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I
stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron
So
unearthly that one imagines it is all a dream, the city of Venice,
La Serenissima, stands guard, resplendent in its own
beauty, watching over the Adriatic Sea. A portal to Western
Europe and to the Orient, its mixed heritage evident in everything
from delicate Murano glass to the Doge's Palace (where the
uniquely Venetian trefoil pointed arch is surmounted by a
four-leaf clover or quatrefoil). Venice, which saw the
development of modern European banking in its Jewish Ghetto, the
original ghetto, in the 16th century. Venice, a 17th century
economic and military titan that repulsed the mighty Ottomans from
Greece. Several decades after this remarkable victory, in
1717 to be exact, when the Armenian Catholic order known as the
Mechitarists -- named after Abbot Mechitar of Sebastia -- faced
persecution, the Venetians offered them refuge on a small but
scenic island, a former leper colony named after the patron saint
of the illness -- and so the name Isola di San Lazzaro degli
Armeni or San Lazarus of the Armenians.
In
1816, the poet Lord Byron visited San Lazzaro: the Englishman felt
instantly at home in the presence of these learned Levantine
scholars and in the monastery's wood-paneled library lined with
the great works of Eastern and Western Literature. He came
back for lessons in classical Armenian here for several months and
wrote in his Confessions: "By way of divertissement, I
am studying daily at an Armenian monastery, the Armenian
language. I found that my mind wanted something craggy to
break upon; and this -- as the most difficult thing I could
discover here (in Venice) for an amusement…" He
eventually compiled the first English-Armenian grammar book and
even translated the Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.
Today,
one can visit San Lazzaro, and see the monastery, church
(mosaics!), library (ancient manuscripts), and pinacoteca
(art gallery) where there is on display both Armenian and Venetian
art (San Lazzaro was the only island Napoleon did not ransack),
and a room dedicated to Lord Byron (complete with 15th-century
Indian throne) who often stayed at the monastery. There are
peacocks in the garden, and even an ancient Indian papyrus amidst
all its treasures. The island is a short fifteen-minute
vaporetto ride from the San Zaccaria station, a perfect divertissement
from the Venice Biennale!
Visit:
Venice
and San Lazzaro,
i-escape.com
Visit:
Venice Biennale
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