The mysteries of Venice

Venice hides into its waters and its palaces mysteries and legends. A long tradition of ghosts and demons, historical and legendary creatures, stories of crime and love of unusual facts and amusing anecdotes that are kept between the halls of majestic palaces, but also that materialize between courts, porticoes and squares . If you want to experience the thrill of discovering the mysteries of Venice then walks at night, discovering a city that will tell you early histories experienced by characters who, they say, come back in a few nights to stir the imagination to reality.

Where once stood the monastery of Santa Chiara, in the first section of the Grand Canal, now home to the police station, in 1262 a pilgrim knocked on the door and asked the sisters to keep for him a casket. Years passed and no one claimed it, so the sisters decided to open it: inside they found a nail that had pierced the feet of Jesus on the cross and a scroll. The pilgrim was actually St. Louis King of France, who died in Damietta crusader . The sacred nail was preserved and venerated in the monastery until 1830 and it is now in the church of San Pantalon .

Continuing, the Riva de Biasio owes its name to this Biasio, a butcher, who was famous for his broth with meat and sausages that delighted the palates of customers. But one day the meat was found between a phalanx of a child. When the police raided the back of his shop, they were horrified by the scene that met their eyes: guts, limbs and organs of children were scattered everywhere. Biasio was taken to jail where they were cut and hands first, then run the torture and eventually he was beheaded in Piazza San Marco. The tavern and the house was razed.

In the face of the waters of the Campiello del Remer, always on the Grand Canal, emerged from the water Loredan Fosco ‘s body with the head of his wife Elena in his hands. The noble, in the late 1500s , he had decapitated in front of the Doge because jealous of her. The Doge sentenced him to load the corpse on his shoulders and go to Rome by the Pope , who, horrified , he refused to receive it. Fosco wandered for months with the body cut off until it sank in the waters of the Grand Canal . Even today it is said that his body re-emerge from the water in the darkest nights .

In the Campiello dell’Abazzia, in Cannaregio, there is the skeleton of Bartolomeo Zenni, an old usurer, while in court Bressana , in San Giovanni e Paolo, the skeleton of one of the last bell of San Marco begging passers-by to repurchase his bones sold to a scientist. Also in San Marco, in 1500 , the baker Piero pocket was accused of murder. He pleaded innocent to the last moment of his life, despite the atrocious torture , but he was executed in Piazza San Marco. A few hours later he established his innocence, but it was too late . For fear that his spirit returns to take revenge, since the Serenissima on every evening two candles were placed between two arches of the Basilica.

It seems that at Palazzo Mocenigo, close to Palazzo Contarini on the Grand Canal, the ghost of Giordano Bruno manifests himself. The owner hosted philosopher Giovanni Mocenigo in 1591 to learn the secrets of alchemy. There being successful, Bruno denounced to the Inquisition, which was then burned at the stake .

For further details on the legends and stories more curious we recommend the books by Alberto Toso Fei . The site is www.albertotosofei.it . Moreover, you can also download the app “Secret Venice “, a journey to discover a different Venice , secret and mysterious .