- Thomas Mann (1875-1955), Death in Venice (1912)
Remember that European countries have school holidays in July and August,
which is also when companies shut down. Venice is accordingly fully stuffed
during those months.
Autumn
Venice fills up in early September with the Venice Film Festival, mostly out
on the Lido. On November 21, the city's deliverance from the plague is celebrated
in the Festa della Salute. A bridge of boats is strung across the Grand Canal;
people walk across it and into the church of Santa maria della Salute.
Winter
"I never got a cold when I worked in St. Moritz, the air is so dry. Every
winter that I stay in Venice with the damp air, I'm sick for two months," noted
Bianco, a butler at the Hotel Cipriani's Palazzo Vendramin. I arrived in Venice
in January with a slight cold. Water fell on me from the sky and rose up from the
sea to cover my shoes. Then it started to snow. After a few days of this, I was
giving demonstrations of my maladies in Venetian pharmacies. I ended up taking
four different Italian drugs that I couldn't pronounce, much less read the
lengthy instructions. I sent email to my friends telling them that "I either have
AIDS or am Jewish." The hotel staff brought me extra boxes of Kleenex. People
avoided sitting next to me on the vaporetti.
"If you seek solitude and romance with a capital R, go in January," notes the
Cadogan guide. The authors' idea of romance probably includes scaffolding on the
monuments, "closed until February" signs on museums, gelaterie, and restaurants,
and seeing half the town holding handkerchiefs to their noses. The upside of all
this is that the city does in fact empty out enough that you can be alone at St.
Mark's tomb, get a table in any restaurant, and never wait in line. [Carnival, of
course, gets rather crowded, but that is only ten days until Shrove Tuesday
(i.e., February).]
If you wander in winter outside of the usual tourist centers, you quickly
understand why Venetians mourn for their city. The campos are deserted. The
average age of a pedestrian is between 70 and dead. You can feel the population
draining out, the loss of civic life and community.
Spring
On the Sunday after Ascension Day (May), Venice celebrates its annual Marriage
with the Sea. This has been going on since the year 1000. There are a whole bunch
of miscellaneous regattas in May as well.
