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The Times (London)
February 12, 2011 Saturday
Edition 1;
National Edition
Oasis in the bedlam of Venice;
City break Take a tip from Byron and head for two of the city's
lesser-known islands, writes Nigel Richardson
by Nigel Richardson
In the early 19th century a Venetian called Mattio Lovat crucified
himself, an act that got him committed to the local mental hospital on
the island of San Servolo. These days you don't have to go to such
lengths to gain admittance to San Servolo. You just hop across from
Venice on a waterbus - a ten-minute ride - and buy a ticket.
The old hospital, which closed in 1978, houses the Museo del
Manicomio, the Museum of the Insane Asylum, which tells the story of
Lovat and the other unfortunates incarcerated here over a period of
250 years. Surrounding the old buildings are former convent gardens
that make the perfect spot to have a picnic.
You can do San Servolo in a couple of hours, a brief but brilliant
antidote to the tourist bedlam that is Venice, but I'd recommend that
you prolong the adventure.
For San Servolo is next to another fascinating lagoon island, San
Lazzaro, the site of an Armenian monastery where Lord Byron stayed in
1816 that offers guided tours in the afternoons.
The islands lie five minutes apart on the No 20 waterbus line and it
is amazing that the Venice tourist office has not thought to market
San Servolo and San Lazzaro as a double-whammy of offbeat excursions.
But they haven't, and visitors have the islands pretty much to
themselves.
Since Venice was first settled, the islands of the lagoon have lent
themselves to religious, punitive or medical uses. Some were refuges
for lepers and plague victims. San Servolo itself was a convent, then
a military hospital, before taking in the deranged of Venice and
northern Italy.
Its first mentally ill patient, admitted in 1725, was a Venetian
nobleman, "the most illustrious Mr Lorenzo Stefani", but the strangest
case was surely that of Mattio Lovat. A diagram in the museum, which
is housed in a portion of the old hospital premises, shows lots of
ropes and pulleys to illustrate how he may have pulled off the
difficult feat of autocrocifissione.
These were unenlightened times and the treatment of the San Servolo
patients seems to have been confined to containment and subjugation.
Objects on display include "Patrizi's volumetric papier-mché gloves",
which were something like prototype lie-detector devices, a shower
cage that spurted cold water to "calm the fury" and a Convulsor
machine for administering electric shocks. More benignly, the
apothecary's shop, dating from 1719, supplied the hospitals of the
Venetian Republic and provided low-cost medicines for the poor of the
city.
Lord Byron would doubtless have been fascinated by San Servolo, and by
the case of Mattio Lovat in particular, but they just missed each
other. Lovat died in the Manicomio in 1806. Ten years later Byron
turned up at the monastery on San Lazzaro, 200 yards south across the
lagoon, to study the fiendishly difficult Armenian language. The room
where he worked, which now contains an Egyptian mummy complete with
head and extracted brain, is included in a guided tour of the
cloisters, church, refectory and libraries.
Byron said that his trips to the Armenian monastery were a
"divertissement" from Venice itself, where the poor man had trouble
keeping his trousers on. Together with San Servolo, San Lazzaro still
makes the perfect divertissement - an afternoon out with the mad, bad
and dangerous to know, and back in time for Bellinis.
Need to know
Take waterbus line 20 from the stop at San Zaccaria (Monumento) on the
Riva degli Schiavoni. The Museo del Manicomio must be booked in
advance by calling 0039 041 524 0119; a guide will meet you there;
admission ¤3 per person for minimum group size of five (ie, just two
people would pay ¤7.5 each). Daily tours of the Armenian Monastery
start at 3.30pm, no booking required; admission ¤6. Waterbus times may
be subject to change, so check, but I would suggest taking the 13.10
to San Servolo, picking up the 15.20 from there to San Lazzaro and
returning to San Zaccaria on the 16.45 or 17.25. For the monastery
only, take the 15.10 from San Zaccaria.
