The Irish Times
August 17, 2004

Keeping the past of a maritime republic alive

Letter from Venice/Patrick Comerford: The “Queen of the Adriatic” is
a city of over 100 islands and 400 or more bridges. But few visitors
give themselves a chance to get lost in its narrow alleyways or to
discover the unique and colourful minorities that have been part of
Venetian life for centuries.

Jews have lived and traded in Venice since 1381. In 1516 they were
forced to live in the New Foundry or Ghetto Nuovo, a tiny island
still linked by three small bridges to the rest of Venice. But by
then their numbers were being swollen by new arrivals from Spain and
Portugal, from central Europe, and from Greece and Turkey. Europe’s
first Ghetto was soon too small for the Jewish community, which
spilled out into the neighbouring Ghetto Vecchio and Ghetto
Nuovissimo, and Napoleon tore down the walls and gates of the Ghetto
in 1797.

About 200 Venetian Jews were deported to the death camps in
1943-1944, and only eight returned. But today there are about 400
Jews in Venice, including 80 or so in the Ghetto, their numbers
boosted in recent years with the arrival from Rome and New York of
enthusiastic, pious Hasidic Jews. Four synagogues remain open in the
Ghetto area: the Scola Tedesca and the Scola al Canton, built by
German and French Jews between 1528 and 1531, are virtual museums.
But the Scola Spagnola, built by Spanish Jews at the same time, still
alternates Saturday services with the Scola Levantina, built by Greek
Jews in 1538, complete with a hip-level screen inspired by the
iconostasis or icon-screen of Greek churches.

A significant Greek community has lived close to Ponte dei Greci (the
Bridge of the Greeks) since the 11th century, when the first Greek
artisans arrived to decorate Saint Mark’s Basilica and many of the
early churches of Venice. They expanded significantly with the influx
of refugees following the Turkish capture of Constantinople in 1453.
The church of San Giorgio dei Greci, with its leaning belltower, was
built at a cost of 15,000 gold ducats between 1539 and 1573, and the
vivid iconostasis or icon screen was painted by Michael Damaskinos,
the greatest Cretan iconographer of the day and a contemporary of El
Greco.

As the Serene Republic lost its Greek colonies in the 17th and 18th
centuries, Greeks continued to flood into Venice, and their presence
helped to spread classical culture throughout Europe. A whole Greek
neighbourhood took shape around the church on the banks of the Rio
dei Greci, and at its peak the Greek community numbered 15,000
people. But Napoleon’s abolition of the Republic of Venice in 1797
marked the beginning of the decline of this prosperous community as
their assets and church treasures were confiscated. However, a
convent of Greek nuns and their girls’ school survived until 1834,
and until 1905 the Greek College provided Greek communities in the
Ottoman territories with educated priests and teachers.

Despite their decline in recent generations, the small Greek
community continues in Venice. The Collegio Flangini now houses the
Hellenic Institute for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies, a museum
in the former Scuola di San Nicolo dei Greci displays a unique
collection of icons, and San Giorgio dei Greci has became a
cathedral, with an archbishop living in the old palace.

Close to Saint Mark’s, the Calle degli Armeni is in the heart of the
old Armenian quarter. By the end of the 13th century, the Armenian
community had a secure presence in Venice, finding their niche as
tradesmen and moneylenders. The church of Santa Croce degli Armeni
was founded in 1496 and the procurators of Saint Mark paid annual
visits in recognition of the “well-deserving and most-favoured
Armenian nation.” The city’s best-hidden church is now locked except
for Sunday services, and the most conspicuous Armenian presence is
out on the lagoon on the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni, where a
monastery was founded on the former leper colony in 1717 by a group
of Armenian monks expelled from the Morea in Greece by the Ottoman
Turks.

The monks of San Lazzaro survived Napoleon’s confiscations because of
an indispensable Armenian in the imperial secretariat. Byron spent
six months here, learning classical Armenian and compiling a
dictionary. But, despite the proximity of the Lido, the monks are
virtually undisturbed by visitors. On the afternoon I arrived, only
half a dozen others got off the vaporetto. As he took me around the
library with its 200,000 precious manuscripts and books, the museum
with its Egyptian sarcophagus and mummy, and the gallery of Armenian
paintings, Father Vartanes explained that there are only eight
Armenian monks left on San Lazzaro and no more than 10 Armenian
families in Venice.

When evening falls and the tourists leave Venice, the dwindling
numbers of Jews in the Ghetto, the Armenian monks on San Lazzaro and
the remaining Greeks of San Giorgio are left alone once again.

The proportion of native Venetians who live here continues to decline
rapidly as wealthy Italians from Milan and Turin snap up properties
on the market. Even the Venetians are becoming a minority in their
own city.