On the Way to Burano

The trip from Venice to Burano takes a little under an hour and is a pleasant way to observe some of the lesser known islands of the Venetian Lagoon. These islands are treasure troves for the archaeologist. They have been the locus of important moments in Venetian history. For the visitor with a few days to spare and a copy of the Actv vaporetto timetable they can be engaging and rewarding destinations.

On the way to the vaporetto stop for Burano we passed the first spring crocuses dancing in the wind in the Giardini Papadopouli. Filaments of cloud spun across a cerulean sky. At the changeover stop at Fondamente Nuove a brisk breeze ruffled the waters of the Rio dei Gesuiti.

It seemed a perfect day to visit the island that Hemingway described as the feminine equivalent of Murano, to drift across the lagoon in the wake of Byron, Shelley, James Fenimore Cooper - the armies of tourists and visitors who had plied the route since the days of the Romans. Burano as Henry James said, is “a pretext … for a day on the lagoon”.

A self guided tour group from New York and a group of locals returning to Burano packed into the vessel. Inside the cabin, the air was thick with the fug of humanity overlaid with wafts of expensive perfume, stale cigarette smoke and wine. Obviously somewhere in Venice wine was being dished out in generous amounts early in the morning.

After the requisite amount of jostling those few individuals not belonging to either group were squashed in the middle. A young Venetian man, his English girlfriend and a scattering of other nationalities gazed across a sea of heads at the lagoon beyond windows that were firmly shut against the outside world.


The vaporetto chugged past San Michele, the cemetery island of Venice where the remains of only a privileged few find permanent rest. The less fortunate being consigned, after a suitable period of interment, to the charnel house.

Reflections on the reality of death in the lagoon were interrupted as Vignole floated green and lush far to starboard, a reminder that even Venetian vegetables grow on islands.


No one went ashore on Murano, but more Burano-bound passengers squeezed on board. There was standing room only. This was off-season. Where had the information that few people visited Burano come from?

As we departed Murano the ferry in front of ours turned south-east to wend its way through channels cut through the mud flats that have protected the island of St Erasmo for millennia.

Then someone opened a window. Wind gusted through the cabin. A man began yelling in heavily accented English. An American on the starboard side shouted back. The window was slammed shut.

The two men leapt to their feet, trading insults across the heads of startled passengers, cutting off the view of Isola San Giacomo in Palude on the port side and of Isola Lazzaretto Nuovo on the starboard.

Ancient Greek and Roman artefacts have been unearthed on these islands. But it is their history as ‘plague’ islands and later as military installations that links the two.

San Giacomo in Palude, or “paluo”, (St James in the Marsh) was originally a Cistercian convent. During the plague of 1456 lepers were moved from San Lazzaro to San Giacomo. At some stage the convent was transformed to a Franciscan monastery and remained so until Napoleon dismantled most of the religious institutions on the lagoon islands. He transformed the island into a garrison and it served a military purpose for various armies until 1964.

Lazzaretto Nuovo was Venice's second quarantine island. Around the turn of the first millennium the monks of Saint Giorgio Maggiore built the church of Saint Bartholomew on the island and it became known as Vigna Murada (the walled vineyard). In 1468 the island was renamed Lazzaretto Nuovo, to differentiate it from the first quarantine station which now became known as Lazzaretto Vecchio.

All incoming merchant vessels, their crew and cargo had to be processed here. Life for ships’ crews temporarily quarantined on the island was usually comfortable. However anyone from the merchant ships who exhibited signs of the plague was summarily removed to Lazzaretto Vecchio and certain death.

Periodically, plague victims were brought from Venice and left to die on Lazzaretto Nuovo. Some historians believe that at least eight thousand people died here from the plague.

Napoleon’s, and later the Austrians’, enthusiasm for military installations saw Lazzaretto Nuovo reborn as a gunpowder store and it remained in military hands until 1975.

Through all of these changes the herons and egrets have maintained their still and careful fishing in the marshes surrounding these islands.


However ancient and natural history were far from the minds of the passengers aboard this vaporetto on an early spring morning in 2010. A modern blood feud seemed to be evolving. Loyalties were being established.

Voices were raised in support of the protagonist, or against the antagonist. The air was thick with testosterone.

The New Yorkers adopted shock tactics and engaged their foe in Italian. There was a momentary silence as the opposing side absorbed this surprise blow.

Then someone flung out insults in dialect. Touché. The Americans, however, were prepared and responded in kind.

Translations were muttered for the benefit of the neutral centre who understood neither Italian nor dialect.

The welfare of ‘the children’ – sturdy young men and women accompanying their older, and presumably more responsible family members on tour or home to Burano – was at stake.

American ‘children’ apparently cannot tolerate closed windows, Buranelli ‘children’ wilt in the wind.

What a fine linguistic display it was!

San Francesco Deserto slipped by unnoticed by most
.
This island had been inhabited intermittently since at least the first century.

In 1220 Francis of Assissi, accompanied by Brother Elias, Francis’ friend and supporter during difficult times, hastened back from a peacemaking mission in the Middle East to avert a crisis in his congregation in Europe.

Like all travellers from the East he passed through the Venetian Lagoon. Over the following few years Francis grappled with the problems besetting his congregation before returning to the Middle East in 1223. Here he instituted the practice of erecting a nativity scene at Christmas time to illustrate to the faithful the extent of the poverty in which Christ was born.

Earlier in this same year Jacopo Michiel, a relative of the Doge of Venice donated the island to the Franciscan order.

However Francis’ desire for peace among men of all faiths and nationalities was not being celebrated by the passengers on the vaporetto.

Calls on both sides for the captain to intervene and control the opposing party were studiously ignored. No actual physical contact between the two parties had occurred. But there was much pacing and milling and waving of fists to accompany the shouting. The vessel remained well balanced as each side aligned port and starboard.

Isola di Crevan, of which all that is known is the dubious fact that its oysters are safer to eat than those from islands closer to Venice, slipped by as the vaporetto turned into the channel leading to the Burano stop.

At the disembarkation point each group determined to beat the other on shore. A bottleneck ensued. Old ladies sitting under the trees in the park beside the vaporetto stop rose, curious, ready to participate in whatever drama was coming ashore. The boatman yelled a few exasperated words. Whether it was his words or the shock of fresh air and a blue sky is not entirely clear, but the arguing stopped as suddenly as it began.

One group of the antagonists headed for the public housing units on Mazzorbo. They glanced back as they crossed the footbridge that connects the two islands at the opposition who had proven such worthy adversaries.

The Americans headed for the cafes.

Had this, after all, been just an opportunity for an international family squabble to be made public?

No one cared any more.

Women in black surged from the entrance to Fondamenta Pontinello inviting the disembarking passengers to come into their village, purchase lace and embroidery, tea and cake.

The sun was shining, the canal sparkled, the brightly painted houses glistened. The air was clean and sweet. A filigree of cloud flitted across the sky.

There was lace everywhere, draped from doorways, across display tables, in shop windows. Business was going to be brisk.

Observer

1 May 2010
Note:  The map, as all my maps are, is a 'mud map' and is for reference only.  Not to be used for boating in the lagoon!
References:
Website for Actv Servizio Navigazione Linee urbane
Canticle of the Sun, Francis of Assisi
Italian Hours, Henry James