The Isola di Sant’Erasmo (St. Erasmus) is the largest island in the Venetian lagoon, but it’s only sparsely populated. For years this has been Venice’s countryside, the agricultural zone which produces the fruit and vegetables consumed by the hungry city. Among its produce, particularly renowned are the artichokes (carciofi). The landscape is flat, and dotted with farms and rural small-holdings. It couldn’t be more different from Venice, whose bell-towers and churches can be seen on the skyline.

Travel

The Sant’Erasmo ferry is the number 13 which departs from Venice’s Fondamente Nove stop on a roughly hourly basis. The boat calls at three stops along the shore of Sant’Erasmo: Capannone, then Chiesa, and finally Punta Vela. The journey takes 30-50 minutes, depending on which stop you get off at. Note that not all the services run the full route; check a timetable. It’s also advisable to note the return times before you set off to explore the island.

Walking around the island

The island is a long strip of land running from the south-west to the north-east. The three ferry stops are all on the north-western ‘inner’ shore, looking over the lagoon rather than towards the sea. This long stretch faces across the water and mudbanks towards the islands of Burano, whose coloured houses can just be distinguished, and San Francesco del Deserto. One of the island’s only notable buildings, the church, is on this shore. Another, the Torre Massimiliana, is down in the bottom corner of the island. This building is a nineteenth-century fort surrounded by a stagnant moat, started by the Napoleonic regime and finished by the Austrian. Its name recalls a time when Archduke Maximilian (Massimiliano) took refuge here. Recently the fort was restored and it is now open to the public, housing occasional exhibitions (opening days are limited).

Our walking tour of Sant’Erasmo
We got off the boat at Chiesa, the stop by the island’s church. This is one of the island’s landmarks, but it’s a fairly recent building with nothing to grab the visitor’s attention. We then set out along a lane next to the church, which headed across the width of the island, away from the northern lagoon shore. This route passed various allotments and fields, a new housing development, and Sant’Erasmo’s little cemetery. A farmer, stripped to the waist, laboured in one field, while another buzzed past in a little Ape (one of those tiny three-wheeled lorries) with his mother squeezed in next to him.
Reaching the other side of the island in a few minutes, we turned right and continued for a short distance before we came to a path leading out to the shore of the lagoon, where a comfortable track led along a bank. Down to our left were picturesque mud flats and shallow lagoon waters, where three people were wading in search of some delicacy for supper. Even on a peak holiday (Easter Monday) this part of the island was quiet - for whole stretches of the shore path we didn’t see anyone. The views over towards the mouth of the lagoon were interestingly dotted with boats and sandbanks; inland we passed more fields and gardens. Several battered rowing-boats were drawn up on the mud below us, and a couple of wading birds strutted about in a pool of water. If you’re interested either in boats or birds, it would be a good idea to bring binoculars on this excursion.

Finally, as we approached the tip of the island and the restored fort, we came upon hordes of Italian day-trippers, obviously not very keen to leave the vicinity of their fellow-Venetians or of the humble little bar-trattoria. Some - children and adults - were doing their best to pretend the muddy slope leading into the water was a proper beach. Gaggles of little boats had pulled up for socialising and refreshments. The bar, mostly peopled by old men speaking an indecipherable dialect, made a welcome break with its cheap wine and pleasant outdoor tables.

From the fort behind the restaurant, a small road leads back, past canals and ditches, towards the ferry stop of Capannone. The outing - including a break for refreshments - took us around an hour and three-quarters.

