NEWSLETTER Summer 2021
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NEWSLETTER Summer 2021 VENICE IN PERIL PROJECT UPDATE: TABLINO AND OVAL STAIRCASE, DEAR FRIEND AND SUPPORTER ACCADEMIA GALLERIES Repair of 2019 flood damage, a remarkable discovery and a new view Under normal circumstances (my dismissed as ‘sticking-plaster’. It isn’t. heart sinks at the sound of that cliché) Allowing the city itself to collapse into Venice in Peril would be in the midst its canals doubtless holds a certain of a planned series of celebrations cheaply sophisticated allure, but this throughout 2021 to mark our 50th devalues the achievement of the very anniversary. The pandemic having first Venetians and all those who have written us all a different scenario, it kept its unique flame burning for 1,600 now looks as if the various beanos, years (another anniversary for 2021). As junketings and red-letter days will have our own founders understood, Venice to be shuffled around. encapsulates all the finest impulses of our shared humanity, those redemptive We survive however and our work goes inspirations that have drawn such a on, as vital as it was when in 1971 that generous response from friends, donors group of choice spirits led by Ashley and supporters since our foundation. and Frances Clarke established Venice You can continue this by contributing in Peril. Their splendid initiative was to the £100,000 conservation of the soon followed by others, so that 27 magnificent Trinity wellhead, our 50th international heritage organizations now Anniversary project launched here, and Uncovering Canova’s cast of Paris in the Tablino, Gallerie dell’ Accademia form part of the Association of Private you can join our new Patron scheme for Photo: Joan Porcel and courtesy UNISVE/MiBACT/G.A.V.E. Committees, dedicated to funding and munificent supporters. nurturing the specialist talents which sustain Venice’s built environment and We’re still here, still busy, but as always The Tablino hall and Oval staircase the stairs and led to a cavity, covered rich artistic narrative. we need your help, so go out and bring next to it, designed by Andrea Palladio by a recycled 15th-century tombstone, us more friends to help celebrate this in 1560 for the Convent of the Carità, against the outside wall. At first it was In the wider environmental context act of faith in an enduring Venice. have been the focus of a Venice in thought to be a latrine, but further of a fragile ecosystem across the Thank you. Peril project to fund repair of damage investigation has revealed a much surrounding lagoon, many fundamental caused by the exceptionally high bigger, vaulted recess. It was probably challenges for the city as a living entity Jonathan Keates tides of November 2019. The work, one of the cisterns which Palladio, in remain as daunting as ever. How can Chairman undertaken by the Venice conservation the Quattro Libri, says he intended to we stop its population haemorrhaging firm UNISVE includes restoration provide in the Convento della Carità. and keep resident communities alive? of sections of the marmorino plaster What will thwart sleazy manoeuvres wall-covering and the terracotta-tiled The pump will be placed in a steel by short-term financial operators or floor and repairs to the metal bases container in the mouth of the cistern, the drive to turn Venice into a cross supporting plaster casts of sculptures specially designed so that the cistern is between a theme park and an open- by Antonio Canova. protected from any floodwater but can air museum? Who issues the ultimate be accessed in the future. ‘Stop!’ to saturation tourism, grandi navi To prevent flood damage in the future a From the visitor’s point of view an and yet more hotel and holiday rental new drainage solution was required and accommodation? since a pump could not be installed in added benefit of the project will be the Tablino it was decided to open up a the newly revealed view from the Against this dangerously volatile bricked doorway onto the magnificent Tablino through to the stairwell, as background Venice in Peril has carried spiral staircase next door. Excavation Palladio intended. on its remarkable rescue operation here revealed that the original floor of The conservation work is scheduled to through a half-century of existence. the stairwell continued the slope of finish by the end of June. Our approach has been unfairly 50TH ANNIVERSARY APPEAL FOR THE TRINITY WELLHEAD “The figure group of the Holy Trinity, in the Frari’s Trinità courtyard, is an Since 1971 Venice in Peril has group, set among billowing clouds and completed more than 75 projects, angels and mounted on an imposing astonishing sight. With his carved working closely with Venetians to help arch above the well. with the huge task of