What I love about walking around
Venice, is that you just never know what you’re going to stumble upon next.
One morning, walking from near Campo
San Zanipolo towards the Arsenale, we wandered down a narrow alley.
I was taken by the nizioletto on the wall: ‘Calle
Zorzi’, and was wondering if the name of the alley has anything to do with the
family of Venetian historian and author, Alvise Zorzi.
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| Nizioletto marking the Calle Zorzi, Castello |
Distracted, I almost tripped when I
saw this plaque above the sotoportego
that we were approaching:
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| Approaching the Sotoportego de la Corte Nova, Castello |
We stopped to decipher the message
inside the lunette:
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| Sotoportego de la Corte Nova, Castello |
I remembered reading about this site
in Thomas Jonglez and Paola Zoffoli’s fantastic guide, Secret Venice.
During the plague of 1630 (which
killed over 50,000 Venetians), a local girl, Giovanna, urged her neighbours to
keep their faith. She drew a picture of
the Virgin together with San Rocco (patron saint of the plague), Santo
Sebastiano and San Lorenzo (protectors against epidemics), placed it in this
sotoportego and encouraged her neighbours to gather each day for prayer. The inhabitants of the courtyard were spared.
Here’s a closer look inside the
chapel:
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| Sotoportego de la Corte Nova, Castello |
A slab of red marble from Verona was
installed in the floor of the chapel to commemorate the miracle.
Look at the handsome carved
ceiling:
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| Sotoportego de la Corte Nova, Castello |
Apparently, during WWI, the residents
of the courtyard again invoked the intercession of the Virgin to spare them
from enemy bombing.
I felt like I’d taken a step back in
time for a few moments as I stood inside the chapel, thinking of the people who
had prayed for their very lives in this spot and lived through terror: from the
plague in the 17th century to hellishness of war in modern
times.
It was a moving and slightly eerie
experience.
We stepped back into the
sunshine and stopped to admire its opposite entry:
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| Sotoportego de la Corte Nova, Castello |
And then, we turned, back to the present-day to continue on our
way through the ordinary, every-day streets of Venice.
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| Back into the streets of Venice... |
