Festa della Sensa

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Cruise of the ship procession along the Riva degli Schiavoni , Francesco Guardi , around 1775

The Festa della Sensa or Festa dell'Ascensione was a state celebration of the Republic of Venice , which - as for example in the pilgrimage report by Peter Füssli - was known in the German-speaking world as the wedding of the Doge to the sea in the 16th century , a name that is still known is in use today. It got its name from the Ascension of Christ , which in Italian is abbreviated as Ascensione . In Venetian, sensa is preferred because the Venetian mass was held at this time.

Departure of the procession from the Bacino di San Marco , Canaletto , around 1732

The festival commemorates two events, on the one hand the victory of Doge Pietro II Orseolo over the Dalmatian pirates on May 9, 1000, with which Venice was able to assert its rule in the upper Adriatic for the first time. On the other hand, it is a reminder of the Peace of Venice, which was concluded in 1177. Pope Alexander III and Friedrich Barbarossa met Doge Sebastiano Ziani in Venice.

During the celebration, numerous boats and ships drove to the Lido to celebrate the wedding with the sea ( Sposalizio del Mare ). From 1253, the Bucintoro , a two-story rowing ship that carried the Doge, led the ship procession that began at Bacino di San Marco in front of the Doge's Palace. The entire government took part, that is, Signoria , Senate, most of the members of the Grand Council, but also the ambassadors and envoys who were in the city. At San Nicolò, one of the passages into the Adriatic, prayers for the safety of the seafarers followed. While singing, the doge then threw a golden, blessed ring from the Bucintoro into the sea to symbolically exaggerate the marriage of Venice to the sea and the supremacy of Venice over the Adriatic. From 1177 at the latest, the doge uttered the sentence: “Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii” (We will marry you, sea, as a sign of our true and constant rule). Mass was celebrated in the church of S. Nicolò on the Lido.

In addition to the ship procession , the marriage to the sea, masses and chants, there were feasts , especially for the Arsenalotti , the workers in the arsenal who were supplied with huge amounts of meat on the occasion of this day. It was they who rowed the Doge's ship during the procession. At the end of the republic there were 168 rowers on 42 oars. A gondola regatta concluded the festivities.

The representatives of the most important schools , the Venetian guilds , accompanied the Doge's ship in their own ships. After the Bucintoro returned to St. Mark's Square , the men who had been on the upper deck of the ship, and thus the most influential civil servants (magistrates), went to the Doge's Palace , where a feast was opened for them.

La Fiera della Sensa in Piazza San Marco , Francesco Guardi , 2nd half of the 18th century

At the same time as the symbolic and costly state celebration, one of the most important trade fairs in Venice, a fiera on St. Mark's Square, took place. Therefore, the Sensa also provided an opportunity to display the superiority, rule and wealth of the Serenissima. Sometimes, however, there were irreconcilable contradictions, namely when the fair was well attended and the square was overcrowded with stalls and booths, and as a result there was no room left for the usual procession around the square. This happened around 1727.

The German knight Arnold von Harff described the Festa della Sensa in 1497. In his report he already repeated everything that the Venetian state propaganda had for a long time kept in mind of its residents and visitors, namely that Venice was virgin (never subjected to violence) in the eternal connection with the sea agreed that it stood for justice and freedom at the same time with the naked sword. This process of perception, which was made up of a number of other elements on the mental map of the audience and participants, was described by Johannes Fried as the "implantation of memory", a process that Venice pursued with great systematicity for centuries.

Today the festival is led by the respective mayor.

literature

  • Lina Urban Padoan: La festa della Sensa nelle arti e nell'iconografia , in: Studi Veneziani 10 (1968) 291–353.
  • Johannes Fried : The veil of memory. Basic features of a historical memorandum , Munich 2004, here: pp. 157–166.
  • Giustina Renier Michiel: Origine delle seine veneziane , Milan 1829, pp. 131–141.

Web links

Commons : Festa della Sensa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Now hand the Venediger a break that the ruler alle jar vff the vffahrt jm the sea (Leza M. Uffer: Peter Füesslis Jerusalemfahrt 1523 and a letter about the fall of Rhodos 1522 , Zurich 1982, p. 97). Cf. also Ekkehard Eickhoff: Venice, Late Fireworks: Splendor and Fall of the Republic, 1700–1797 , Stuttgart 2006, p. 65.
  2. ↑ As early as the 17th century, historical literature offers the meeting of 1177 as its origin, such as Relationis historicae semestralis autumnalis continuatio. Jacobi Franci historical description of the most memorable stories, such as Italy, Hispania, France, Hungary ... credibly happened in Upper and Lower Germany , Sigismundi Latomi 1690, p. 46. This possibly goes back to the Venetian state historiography, like her about Paolo Sarpi wrote: Dominio del mar Adriatico , vol. 6, Venice 1685, p. 13.
  3. ^ Robert C. Davis: Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal: Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City , The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991, 2007 ed., P. 247.
  4. ↑ John Jeffries Martin, Dennis Romano: Venice Reconsidered. The History and Civilization of an Italian City-state , The Johns Hopkins University Press 2000S. 485.
  5. ^ David Rosand: Myths of Venice: The Figuration of a State , University of North Carolina Press 2001, p. 37.