protecting the angels flying as if in a frescoed sky, city’s world-famous heritage. This campaign comes in the context of a big state-funded project to extend To mark the half century we are access to the Archivio. There will be a Francesco Cabianca’s statues perch on launching a 50th Anniversary Appeal new public entrance, an adapted water- for £100,000, to fund the conservation gate now accessed from a filled-in canal of the early 18th-century ‘Trinità’ or Rio Terà, and the conversion of the marble clouds on a lofty early 18th- wellhead in the great cloister of the monastery kitchens to reception rooms. Archivio di Stato, formerly the convent The adjacent winter refectory whose century well-head, to be seen against of the Frari. portal is being restored with funds from the Fondation Jean-Barthélemy will It will be the first wellhead adopted become an auditorium for lectures and the real skies of his native Venice.” by Venice in Peril and provides an conferences. opportunity to learn about the work of Francesco Penso, known as Cabianca Please help us raise the £100,000 needed Opposite: Trinity Group surmounting the Wellhead (1665-1737), who sculpted the Trinity to carry out the conservation. Photo: Matteo de Fina PLEASE DONATE TO THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY APPEAL. CONSERVATION TODAY IS A GIFT FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS. You can donate online at veniceinperil.org, by cheque made payable to Venice in Peril Fund/50AA, by tel. 020 7736 6891 or by BACS transfer using these details: Payment Ref: Your surname/50AA Bank: Lloyds Bank Account Name: Venice in Peril Fund Account No: 26670568 Sort Code: 30 16 74 IBAN: GB81 LOYD 3016 7426 6705 68 Please email [email protected] if this is the first time you have made a donation to Venice in Peril. THANK YOU TIME TRAVEL IN THE ARCHIVIO DI STATO DI VENEZIA Deborah Howard shares her experiences of undertaking archive research alongside the Trinity cloister Among the documents in the Archives The recipe adds that a ‘torta bianca’ I first began working in the Venetian is too damaged to be discernible from the star-shaped fortified town may be made the same way, except archives more than fifty years ago, and – and occasionally the pages even of Palmanova around 1595, I found a that the spices are replaced by a few very quickly became hooked - much disintegrate in the hand. Sometimes recipe for a ‘torta rossa’. Made without drops of rose water for flavouring to my own surprise, as I had always the handwriting is so untidy or shaky flour (which was in very short supply (presumably instead of some of the found published documents terribly that it is hardly legible, or the ink has on the building site), this cake was milk), being sure to use a clean bowl. dull. In the early 1970s readers used faded, or the script on the back of obviously a delicacy for the military I made both cakes, and they were an upstairs room over the canal. This the page has bitten through the paper. engineers, rather than a meal for the delicious – but I warn you not to study room was so cold in winter that Rules and regulations proliferate and hungry labourers. The ingredients overdo the rose-water. I wore a crocheted poncho over my change all the time. At one point it are listed: The thrill of archival research lies clothes, poking my pen out through was decreed that it was dangerous the holes. Those who arrived at 8.30 for the staff to climb ladders, so for ½ lb ground almonds in chance discoveries such as these. Archives help you to get to know the on the dot could claim the seats a while material from high shelves ½ lb sugar with the best daylight, and frequent was inaccessible. Under the present ½ oz cinnamon people as individuals. You discover a magistrate who suffers from gout visits to the bar for hot chocolate coronavirus restrictions there is a 4 cloves were essential. two-month wait for appointments. A few spices which makes him tetchy or meet an impoverished noblewoman whose But the chance discoveries of new 8 eggs Later the sala di lettura moved to the and exciting material more than make A pinch of salt clothes are so old and tatty that she former refectory of the Franciscans, is ashamed to go out except to take up for the frustrations. I am just one 4 spoonfuls of milk. a large, vaulted hall with Gothic of many researchers who have found communion at Easter. In your own clerestory windows – and heating! bare hand, you can hold testaments their life’s work on the shelves of the This beautiful space holds many Venetian state archives. drawn up in Damascus or Alexandria, cherished memories for me. I almost or read secret dispatches in code, or want to caress the tall marble columns parchment decrees a thousand years that run down the centre of the old.