Lions

Leone Urlante or Roaring Lion by Mirko (1956), can be found in the gardens of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. It's an appropriate location for the work, this being the city of St.Mark whose symbol is the lion.

Mirko's piece is one of many beautiful sculptures placed around the garden - Moore, Brancusi, Giacometti, to name just a few - are on display in the pleasant courtyards where you can sit and admire them.

There are brilliant works by the Italian Futurists and after having seen their Russian avante-garde counterparts in St.Petersburg, this was the main attraction for me.

Led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the ringleader of the group, its members sought to capture the idea of modernity, the sensations and aesthetics of speed, movement, and industrial development.

What I wasn't expecting was an array of other spectacular works by the likes of Picasso, Duchamp, Kandinsky, Leger, Ernst and my favourite, Giorgio di Chirico.

Guggenheim herself came to live in the palace along the Grand Canal whose proper name is Palazzo Venier dei Leoni.

Legend has it that the palazzo came to be called this because the Venier family kept a lion in the garden! Highly unlikely.

Directly across the water is the small but elegant Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto.

We had booked to see a condensed version of La Traviata on our last night in the city and when I discovered it would be performed in the very same palace I was delighted.

I immediately did some research online about the illustrious history of the place which in the 16th century had a total "make over" - gorgeous cornices, elaborate stucco, gilded picture rails, doors and the like. There are beautiful paintings on display, most notably by Tiepolo whose painted ceilings are amongst the most striking in Venice. The only way to see part of the palace is by attending the initiate soirées of opera which are performed to a small audience for most of the year.

The Barbarigo family had been around since the Middle Ages.

There had been two Doges in this family. The first, Marco, ruled the Republic in 1485-86 and was the first Doge to be crowned on the Giants Staircase of Palazzo Ducale. His reign was so short due to a fatal wrangle he had during a senate meeting with his brother and successor, Agostino.

Agostino Barbarigo reigned from 1486 till 1501, the period in which Caterina Corner, queen of Cyprus, donated her kingdom to Venice.

The palace fell into shocking disrepair until the late 19th century when it took a wrangle of another kind - on a different continent - to save it.

I didn't know at the time but subsequently read that the palace was owned by a famous American who came to Venice well before Peggy but whose descendants were good friends and neighbours.

How the Curtises came to Venice is an extraordinary story worth telling.

I came across it in John Berendts, The City of Fallen Angels:

The Curtises,” said Peter, “were rich, old-line Bostonians, whose ancestry went back to the Mayflower. They bought Palazzo Barbaro, and their descendants have lived there ever since

...Peter went on to explain that Daniel Curtis was riding in a commuter train from Boston to the suburbs when he got into an altercation with another man over a seat that had been saved for a third party. Words were exchanged. The other man declared that Daniel Curtis was “no gentleman,” and in reply Mr. Curtis twisted the man’s nose. The injured party turned out to be a judge, who thereupon brought suit against Daniel Curtis for assault. A trial followed, and Daniel Curtis was convicted and sentenced to two months in jail. Upon his release, according to the story, he indignantly gathered up his family, moved to Europe, and never came back. “It is only fair to point out,” said Peter, “that in all the years he lived in Venice, Daniel Curtis behaved like a consummate gentleman. From the moment he and Ariana set foot in Palazzo Barbaro, they made it a gathering place for the best-known, most-admired artists, writers, and musicians of their day. Robert Browning read his poetry aloud to the Curtises and their guests. Henry James, a frequent houseguest, used the Barbaro as the model for the fictional Palazzo Leporelli in his masterpiece The Wings of the Dove. John Singer Sargent was a distant cousin, and when he was visiting the Barbaro, he painted in the top-floor studio of his cousin, Ralph Curtis, who was also an accomplished painter. Monet painted views of Santa Maria della Salute from the Barbaro’s water gate. Are you getting the picture?

Venice evokes a range of emotions - from bemusement or disgust with the swarming tourism it attracts, to sheer awe at being immersed in undeniable beauty and uniqueness. Henry James wrote in Italian Hours (by far the best book on travelling in Italy I have read despite its age):

There are travellers who think the place odious, and those who are not of this opinion often find themselves wishing that the others were only more numerous. The sentimental tourist's sole quarrel with his Venice is that he has too many competitors there. He likes to be alone; to be original; to have (to himself, at least) the air of making discoveries. The Venice of to-day is a vast museum where the little wicket that admits you is perpetually turning and creaking, and you march through the institution with a herd of fellow-gazers. There is nothing left to discover or describe, and originality of attitude is completely impossible.

 

What James says is as true today as it was in the late 19th century. There is no way of escaping the touristic dimensions of a stay in the city, of getting frustrated by some of its crass commercialism.

There are really no new experiences to be had ...but that's part of what being in this maze of incredible beauty is all about. What you need to do is let go of your preconceptions and preciousness, get away from the crowds if you can and just wander ...the enchantment inevitably catches up with and washes over you.

 

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