How sad Venice is...

Upset by the tragedy in Venice? And why would that be? It was all more than predictable. Strange that it didn’t happen sooner.

After the terrible acqua granda of 1966 (which so impressed the world, to the point that dozens of spontaneous committees, mostly non-Italian, sprang up under the cry of Save Venice) for hundreds of times what happened on the night of November 12 was in danger of happening, and in these days of continuous rain it could happen again. When the mournful alarm siren sounds in the city warning citizens of the arrival of high water, no one really knows what could happen in the following hours: it depends on the winds, the intensity of the rain and other factors that, combined, could have more or less frightening consequences.

It is a fragile city, Venice. And with risk it has to live. However, who does not remember the burning of the Fenice? As the firefighters of the time declared, a huge area of the city was in danger of being destroyed by fire. It went well because they were able to confine the fire to the theater alone. But if there had been different wind conditions that night and the fire had spread to other neighboring buildings, spreading, no one could have done anything and the world would have found itself weeping over the ashes of a new Pompeii.

High water in St. Mark’s Square in Venice. Credit: Municipality of Venice

That of high water is a physiological problem for Venice, having been built on countless islets in a lagoon open to the sea. The problem is that the climatic conditions of the planet are changing in a way that has not happened for centuries, and the risk of Venice becoming a new Atlantis is not only real, but probable, if one gives credence to the predictions of progressive climate warming and consequent rising waters.

A great deal of public money was spent to build MOSE, but it is clear that the initiative was preferred over other (more natural and low-cost) ones so that economic enterprises and politics could make money from it. The president of the Veneto Region at the time was convicted of corruption, but he was hardly the only one. With the construction of MOSE, if on the one hand Venice was saved, on the other hand there would be a subsequent flood of money, connected to the very expensive maintenance: that was the business deal. Now it is said that we are at 93 % completion of the work, which (at this point, on the wave of emotions and the inescapability of some public intervention) will be done. Will it be enough? Of course not.

The problem is dramatically complex and requires an organic, flexible and more than expensive approach. How to believe that it will be adequately taken care of by those who, until now, have allowed Venice to be run, not as Disneyland (which works), but as a cow to be squeezed. Think of the disgrace of the large cruise ships that pass in front of St. Mark’s Basin to sell the view and dump millions of tourists there. Only by a handful of inches did dozens of people not die when, a short time ago, one of these huge vessels went out of control. Yet in Dubrovnik (and in many other cities touched by this type of tourism) cruise ships are docked outside the historic center and tourists picked up by shuttle buses: why has this not been done in Venice so far? Who has prevented something as normal as this, requested by a thousand parties, from being activated long ago? Evidently there is a risk that someone in a position to influence political choices could gain less from it.

Is it therefore all the fault of the state and the strong powers? Unfortunately, no. It pains me to say it, but how many Venetians have accepted and passively accept one of the biggest problems of the city’s structural degradation: namely, the wave motion produced by private boats that (not respecting speed limits) produce waves that slap the banks and undersides of the buildings facing the water thousands of times every day. Yet this would seem to be a very easy problem to solve: I imagine all it would take is a mayoral ordinance and the iron will to enforce it. Sure, there would be some slowdowns for many workers (who would certainly never re-elect that Mayor). But it would be an enormously valuable, even symbolic, sign of respect and protection.

Above all, it would take an overall vision of a city that has treasures at every corner and that must be preserved from the unstoppable flow of a beastly tourism outside all rules and decorum, which enters it like an elephant in a glass house. No preclusion toward anyone, of course: the right to know Venice is universal. I remember almost with tenderness the thousands of buses that, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, poured into the city hundreds of thousands of people fromEastern Europe who, disfigured by journeys of dozens of hours, were dumbfounded by its bewitching beauty and visited it, even in their poverty, with respect. Today it is an open-air bivouac, shameless and without a culture of approach and welcome. It would be enough to impose, even here, precise rules and enhance a tourism conveyed even in the minor areas, other than the usual Piazza San Marco and Rialto areas (where Venetians can hardly walk anymore). Will it happen? I don’t think so. Because we would have to start again from a high idea, from strong ethical vision, from a deep-rooted historical consciousness, from technical and managerial skills of the highest profile, from an unyielding determination that I cannot recognize in the current politicians. The citizens who love Venice are too few and too weak to really make an impact. And they live in a country, Italy, which in many ways remains extraordinary, but which unfortunately (in the low horizon of ideals of today’s politics) fails to give itself a medium- and long-term prospect of development.

The latest blow to hopes of rebirth is from today. The referendum on the separation of Venice and Mestre failed to reach a quorum: only 21.7 percent of those eligible voted. Venice-Mestre will continue to remain an indissoluble unity, a metropolitan center as they call it, even though the two cities (separated by the sea and linked by the Liberty Bridge) are the moon-like opposite of each other. This, too, was predictable: beyond the deep-rooted social connections, many trust that the release of funding that will predictably accompany the near future will also benefit Mestre. This is all understandable and predictable. Forgetting, however, that perhaps the only way to attempt to save Venice is to fully recognize its absolute diversity from any other historic center and (consequently) provide it with an effective possibility of special self-defense. The idea is not new: when I was a boy I remember articles in Corriere della Sera in which Indro Montanelli advocated a special jurisdiction of Venice that could be led by a UN protectorate. Times have changed now: there is the European Union and the newly installed Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen has declared that Venice (for the European Union) is vital. If from words to deeds and really recognize that the drowning Venice is much more than a symbol of Europe and its extraordinary cultural multiplicity, then let them constitute a Special Commissioner with funds and delegated powers, in full agreement with that Italian State that so far has shown itself unable to save this treasure of humanity.

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