Veniceblog

Hackers Pull Down the City of Venice's Website

At this writing, here's what you see when you visit the website of the Comune di Venezia, the city's official site (click on it for an enlargement):

What it says, in effect is:

Because of an attack perpetrated by unknown persons on the evening of the 17th of December and continuing until the morning of the 19th, the Internet Site of the City of Venice is online only in a minimal version. We apologize to the users. The complete version of  the site will be on-line as soon as possible.

Sheesh. That was some hack. Looks like the destruction took place over a couple days. That's very unusual (security anyone?). As a result, the some of the best webcams are inaccessible (I've gotten like 10 emails about that). But that minor inconvenience pales next to the incredible hassle the attack causes to the citizenry ... the site is a real nerve center, very deep and well constructed. What a mindless crime.

The Lion of St. Mark

Back in the day on Madison Avenue, Tom Quinn and I made commercials together for Tide Laundry Detergent.  He was my client at P&G and I was the ad agency account guy. His boss (and my senior client) was an intensely clever and magnetic guy named A. G. Lafley, who has now risen to become the CEO of the Procter and Gamble Company. Bravo, A.G.

And now, bravo Tom Quinn. Because he’s just written an absolutely killer historical novel set in Venice and the briny Adriatic in 1452. Called The Lion of St. Mark’s, the book follows the adventures of Captain Antonio Ziani, a Venetian merchant and naval officer, as he tries to protect Venice and Christendom from the surging Ottoman Turk empire. What makes the book work is the way it transports the reader … to the smoky deck of a Venetian warship as it rams a Turkish galley at full speed …  to the disbelieving chaos in the walls of Constantinople as Muhammad II’s army fatally punctures the city’s defenses … inside the Palazzo Ducale and into the chambers of the Great Council where Doge Foscari agonizes over his loosening grip on power. Tom vivifies these scenes by placing his chessmen inside historically perfect backdrops with a passionate attention to verity of detail, without being didactic. And it’s a page-turner. Sometimes it feels like it’s written as a Perils-of-Pauline/Dostoyevsky serial where the end of every chapter hooks the reader to peek at the beginning of the next one.

In fact it is a sort of serial, this being the first in a trilogy called The Venetians. Book two is cooking in Tom’s computer right now, as I understand it.

By the way, I’m sure I’ve bugged Tom by taking forever to read the book. Reason: I was worried I wouldn’t like it. Then what? How awkward. Mercifully, the book genuinely rocks. Though I might have reviewed it a wee bit earlier if I hadn’t had to buy my own copy on Amazon. (Hint.)

You can get your own copy by following this link.

Lazzaretto Nuovo Turned Over To Venice

After a long court battle with military authorities, it was just announced that the Comune of Venezia -- Venice's city government -- has been awarded possession of a little island with a somber past: Lazzaretto Nuovo. It was there, in 1468,  that an isolation hospital was built for those who were suspected of having the bubonic plague. So if you were a relative or intimate of someone who had or had died of the plague, you might have gotten a surprise knock on the door and a complimentary boat ride to this 2 hectare patch of land poking out of the lagoon off of Sant' Erasmo.

While forced wintering on Lazzaretto Nuovo would have been a immense drag, it was  like a beach party on Ibiza compared to being consigned to Lazzaretto Vecchio, the other plague isolation hospital (near the Lido), where those who actually had full-blown cases of the plague were locked up. That, as you can imagine, was almost always a one-way gondola ride.

Lazzaretto Nuovo has extraordinary archeological value and is a lovely little place today, so it's a great thing the city managed to snag it.  It's thought to have been inhabited perhaps as far back as the Bronze Age, though there is solid evidence dating to at least 1015. The monks of San Giorgio Maggiore built a church there in the 12th century, when it was known as Vigna Murada (literally, "walled vineyard"), and it has had military importance to Venice and its occupiers, owing to its strategic position near the Porto di Lido, the main door into Venice from the Adriatic.

The Geniuses of Topolinia

One of the worst acqua altas in recent times ravaged Venice Saturday, with waters cresting at 132 cm, putting roughly 70% of the city under the flood. Heights averaged 50 cm in Piazza San Marco, though a glance at the web cams a moment ago shows that it  has receded.

This time the floods were accompanied by liquid sewage and a potent stench, especially on the island of Murano. The fire department has had its hands full recovering boats that had been torn from their moorings.

Meanwhile, Mayor Massimo Cacciari has been actively opposing the construction of the MOSE floodgates, preferring methods that don't affect the natural flow of water into and out of the lagoon from the Adriatic. He's managed to wangle a temporary work suspension, though the project, still slated for completion in 2011, will be very tough to derail.

Cacciari's opposition has riled many, including his longtime nemesis, the president of the Veneto region, Giancarlo Galan, who once famously indicted Cacciari for negligence in the burning of the La Fenice opera house (he was acquitted). Says Galan of the latest flood, deriding Cacciari's lack of potent alternatives to MOSE: "What do the geniuses and scientists of Topolinia say now?"

Topolinia translates, roughly, to "Disneyland".

-- based on accounts in today's Il Gazzettino