Colour and light in Burano

Burano has been home to commercial fishermen since at least the sixth century AD. The houses of Burano were painted bright contrasting colours, it is said, so that fishermen could find their way home in the fogs that sometimes settle over the Venetian lagoon. Today, however the Venetian council controls which colours the houses may be painted, and Burano offers more than cuttlefish cooked in its own ink as a local treat.

From the vaporetto the leaning tower of the sixth century San Martino church, whose interior houses a painting of the crucifixion by Tiepolo the elder, is the first indication that Burano is coming into view.

The soft mud and clay of the flood plains and islands of Northern Italy is the foundation upon which numerous towers and campaniles have been built. This geological feature has led to a proliferation of leaning towers and the consequent architectural innovation of building towers separate from the main buildings. These towers topple when subsiding foundations send the fragile balance of the leaning structure to the point of collapse.

Burano has more to offer the visitor, however, than a leaning tower.

We must give Hemingway his due. There is indeed something distinctly feminine about Burano. All those lace and fabric shops might have something to do with this impression, plus the brightly coloured houses, the abundance of tea and coffee shops. But perhaps it is more to do with the women, women everywhere, from toddlers to great-grandmothers, women of all shapes and sizes, yet with one thing in common - wide welcoming smiles, encouraging each and every visitor to come, view her textiles, drink her coffee, taste her baked goods.

Burano was the poor relation in the Venetian lagoon for centuries. In Roman times it was an outlying village of Torcello. Its star rose during the peak of the trade in lace, after which it reverted to being just another lagoon island.

Today Burano is a trendy address for the well heeled in the European art and design world. Phillipe Starcke, the French designer whose furniture features on the long running American television series Boston Legal is reputed to own a number of houses on the Island.

The island has its own art movement, the Burano School, established in 1910 when a group of artists moved there and, inspired by nineteenth century French schools of painting, adopted a “simple poetic rendition of the landscape” through modern use of colour, and a stripping back of sentimentality. Ironic when one considers the history of the Lagoon Islands and the effect of the French on their history.

In A Venetian Island: Environment History and Change in Burano, Sciama emphasises that Burano is separate and different from Venice, although ‘part of Venice’s administrative and bureaucratic structure’, the island’s relationship with Venice is ‘changing and complex’, with its own ‘strong kinship links’.

Burano’s size and place in the lagoon may have helped develop its own distinct style. The district of Burano is over 50 square kilometres in area, the second largest district in the lagoon, although only half a square kilometre of that area is dry land.

Burano is part of a small triangle formed with the islands Torcello and Mazzorbo. Burano had links and loyalties to Torcello long before Venice even existed. It is also connected by a flat pedestrian bridge to Mazzorbo which is home to the 14th century church of Santa Caterina.

Santa Caterina, Catherine of Alexandria, was reputedly one of the most intelligent and beautiful woman of her day. She was beheaded by the pagan ruler of Alexandria in 305 AD at the age of 23 after being tortured by being splayed on a wheel.

The Crusaders brought the story of Catherine to Europe. The Catherine Wheel (both the children’s gymnastic feat and the fireworks) and the Catherine or Rose window were named after her. Catherine’s ability to defeat philosophers in argument was not celebrated. Instead she became the protector of young unmarried girls. The wheel of her torture became the symbol for wheelwrights, spinners and lace-makers.

Of course, in due course, the French not only lured lacemakers from Burano but also established their own rival protector of young girls and lace makers, the French priest, St John Francis Regis. John Francis’ life and times are more prosaic and more based in fact than those of Catherine.

Whether or not it is the beneficence of Catherine wafting across oceans and mountains and one thousand seven hundred years of time or some other quality in the light and the hospitality of its inhabitants, Burano is an island the visitor can imagine settling into. It is tempting to wonder what life would be like to wake in its small hotel, take a dawn walk over the bridge through the parks of Mazzorbo, drink morning coffee at tables along its cobbled streets, or just sit by the canal each evening and watch the sun set over the lagoon.

Observer
15 May 2010
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