Topless in Venice

Topless in Venice

Being built on a lagoon, Venice abounds in bridges (497 in all), across her canals and waterways. Everybody knows the Ponte di Rialto and the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs). Rialto was one of the main islands in the lagoon. The name is a contraction of ‘Rivo alto’ or ‘high bank’, probably referring to the somewhat higher position of the island compared to the others. The Bridge of Sighs was built in 1602 by order of Doge Marino Grimani to connect the tribunal halls of the Ducal Palace in St. Mark Square to the dungeons. The Bridge of Sighs, however, only acquired its current name during the XIX century, when sighing became fashionable and a kind of romantic statement. Sighing on the Bridge of Sighs were of course the convicts being led to prison.

Ponte delle Tette, Venice (Bridge of the Female Breast)

But the Venetian bridge dealt with here is off the tourists’ main path and is called ‘Ponte delle Tette’ or Bridge of the Female Breast.

Words are the distillate of ideas and street names, or here bridge names, are usually indexes of past historical events or people. But how could there be a historical link between a bridge and the female breast? To discover the connection we must define a foreign word and then investigate a piece of early 16th century Venetian history.

The Italian language, along with its 20 main dialects, is rich in synonyms - scientific, aseptic, literary, poetic, convivial, familiar, rogue, vulgar and with shades in between. ‘Tette’ is familiar but not vulgar. In an improbable dictionary of nuances an entry for ‘tette’ may read ‘describes the whole assembly with just a very mild emphasis on the nipples’.

During the Renaissance Venice was the Las Vegas of Europe, the capital of entertainment. Princes, noblemen and wealthy merchants flocked to Venice to have a good time and gamble. Entire fortunes were lost at the gaming table. Such was the case, for example of Vincenzo Gonzaga, one of the last dukes of Mantua. To pay for his gambling losses he auctioned off the marvelous family art collection in Mantua. One of the keenest art collectors in Europe at the time was the English Stuart King Charles I. He had an agent in Italy called Nys. When Nys heard of the Mantua auction he dispatched a courier to Charles I asking urgently for ten thousand pounds to bid on the best pieces of the collection. But a reply never came. Convinced at first that the delay was accidental Nys borrowed the money. He could not know the reason for the delay. Charles I had been captured by Cromwell during the Civil War and beheaded in 1649. Nys declared bankruptcy. This shows how sometimes history’s events have dramatic repercussions on individuals, even if the repercussions are deemed too trivial to be recorded in official history books.

The bridge of our story is one such case. Early in the 16th century Venice witnessed an increase in homosexuality, at the time referred to as sodomy.

Homosexuality already existed in Venice. For example, in his extensive and meticulously detailed chronicles of Venice, Martin Sanudo relates that in 1482 Mr. Hieronimo had a crush on Mr. Urban, a handsome young man ("zovene bellissimo"). Whereupon in the calle (street) connecting Ca’ Trevisan (Trevisan palace) to the church of St. Barthelemy, Hieronimo, using scissors, cut the strings of Urban’s stockings ("for purposes of sodomy", says Sanudo). Urban reacted and brought suit against Hieronimo at the Council of 10, one of the judicial bodies of the Republic.

In fairness, it is somewhat difficult to visualize the mechanics of the crime.

Suppose I target a pretty lady in downtown Broadway and decide to attempt to cut her stockings. For one thing she could react, run, scream, shout for help, wack or kick me. Maybe she would be frozen in terror? Still, my surveying where to cut and fumbling with the scissors would inevitably attract attention from passers-by and stop the heinous deed. Be it as it may, Hieronimo was found guilty and duly hanged on Oct 10, 1482, almost 10 years on the button before Columbus landed in the New World.

The purported increase of homosexuality caused great concern especially among Venetian fundamentalists. The senate declared a war on sodomy and adopted harsh preventive and punitive rules. They created what today would be called the Office of Homeland Sexuality and enacted the PURO act (Program for the Uprooting of Reprehensible Orientations). They established a sodomy police force. Convictions were made easier and sentencing expedited. Doctors and barbers were specifically instructed to observe and report on any "detected evidence of sodomy" among their patients. For the uninformed, barbers at the time performed surgery. Two controllers, selected among the noblemen, were assigned to every district. Every Friday, the controllers were to interview the aldermen in each district. The aldermen would report to the controllers and to the sodomy police on any evidence of homosexuality or give information that could lead to the apprehension of homosexuals. Consequently, several recognized or alleged homosexuals were arrested, tried and publicly hanged.

And yet these radical measures did not eradicate sodomy. The moderates in the senate finally persuaded their colleagues that hanging was not a solution. Faced with a dilemma, the senate did then what Congress does today. That is, they established a task force and called on a panel of experts to discover the causes of the increase of this "abominable vice of sodomy" (in the original, extant Latin document, ‘abhominabile vitium sodomiae’).

After due research the experts reported to the Senate. The key reason for the increase in homosexuality - said the report - was the lack of opportunity, for Venetian young men, to experience the allurements of the opposite sex. The recommended solution was novel, original and imaginative. The free loving ladies of Venice resided in a city section called Carampane accessible via the bridge of our story. An ordnance was issued whereby these ladies were allowed and prompted to appear topless at the windows of their abode.

And so they did.

The chroniclers are curiously silent on whether the measure had the desired effect, but the Bridge of the Female Breast will forever remind us of the intention.

 

-Shakespeare's Views on the News-

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