My Miracle in Italy
My Miracle in Italy
Leanne Ogasawara
I love watching my husband looking at paintings. He becomes intensely attentive, as if every nerve ending in his body is switched on. It’s not like he’s trying to figure out the nature of galaxy evolution or doing complicated math like he does when he’s working. He just stands there before the picture, fully present. Most of the time, I have a hard time understanding what he’s thinking about. I know he can build things that go into space. I know he teaches quantum mechanics at Caltech to undergraduates and can do multivariable calculus. He can even make a cat die and not die at the same time. Most of this is lost on me, which is why I love looking at art together. It’s something we can share.
Gentile Bellini
Last summer, before the world became a very different place, we were standing in one of our favorite museums in Venice, the Gallerie dell'Accademia. To our left was the gigantic painting, by Gentile Bellini, the Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco, and to the right was the equally monumental Miracle of the True Cross by Vittore Carpaccio. It was the painting in front of us, however, that had grabbed our attention: Miracle of the Relic of the Holy Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo, also by Gentile Bellini.
We were gobsmacked.
All three pictures – the Carpaccio and the two by Bellini—were, incredibly, on the same subject: the fragment of the True Cross, kept at the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. This relic is considered one of the most important in the entire city. And that’s saying a lot in a city like Venice, which has always been famous for its relics—not least is that of possessing the body of the Evangelist Saint Mark, which was smuggled out of Alexandria by Venetian merchants in a barrel of pork, in 828.
In Bellini’s painting, we see the piece of the True Cross—in its superb rock crystal and silver reliquary—as it’s being paraded around the city. The picture depicts the precise moment the miracle occurred, as something causes it to tumble into the canal.
“Such an important treasure. How could they have let it slip out of their hands?” I had crept up behind my husband, whispering in his ear.
“It doesn’t matter how it fell. What is important is that it never hit the water, right?” He said, still looking intently at the picture.
2.
To those who are not Catholic or Buddhist, “relics” might sound somehow exotic. And the Relics of the True Cross more esoteric still. But during the Middle Ages, the fragmentary remains from the cross upon which the Christ was crucified were valued very highly. Some scholars have suggested that if all the tiny fragments and splinters of wood claimed to be relics of the True Cross were gathered together, they would fill up an entire football field. Perhaps. And yet their allure is hard to deny.
The story really began in the fourth century, when the Empress Mother of Constantine the Great, Helena, journeyed to the Holy Land. Having traveled there as an old woman of eighty, she worked hard founding basilicas and searching tirelessly for the True Cross. Digging down – in her dreams and at excavation sites – she was to eventually uncover those Three Crosses, and gaining divine help she discerned which of the three was the cross that Christ died on. Helena's act of devotion would live on in history, generating an obsession with relics that would come to dominate the Middle Ages in Europe.
Like many people, I had not been familiar with the Legend of the True Cross before my husband and I traveled to Italy several years ago and saw Piero della Francesco’s famous frescoes in Arezzo. We were newly married. As experts will tell you, second marriages are notoriously difficult. And this was my husband’s third try! There is something almost awkward about marrying again in middle age. How you find yourself suddenly sharing your life with someone new. Not the father of your children, nor your high school sweetheart, what could possibly tie two people together so late in the game?
There is a wonderful ancient Greek word: homophrosyne. It is used to describe the ideal marriage of Odysseus and Penelope. In Homer’s Odyssey it means something like: “having like-mindedness.” In Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation below, we hear the word used by Odysseus when speaking to Nausicaa:
“Nothing stronger than that—when a man and wife hold their home together alike in mind…”
My first marriage was with a Japanese man. After spending most of my adult life in Japan, where I spoke, thought, and dreamt in Japanese, I had thought marrying an American would be easier. After all, we shared a language and a culture. But it wasn’t easier. Marriage is tough no matter how you slice it. And so I have tried much harder this time to cultivate shared interests, values, and aesthetic predilections—which is challenging when you are married to an astrophysicist! And this is what led to my husband and I taking what we call our “art pilgrimages.” And the trip to Arezzo to see Piero della Francesca’s True Cross frescoes was our first such pilgrimage together.
It was early in the morning when we arrived at the basilica. Standing side-by-side in the apse, we had the place to ourselves. The paintings overwhelmed—almost pressing me into the ground with their power. When I turned to my new husband, I saw tears in his eyes.
3.
Returning back to the Bellini painting in Venice, we see the streets jam-packed with onlookers, who stand dumbstruck as the precious relic falls out of its reliquary and tumbles toward the water in the canal below.
But it never hit the water!
Un miracolo, they claimed.
The miracle occurred during a Lenten festival in 1370. Venice has always been known for its spectacular festivals and ceremonies—the Sensa, the Redentore, the Salute, the Carnivale. These were times of great excitement, when the people of the city turned out to celebrate and honor their relationship with the sea, with God, and to give thanks for being delivered from plagues and floods. There was music and fireworks—the air fragrant with roasting meats and baked apples, as one record described events during the Renaissance. And Venice’s many confraternities, called scuole, played leading roles in organizing and carrying out the festivities.
Today, tour guides in Venice will sometimes compare the medieval confraternities to modern-day business associations which carry out philanthropic activities, like the rotary club. That is probably not far off the mark. By the time of the painting’s completion in 1500, there were six such grand confraternities. The oldest confraternity was the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. Founded in 1261, its claim to fame was its role as guardians of the precious Relic of the True Cross.
So, how could the relic have gotten away from them?
Well, we know the Bridge at San Lorenzo is narrow and the calle alongside the canal, even narrower. It is still like this today. And anyone who has ever crossed a jammed Venetian bridge in summer knows how precarious that can be. Plus, processions are not always orderly, often being festive, more like a carnival.
As was the custom at the scuola, the crystal reliquary containing the True Cross relic was fitted on a pole in a way that allowed putting it on and taking it off relatively easy. And given the crowds, it makes sense that if the pole-bearer gets jostled and tilts the pole too much sideways—or forward or backward—the cross might slip off. That's just the mechanics of it.
Or at least that’s how my husband explained it.
So the precious relic falls toward the water.
And who is there to save the day?
Well, we see brothers of the scuola have dived in to try and save it. But here is where the miracle occurred. The cross did not sink into the murky depths of the canal—instead it floated above the surface, eluding the brave, would-be rescuers risking dysentery in the canal! It was the pious Andrea Vendramin, head of the scuola and guardian of the relic, who is the savior of the day.
Look at him: he floats like a beautiful swan—the reliquary held aloft in front of him, safe from the befouling waters.
What a surreal and beautiful scene.
4.
Today, it is hard to connect to the world depicted by Bellini. Few who view this painting believe in relics or miracles, and even fewer, I suspect, can summon the power of concentration to derive personal meaning from the work. And yet there we were, standing silently for almost an hour, overwhelmed. In front of us was a depiction of a city that we had spent the last week falling in love with, looking very much like it does today. This city that is itself a kind of miracle of beauty and survival. There also survives this painting of a chaotic near-tragedy that is transformed by artistic genius into a gorgeous light-filled tableau of serenity and redemption. And standing before it, 500 years later, two people who did not need to speak, did not want to walk away, who could not imagine being anywhere else, with anyone else, for this singular moment. Another miracle.
Leanne Ogasawara
Writer & Translator
Leanne’s creative writing has appeared in Kyoto Journal, Hedgehog Review, Entropy, and the Dublin Review of Books. She also has a monthly column at the science and arts blog 3 Quarks Daily
Photography by Davide Oricchio