What happened on April 8 in Venice

According to the Venetian Liturgical Calendar, today is St. Dionisio Bishop’s Day.

- April 8, 1797: the Community of Tarzo expresses its loyalty to the Government in the face of the French invasion: 'Volendo questi devoti sudditi, sugli esempi anche dei loro Autori [antenati], nelle attuali circostanze dar maggiori prove all’adorato loro Principe della loro incorrotta devozione e fedeltà, tutti unanimi e concordi acclamarono e confermarono tali ingenui loro sentimenti, stabilendo che due Individui del Corpo portarsi debbano personalmente alla Serenissima Dominante, onde a nome di tutta questa Fedelissima Comunità non solo prestare a piedi del Trono sacro giuramento di fedeltà e sudditanza, ma eziandio [anche] offrire alla Serenissima Repubblica le vite e le sostanze di tutti questi abitanti, che disposti sono di versare, occorrendo, il sangue per il benigno Veneto Dominio'.

- April 8, 1692: Giuseppe Tartini, a talented composer and violinist, is born in Piran, then Venetian, his fame led him to play in the main Italian cities, Rome Parma Bologna Camerino Ferrara and of course Venice. He dies in Padua on February 26, 1770, his most famous composition will remain 'The devil's trill'.

- April 8, 1835: gala evening at the Emeronittio Theater in Venice, with the singer Maria Malibra. The theater had been rebuilt in new forms with loggias, separate boxes and large windows to allow daytime performances. Malibran thrills the audience with a superb Bellini's ‘Sonnambula’ and when the owner goes to the dressing room to bring her the agreed fee of 4,000 lire, the singer refuses it, declaring that the acclamation of the generous Venetian people is enough for her, so since then the name Malibran has been given to the theater.

- April 8, 1880: Margherita Grassini Sarfatti, journalist, writer and art critic, of a rich and famous Venetian Jewish family, is born in the Venice Ghetto. In 1902 she begins writing for L'Avanti, where she met Benito Mussolini, for whom she wrote the biography Dux, but above all with whom she had a twenty-year semi-clandestine relationship. In 1938, due to the racial laws, she took refuge in Argentina.

- April 8, 2014: the Metropolitan City of Venice is officially established, the body that replaces the suppressed Province of Venice. The authority groups as many as 44 municipalities, including the districts of Venice, Chioggia, Cavarzare and Cona, Miranese, Riviera del Brenta, Sandonatese and Portogruarese. The Metropolitan Mayor is by right the Mayor of Venice.

Taken from 'Almanacco di Venezia -1600 anni ab Urbe còndita' by Andrea Gersich and Edoardo Rubini

Venice, 8th April 2021