words by Gabi Logan
The City of Venice celebrates the Festa della Sensa (Ascension Festival) on the 19th and 20 of May 2012 with a floating parade and the “Wedding of the Sea”, a tradition dating back more than 800 years and celebrating the city’s close ties to the sea.
On Sunday at 9.00 am, a procession of row boats led by the “Serenissima” boat holding the mayor and other city authorities will travel from the Basin of San Marco to the shore of the Church of San Nicolò on Lido Island, where Mayor Giorgio Orsoni will “marry” the sea on behalf of the city. During the ceremony, the twin-oared youth Pupparini Regatta and 4-oared-gondala Regata of the Sensa will run from San Marco to Lido, culminating in an award ceremony and High holy day mass at San Nicolò.
The weekend’s main event is the “Wedding of the Sea”, a tradition that dates back to Doge Pietro Orseolo II’s rescue of Dalmatia from the Slavs in 1000. Each year, the Doge sailed out—from the 13th or 14th century on in his two-story, velvet-canopied barge the Bucintoro—to the San Pietro di Castello Church, where the bishop, waiting on a gilded boat, anointed him and the sea with holy water praying that “for us and all who sail that the sea may be calm and quiet”.
When the peace treaty ending hostilities between the Papacy and the Empire was signed in Venice in 1177, Pope Alexander III gave a gold ring to Doge Sebastiano Ziani and told him to throw such a ring into the water each year and marry the sea. Each subsequent Festa della Sensa, following the bishop’s blessing, the Doge sailed into the channel where the Venetian Lagoon meets the Gulf of Venice and the Adriatic and threw a gold ring into the water, saying, “Desponsamus te, mare, in signumveri perpetuique domini” (We wed thee, sea, in sign of true and everlasting dominion).
When Napolean conquered Venice in 1798, he destroyed the Bucintoro and abolished Sensa and many other traditional festivals. Venice restarted the tradition in 1965, adding addition cultural events to the celebration. This weekend’s festivities include a Sensa market on Saturday afternoon and all day on Sunday, and a Gemellaggio Adriatico (Adriatic twinning) conference on Saturday honouring the historical and cultural relationships between Venice and 2012 “twin” city Asiago.