From: A. Papazian
February 12, 2011 Saturday
Edition 1;
National Edition
Oasis in the bedlam of Venice;
City break Take a tip from Byron and head for two of the city's
lesser-known islands, writes Nigel Richardson
by Nigel Richardson
In the early 19th century a Venetian called Mattio Lovat crucified
himself, an act that got him committed to the local mental hospital on
the island of San Servolo. These days you don't have to go to such
lengths to gain admittance to San Servolo. You just hop across from
Venice on a waterbus - a ten-minute ride - and buy a ticket.
The old hospital, which closed in 1978, houses the Museo del
Manicomio, the Museum of the Insane Asylum, which tells the story of
Lovat and the other unfortunates incarcerated here over a period of
250 years. Surrounding the old buildings are former convent gardens
that make the perfect spot to have a picnic.
You can do San Servolo in a couple of hours, a brief but brilliant
antidote to the tourist bedlam that is Venice, but I'd recommend that
you prolong the adventure.
For San Servolo is next to another fascinating lagoon island, San
Lazzaro, the site of an Armenian monastery where Lord Byron stayed in
1816 that offers guided tours in the afternoons.
The islands lie five minutes apart on the No 20 waterbus line and it
is amazing that the Venice tourist office has not thought to market
San Servolo and San Lazzaro as a double-whammy of offbeat excursions.
But they haven't, and visitors have the islands pretty much to
themselves.
Since Venice was first settled, the islands of the lagoon have lent
themselves to religious, punitive or medical uses. Some were refuges
for lepers and plague victims. San Servolo itself was a convent, then
a military hospital, before taking in the deranged of Venice and
northern Italy.
Its first mentally ill patient, admitted in 1725, was a Venetian
nobleman, "the most illustrious Mr Lorenzo Stefani", but the strangest
case was surely that of Mattio Lovat. A diagram in the museum, which
is housed in a portion of the old hospital premises, shows lots of
ropes and pulleys to illustrate how he may have pulled off the
difficult feat of autocrocifissione.
These were unenlightened times and the treatment of the San Servolo
patients seems to have been confined to containment and subjugation.
Objects on display include "Patrizi's volumetric papier-mché gloves",
which were something like prototype lie-detector devices, a shower
cage that spurted cold water to "calm the fury" and a Convulsor
machine for administering electric shocks. More benignly, the
apothecary's shop, dating from 1719, supplied the hospitals of the
Venetian Republic and provided low-cost medicines for the poor of the
city.
Lord Byron would doubtless have been fascinated by San Servolo, and by
the case of Mattio Lovat in particular, but they just missed each
other. Lovat died in the Manicomio in 1806. Ten years later Byron
turned up at the monastery on San Lazzaro, 200 yards south across the
lagoon, to study the fiendishly difficult Armenian language. The room
where he worked, which now contains an Egyptian mummy complete with
head and extracted brain, is included in a guided tour of the
cloisters, church, refectory and libraries.
Byron said that his trips to the Armenian monastery were a
"divertissement" from Venice itself, where the poor man had trouble
keeping his trousers on. Together with San Servolo, San Lazzaro still
makes the perfect divertissement - an afternoon out with the mad, bad
and dangerous to know, and back in time for Bellinis.
Need to know
Take waterbus line 20 from the stop at San Zaccaria (Monumento) on the
Riva degli Schiavoni. The Museo del Manicomio must be booked in
advance by calling 0039 041 524 0119; a guide will meet you there;
admission ¤3 per person for minimum group size of five (ie, just two
people would pay ¤7.5 each). Daily tours of the Armenian Monastery
start at 3.30pm, no booking required; admission ¤6. Waterbus times may
be subject to change, so check, but I would suggest taking the 13.10
to San Servolo, picking up the 15.20 from there to San Lazzaro and
returning to San Zaccaria on the 16.45 or 17.25. For the monastery
only, take the 15.10 from San Zaccaria.
From: A. Papazian