Today is St. Mark’s Day in Venice, when by tradition, men give their most loved women a bòcolo: a single rosebud. There are kiosks all over the city pushing petals, staffed by student volunteers who take in the proceeds, which -- for a refreshingly non-commercial change -- are then given to the Red Cross. There’s a stand set up where one can enjoy an aperitif “all'ombra” -- served in the shadow (ombra) of the campanile in Piazza San Marco. Later in the day, the head of the Red Cross in Venice, Luisa Barban Trevisan, will ceremonially deliver sprays of roses to military representatives who will, in turn, pass them along to the wives and mothers of the soldiers who fell in the fighting in Nassirya, Iraq.
The origin of the tradition of the bòcolo traces to a legend supposedly more than 1300 years old. It concerns the daughter of Doge Orso I Partecipazio, who is said to have fallen hopelessly in love with a handsome, brave young man (these men of legend are never average looking or reticent) of an unfortunately modest social position. The Doge, hoping to rid himself of what he saw as a bad love match, arranged to have the lad dispatched to a distant post to fight the Turks. There he was mortally wounded in battle and collapsed near a rose bush. Plucking a single stem, tinged with his own heroic blood, he asked a compadre to return it to his beloved, in Venice.
Now I hate to burst your bòcolo, but since virtually no reliable written history exists tracing back to the 8th century in Venice, something tells that this legend may not fully conform to reality. This is Venice after all.
Comments