What happened on May 1 in Venice

According to the Venetian Liturgical Calendar, today’s Saints are Sts. Philip and James, Apostles and Saint Scholastica, of whom there were two churches, now demolished, in Castello.

The Church of Sts. Philip and James had the Doge's Juspatronato.

The Doge went to the Church of the Virgins in Castello (on which he had the Juspatronato) to obtain the "Porziuncola" (indulgence of Boniface IX) and received from the Abbess a bouquet of flowers with a gold handle and garnished with Venetian lace, then continued to the Church of St. Daniel.

- May 1, 1797: after eventually positioning his regiments close to the lagoon, General Napoleon Bonaparte draws up a declaration of war against the Venetian Republic from Palmanova, a Manifesto with 15 indictments, which ends as follows: 'the General in Command orders the various divisional generals to treat the Venetian troops as enemies, and to tear down the Lion of St Mark in all the cities of the mainland'; the General does not send any document to the other party, as he has not yet received a mandate to that effect from the Directory.

- May 1, 1874: writer Nicolò Tommaseo dies at 72, almost blind; born in Sebenico and a graduate from Padua University, he supported the Venetian cause while thinking of it within the framework of a federative relationship with other regions in Italy; imprisoned in 1848 together with Daniele Manin, he spent the hours in prison with serenity translating the Gospels. Released by popular acclaim on March 17, 1848, he joins the provisional government as Minister of Education; during the siege of Venice he supports the need for defense at all costs against Austria, but votes against any hypothesis of annexation to the Kingdom of Italy. With the fall of Venice, excluded from the amnesty, he sets out for exile in Corfu.

- May 1, 1954: on Labor Day, Patriarch Angelo Roncalli blesses the new church of Cristo Lavoratore in Ca' Emiliani, the working-class district of Venice, the first in Italy with this dedication.

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

Venice, 1st May 2021