An afternoon around Arsenale of Venice

It's amazing how a casual afternoon walk in a corner of Venice can open a window on events that happened before and catapult you into the history of the Serenissima.


Lost confidently through narrow streets of the Castello district, I finally come out into Campo de le Gorne, a beautiful tree on the left and in front of the first bas-relief with inscription. I feel to start a treasure hunt.

It is a first lion (of San Marco) that seems to have been chiselled at the fall of the Republic in 1797 and then replaced as the inscription says in 1925 to the memory of Piero Foscari, a Venetian serviceman and politician who died in 1923.The lion does not seem
to have a satisfied face.


Well, I continue holding the Arsenal on the left passing Penini bridge and always on the left arrival at the entrance of the same.


Monumental and grandiose all

 but it is the first lion of the 4 that keep watch that attracts me.

Not for nothing, in fact, this has distant and Greek origins, first or second century after Christ, and arrives nothing less than from Athens.

The Lion of Piraeus is 3 meters high, of white marble and was taken from the Greek capital by Venetians during the siege in the war against the Ottoman Empire as loot by commander Francesco Morosini in 1687.
It did not have an easy life as it was also scarred in the eleventh century with runes on the shoulders and flanks by Scandinavian mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Empire.


Legends of terror and witchcraft were whispered on these 4 lions that in certain stormy nights would have come to life and torn up citizens, leaving the tattered bodies in front of the Arsenal.


There are two references to the Alighieri on the façade.

A bust on the right

 and a quote from canto xxI on the left

 in which he exalts the hard work of the shipyard.
 Dante was impressed and fascinated by the efficiency of the Arsenale and the Venetians
paid homage to him with three internal buildings called Inferno Purgatorio and Paradiso. Among other things, Dante's visit to Venice in 1321 as ambassador of Guido Novello da Polenta was fatal to him because on the way back he was the victim of malaria and died.

Steeped in legends and Divine Comedy, I go on satisfying my path and crossing the bridge, glimpsing the open lagoon in the distance ... but a last inscription as soon as I cross presents itself to me and a new piece joins the puzzle.

This time we are at the end of the Austrian domination when Venice and Veneto become part of the Regno of Italy, year 1866

So ... in a few steps fundamental events of the destiny of this city and of Italy are embedded in the stone .. and no history book would have made me remember or engrave in the memory better than the experience that I have traveled.