On Wednesday 15 June we went to Venice. Venice is a city of waterways, but it is also a regular boring city on the water. All tourists go to the island part of Venice, but there is another part of Venice on the Italian mainland. I learned this because there is a trainstop there. I suppose that many people who live and work in Venice actually live on the mainland.
The night we arrived we walked to Saint Mark’s Square, a few blocks from where we are staying. In the time that we were there I think that we did not see any dirt ground. The city seems to be made of stone and concrete, or maybe marble.
On Thursday we visited the Doge’s Palace and the Correr Museo. That night Venice unexpected flooded because of strange weather.
On Friday 17 June we visited Saint Mark’s Basilica. We had very expensive coffee in the Caffe Florian, which is one of the oldest coffeehouse in the world. We walked across the Rialto Bridge. We had a lovely break at the Caffe del Doge, which is a contemporary coffeehouse in a quiet off-street.
On Saturday Fabian was feeling inspired after meeting his namesake Saint Fabian, and now wanted to visit Saint Anthony to pay respect for watching over his youth in San Antonio. Saint Anthony is in Padua, an hour from Venice, and suggested as a day trip in our guidebook. I made reservations the night before to visit the Scrovegni Chapel to see the works of Giotto, and we left in the morning.
I had first read about Giotto when I was 19. I had a college professor whom I liked, and I asked him how to come to learn as much as he seemed to know. He gave me some of the best educational advice I have ever gotten. He told me to go to the university’s collection of children’s books and read them all. I did this, and came to realize that children’s guides to science and humanities are often excellent introductions to new topics. It was at this time that I discovered Dorling Kindersley or DK, my favorite publisher, and began to read most of their works and all of their Eyewitness series. The first DK book that I read was a guide to Western art, and the book began with Giotto. I remembered all this when I realized that we were going to see the chapel featured in this book that I read in 1999, and which lead me to read so many other children’s books and then onto many other books.
The chapel is more protected than many other art works. Reservations are made for 15-minute slots. Booking a day in advance worked for me. We arrived at the appointed time and were taken into a temperature-controlled antichamber to acclimate for 15 minutes. From there the door opened for our 15-minutes in the chapel. The work is beautiful but had I not known its historical context I might not have appreciated it. Apparently it is an early use of perspective, and an uncommonly major commission for its era, and the use of the blue pigment everywhere was a major luxury, and finally the chapel was built partially in response to criticism of the senior Scrovegni in Dante’s Divine Comedy and elsewhere. The museum attached to the chapel was nice also, but not the finest examples of Italian art, and overwhelming at this point in relation to what we had already seen and done.
Going on to Saint Anthony’s basilica – there were religious shops nearby for those walking from the direction of the train station. Among the shops was a blessed Saint Anthony sweet shop, which I thought was odd, but the shopkeeper knew the word “vegan” and actually explained to us using the few words that we knew that she had cookies without butter, eggs, and animals. We got our first Italian sweets here.
Upon entering the basilica a mass was starting, and Fabian was a good sport and suggested that we do the mass. I wanted this so we did and I had communion again. After the mass we queue to the side of the church to visit the tomb of Saint Anthony. Near the tomb, instead of lighting candles, there was a crate into which people could donate candles, which seems practical but also is something that I had not seen in other churches. That explained the many vendors outside selling candles. Moving along the side of the church we entered a reliquary to see the lower jaw, vocal cords, and especially the tongue of Saint Anthony. The story is that after Anthony died, he was buried for some time, but when his body was recovered later his tongue was intact. This was a miracle supposed to be supporting evidence that his tongue was used to say good things about the church. We visited the gift shop, and there they sold third-degree relics of holy linen which had been pressed against the tongue. I bought some of these for 0.60 euros each to share with friends who would appreciate licked linens.
I noticed that the confession booths were open, and I thought it was time. Fabian waited outside for me. It had been three years since my last confession. The priest told me to go at least once a year, and I intend to do at least that much from here forward. The entire experience was meaningful to me.
Fabian and I had visited San Antonio in March 2015 and done tourism there, and we remembered that San Antonio was founded by Franciscan friars. At this church we learned that Saint Anthony and Saint Francis were contemporaries and colleagues, with Anthony himself being a Franciscan. Fabian suggested that this is why Franciscans named the city “San Antonio”, and with Anthony’s birth name being Fernando (he was Porteguese), that is why the basilica in San Antonio is Saint Fernando’s Basilica.
On Sunday we went to Milan.