Venice: Wherein we find the forest

In this extract for the biography of the dogaressas of Venice, Edgecumb Stanley describes how the city was made. It suggests terrible powers for Herbam wizards, and it gives us a reason why the Cult of Diana we have seen in glimpses so far through the book has taken on a strange, urban form. In this section, we find the forest.

“The first “Grand” Doge and Founder of Venice was Agnello Badoero, better known perhaps to historians by his Greek title ”Ipato” or ” Protospataro,”— in the Rialto vernacular Partecipazio…Agnello was Tribune of Malamocco, although a native of Eraclea, a man of many parts, he exhibited remarkable talents in almost every walk of life. A Greek of the Greeks by descent, he was a pronounced humanist in the school of Plato. A born legislator, he was by inclination an engineer and builder, and excelled his peers in mercantile industry and political acumen.”

This little is necessary because he is the first of the Grand Doges, the big historical figures who we will be tinkering with. The next section describes historical houses in Venice, and that’s handy for scenery in storytelling.

“Long before he was called to the supreme office of Doge he had fixed ideas about, and matured plans for, the conservation and development of the conditions of the islands of the Lagunes. Immediately after his election in 810, he broke with the traditions of the dogado, by removing the seat of Government to Rivo-Alto as being far and away a more convenient centre and at the same being much more secure from the attacks of enemies. Already there was a considerable population in the new capital and churches and houses of some importance had been erected—many of them of stone. All the same the ordinary Rivo-Alto dwellings were of modest dimensions and few rose beyond one storey In height. A marked feature of them all was the outside staircase, which gave access to the living rooms, and also led directly to the altana or look-out tower upon the flat roof. They were furnished with a solario or liago—an open balcony whereupon the inmates could sit and take the air and hold chit-chats with their friends.

Upon the flat roof the women of the household performed their toilet, combing out their hair and exposing it to the sunshine. Various domestic duties also were transacted upon the ”sun-traps,” for example newly-washed linen bleached nowhere as effectively as there. Bedrooms occupied the upper part, and the plan of the ground floor provided kitchens and offices with rooms for meals and the reception of guests. These, in the large structures, were arranged upon three sides of a square forming a courtyard or garden patch.”

So, servants on the bottom floor, stairs to the bedrooms on the upper floors. and also to the outdoor room of the roof, which was a place of women. I’m not sure if the linen will come up again, but there’s a lot of folk magic about it in English sources. You need to leave it to decay in water, then weave it skillfully, then stretch it out over fields to bleach. This makes it very different from, for example, wool.

Also, note that some people had towers, rather than altanes? We don’t know why wizards have towers in Mythic Europe. The spell to make them descends from the Cult of Mercury, apparently, but it must have looked odd when it was first used because the towers it creates are circular. That’s an innovation in castle building in the c13th. The Romans didn’t build circular towers in their forts: they built square ones, I believe. Still, we now have towers up where the women are doing their magic, which increases their Sight range.

In the next section we meet Dogaressa Elena. We know she was Christian, in the real world, because she founded Santa Giustina is Venice. This was dedicated to the patron saint of the dogaressas. She also founded Sant Illario and Sant Zaccaria, where doges and dogaressesas retired into the contemplative life. We will deal with them later.

“Donna Elena occupied herself in cultivating “simples” and sweet-smelling flowers, without which no Venetian considered his home complete. Perhaps no people set greater store by fragrant flowers and succulent herbs than did those Venetian children of the sea-mists and salt-sands. The simplest bloom that the saline breeze allowed to grow was as precious as the most luxuriant rambler-rose, or flowering laurel. Vines grew everywhere and throve amazingly, and everybody had a floral or arboreal hobby.”

So, we all have herb and flower gardens, ready for the arrival of the perfumerers and alchemists, later in history.

“Having established himself in his primitive palace, Doge Agnello set to work to carry out his ideas of utility and expansion. First of all, in view of the many inroads of ruthless invaders into Veneto, he turned his attention to the strengthening of the defences of the islands. Strong cables were slung across the narrower channels, disused hulks of vessels were sunk in the deeper water-ways, and a system of signals by day and of beacons by night was established. The chief life’s work of the sapient Head of the State was the protection of the low-lying lidi from floods and denudation. Thousands and thousands of great timber balks from the Pineta of Ravenna were secured and driven far down into the yielding mud and sand. From pile to pile was woven a basket-work of unbreakable osiers, and then the pumping out of needless channels and the draining of wet marsh-lands was followed by the sinking of innumerable loads of solid earth and gravel, until the reclaimed areas assumed something of the appearance and consistency of terra-firma.”

This is the forest of the urban Diana cult. Venice is basically a set of tree houses, standing high on thousands of pine logs that have ossified in the odd salt water of the lagoons. It doesn’t look like it is floating atop a forest, because the forest is buried out of sight, but the forest is there.

If you’re a Herbam magus, Venice gives you a lot of extra scope for your powers. Many of the tricks of Terram magic, like earthquakes, can be done instead by rattling the wooden framework on which the soil holding up the city rests.

Imagine all of the usual tropes of faerie-affiliated Herbam magic, but with the forest always beneath your feet. Are there’s ents down there? Faerie rings? Odd pixies? The drowned forests of Cornwall have merfolk…does Venice?

One odd and useful point is that the churches in Venice grabbed the bits of solid land when the city was first developing, under the miraculous guidance of St Guistiana, so the places with the strongest Dominion Aura re on solid rock, and the rest of the city is on the top of a forest. Even there, though, there’s an odd hint of the pagan. The girl saint’s instructions were “wherever you find a vine, plant a church”. Presuming these to be grape vines, why would she put the churches there, or, alternatively, why is her sign of favour the grape vine? Let’s just pin that for later, but there seems to be a hint that she’s not all that averse to whatever is going to rise up from the vines and forests.

“With such primitive appliances as were at hand, the success achieved was little short of marvellous. To his new-made plots of land Doge Agnello gave the name of ” Fondamenti” To Rivo-Alto as the centre of his plan, he connected all the neighbouring islands by throwing across the water-ways wooden bridges,—thus Venice assumed her present form…The crowning labour of Doge Agnello Badoero, so far as the building of Venice was concerned, was the erection of the Ducal Palace in 820. This was purely Byzantine in design, very large, and built of rare marbles and mosaics: “II Palazzo” it was called.”

I’ll just note that this gets burned down before the game period in an anti-tyranny riot when a doge tries to make himself king by bringing in foreign mercenaries.

“The times were strenuous and many an one, weary of the toil of the world and yearning for the consolation of religion was irresistibly drawn to assume the habit of the monastery. Men and women of worth became founders of religious houses and, among them. Doge Agnello and Dogaressa Elena, who with their eldest son Giustiniano, built the monasteries of Sant’ Ilario and San Zaccaria.”

So, doges seem to keep popping off to San Zaccaria.. He’s an odd choice: his body was handed over by the eastern Emperors as a gift. He’s not the saint “of” anything in particular – he was the father of John the Baptist, and a minor prophet. He’s sometimes said to aid the patient. I’m tempted to suggest this is where the serious work of the Diana cult goes down, but let’s hold off on that for a while until we gather more information.

Sant’Ilario is another odd choice. I presume this is Saint Hillary of Parma. He’s a patron of charity and cobblers, and his decorative feast biscuits look vaguely like shoes. Again, we need more here to understand his significance.