From 18 Juli 2009 to 19 Juli 2009

Redentore Fireworks Festival 2009 - Venice

The Redentore festival is close to the hearts of Venetians, and is celebrated on the third Sunday of July, with a grandiose fireworks show on Saturday night as the main attraction. The Venetians take in the spectacle of the fireworks right from their boats which are usually decorated with balloons, festoons and lights. Starting before sunset, the boats make their way to the Saint’s Mark basin and to the Giudecca Canal. The waters sparkle with the reflection of boats and lights. On the boats, among song, dance and typical food, people wait for the fireworks that begin at 11.30pm and go on for almost an hour. Along the banks thousand of people also wait for the fireworks at long tables set up for the occasion. The origins of the festival dates back to the horrible plague that devastated Venice between 1575 and 1577. In three years the plague killed 50,000 people, more than a third of the population. In 1566 the Senate for the Republic decided to erect a church in honor of the Redeemer, hoping that a divine act put an end to the plague. On July 13, 1577 the plague was declared finally over and from then on Venice has been marking the event on the third Sunday of July with a religious celebration and a popular feast. During the days of the Redentore festival a bridge of boats, 330 meters in length, straddles the Giudecca Canal. The bridge allows Venetians to easily access the Redentore basilica, where the faithful take part in religious celebrations. The most important one is the Votive Mass presided by the Patriarch. When: July 18-19, 2009

Venice’s newest art gallery, the Museo Vedova, by celebrity architect Renzo Piano has put a 21st century twist on the art of picture hanging.

Dedicated entirely to the work of the Venetian abstract art pioneer Emilio Vedova (1919-1996), paintings at the Museo Vedova don’t hang at all - they float.

Suspended in the air by a fleet of robotic shuttles moving along a track fixed to the ceiling, the paintings glide through the exhibition space at various heights, periodically coming to rest at strategic points under the lights before floating away to a different position.

The paintings are brought out together in series according to their chronological or thematic contexts and then whisked away to a storage space at the back of the museum to be replaced by others.

The public can view the paintings from the floor or from an elevated wooden mezzanine along the wall.

Set to open on June 3 for the 53rd Venice Biennial art exhibition, the Museo Vedova is located in the artist’s former studio, a renovated warehouse at the historic Venetian salt docks.

Explaining how he came by the idea for the museum, Renzo Piano explained, ”the warehouses are narrow and long and so it made sense to imagine that down at the far end, a bit hidden in the shadow, would be the storage facility, and out of this, as if by magic, the works would appear in a certain order. From this came the idea of mobility, whereby it’s not the spectator who goes to the artwork, but the artwork that comes to the spectator”.

Piano was introduced to Vedova in the 1980s by the composer Luigi Nono, with whom the two collaborated in designing the set for the premiere of Nono’s opera ”Prometheus” at the 41st Venice Biennial in 1984.

A frequent visitor to Vedova’s studio, Piano said, ”there was always the feeling that one day that imposing warehouse, a rather magical place or kind of cavern, could be the home for his works. He had always imagined this…and it was obvious that it wasn’t a question of hanging works the way one normally does”.

Emilio Vedova was a seminal figure of the post-war avant garde, emerging from the anti-fascist art group ”Corrente” in Milan to co-found the ”Fronte Nuovo delle arti” in 1947, a short-lived but prominent movement which looked to the neocubism of Pablo Picasso as the model for a modern new aesthetic.

His career exploded in the 1950s with a solo show in the prestigious Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York followed by his inclusion in the landmark exhibition ”Gruppo degli otto pittori italiani” at the 26th Venice Biennial in 1952, which established him among the foremost abstract artists in Italy.

Vedova would return to the Biennial eight years later to claim the Grand Prize for painting.

From the dark geometries of his experiments with cubism, Vedova’s work from 1950 onward grew increasingly abstract, placing him in league with the European ”Art Informel” movement that paralleled the work of abstract expressionists in America like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

”My [works] are not creations, but earthquakes,” Vedova once said.

”They are not paintings, but breaths”.

Vedova’s experimenting would eventually carry his work off the canvas altogether into the groundbreaking new terrain of artificial light play and installation art, for which he was featured in the Italian pavilion at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal.

Vedova died in 1996 at the age of 87.

In addition to the cutting edge new Museo Vedova, his works are also on display at the nearby Peggy Guggenheim collection as well scores of other galleries and museums around the world.

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