What happened on March 27 in Venice

According to the Venetian Liturgical Calendar, today is St. Juan Hermit’s Day.

- March 27, 1309: during the disputes for the control of Ferrara, Pope Clement V issues the papal bull "In omnen", an ultimatum that orders the excommunication within a month of the Doge, the councilors, all the citizens of Venice and all those who give assistance to the Venetians, by ordering the confiscation of all movable and immovable property owned by them in the Ferrara area and elsewhere, declaring all their treaties null and void, exempting Venetian subjects from the oath of loyalty, allowing anyone to enslave them, excluding them from being witnesses and from making a will, from succeeding to any ecclesiastical benefit, finally he orders all prelates and clerics to leave the Republic within the following ten days; the da Carrara with Florence, Lucca, Ancona and all the other opponents of the Republic respond to the consequent crusade launched by Cardinal Pelagrua, legate of Bologna.

- March 27, 1671: taking over from the Girolimini Hermits of Fiesole, the Capuchins of Santa Maria del Redentore take possession of the island of Santa Maria delle Grazie, behind the Giudecca. Previously the island was called Santa Maria della Cavana, and a chapel had been built there to house a miraculous icon of the Madonna, said to have been painted by Saint Lucas, stolen from Constantinople by Venetian sailors, who were then isolated for a quarantine at the island, where an unearthly light had shine in the nights on the ground and on the sacred image. From the 17th century until the end of the Republic, every July 17th, at sunset, pilgrims set sail from the island for Assisi. It was a place where the entrails of those sentenced to death were spilled, for which suffrages were held by the Scuola di San Fantin. In 1849, the island, by now turned into a powder keg, exploded, razing what remained of the monastery to the ground, then it became a hospital for infectious diseases in the 1900s, and was then finally abandoned.

- March 27, 1770: the famous painter Giambattista Tiepolo dies at 58 in Madrid, where he is working with his sons Giandomenico and Lorenzo, and is buried in the church of San Martino in the Spanish capital. Having learned the first rudiments of art in Gregorio Lazzarini's workshop, Giambattista becomes a master of a technique that unleashes his imagination; he works in Venice, Milan, Bergamo, Udine, Vicenza, Verona, Stra, in Wuerzburg and at the court of the king of Spain, painting grandiose frescoes full of light and movement, which seem to break through walls and ceilings in a play of skies and distances; sensitive interpreter of aristocratic life, he brings Metastasio's melodramas and romantic heroines to life in his paintings.

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

Venice, 27th March 2021