The Festa della Sensa or Ascension of Christ was a feast day for the Republic of Venice.
“Sensa” in the Venetian dialect means “Ascension”.
Ascension Day is the 40th day of Easter. It occurs 39 days after Easter Sunday.
It is a Christian holiday that commemorates Jesus Christ’s ascension into heaven according to Christian belief.
Festa della Sensa is one of the most impressive traditional festivals in Venice.
In May , Venice relives the ancient history of the Venetian Republic,
with the Marriage of the Sea ceremony and the Venice Regattas.
Featuring different events such as ,spectacular water parades, kite shows,
Festa delle Sensa is a well-known celebration born with the aim of reviving the long-lasting history of the Serenissima.
The shows are followed by the characteristic Sensa Dinner, featuring a selection of typical delicacies.
Festa delle Sensa commemorates two important events for the Republic: the 9th May 1000AD, when Doge Pietro II Orseolo helped Dalmatian inhabitants threatened by the Slavs,. Dalmatia is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia and Istria.
The second event commemorated took place in 1177 when the Doge Sebastiano Ziani, Pope Alexander III and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa agreed to the Treaty of Venice which ended the long-standing differences between the Pontificate and the Holy Roman Empire.
Barbarossa completely insisted Alexander was an illegitimate Pope, so Alexander excommunicated Barbarossa, condemning him to eternal damnation in hell in the event that he died.
Alexander’s chronicler Cardinal Boso, also wrote a particularly damning life of Alexander,
which painted Barbarossa as a lawbreaker,,who had no fear of God.
Frederick thereafter sent envoys to Pope Alexander III at Anagni,
asking for an end to the schism between him and Frederick’s antipope, Callixtus III.
close after the Battle of Legnano which was a defeat for Frederick Barbarossa.
Barbarossa, in turn, besieged Rome, killing thousands, in order to depose Alexander, but Alexander escaped.
Barbarossa and Alexander eventually made peace, but it took a long time to finally conclude an agreement,
because Alexander insisted Barbarossa stop fighting his allies, the Lombard League and the King of Sicily.
Barbarossa accepted Alexander as the pope and thereby as his spiritual superior,
while Alexander conceded that Barbarossa was the legitimate emperor and overlord of Italy.
The Treaty or Peace of Venice, 1177, was a peace treaty between the papacy and its allies, the north Italian city-states of the Lombard League, and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor.
The Norman Kingdom of Sicily also took part in negotiations and the treaty thereby determined the political course of all Italy for the next several years.
After a preliminary agreement was reached, a conference was scheduled for July 1177.
Frederick spent some time in the interim interfering in Venetian rivalries in hopes of securing a pro-Imperial group in power at the time of the confrontation.
Once the Treaty of Venice was signed, the occasion was celebrated with the first festival ceremony of the Marriage of the Sea (It. Sposalizio del Mare).
This ceremony is recreated annually with the Mayor of Venice taking on the traditional role which was historically executed by the Doge.
The Doge, on had state barge – the “Bucintoro”, which would sail to San Pietro di Castello at St. Elena,
where the Bishop would be on board a gilt-edged boat, waiting to bless him.
Venetian flag-winged Lion of St. Mark, featured in the red-yellow flag of the city of Venice, of arms of the city and in the yellow-red-blue flag
The six trails represents the six sestieri (“sixths”, the districts of old Venice).
On 24 July, the pope from the Basilica di San Marco sent a delegation of cardinals to the emperor, in the Lido, at the mouth of the Venetian Lagoon.
Sebastian Ziani, the Doge of Venice, and Ulrich II von Treven, the patriarch of Aquileia, then escorted the emperor into Venice itself.
Basilica San Marco
Aquileia and Grado had long been rivals.Their dispute dated to the invasion of the Huns, when the Patriarch of Aquileia took refuge in Grado.
He brought the relics of two saints that Saint Mark the Evangelist had” blessed”. It’s in quotes, because I dont know the English term for it.
Grado claimed this showed that ecclesiastical authority had been transferred to the “new Aquileia“.
In 1024 Poppo of Treffen, patriarch of Aquileia, fwas orced to subjugate Grado ,at a time when Patriarch Ursus of Grado and the Doge Otto Orseolo of Venice were in exile.
He reclaimed the relics of saints Hermagoras and Fortunatus.
Saint Hermagoras of Aquileia (Italian: Sant’Ermagora, Slovene: is considered the first bishop of Aquileia, northern Italy.
Christian tradition states that he was chosen by Saint Mark to serve as the leader of the nascent Christian community in Aquileia, and that he was consecrated bishop by Saint Peter.
Hermagoras and his deacon Fortunatus (Slovene: sveti Fortunat) evangelized the area but were eventually arrested by Sebastius, a representative of Nero.
They were tortured and beheaded.
IN 1027 Pope John XIX declared that Grado was just a parish of Aquileia, which was metropolitan of all Venice
The delegates of the king of Sicily were Romuald, Archbishop of Salerno, a chronicler of his time who left us a great eyewitness account of the whole scene, and Count Roger of Andria.
In the treaty that was concluded, the emperor recognised the temporal rights of the popes over the city of Rome, but the city did not surrender to the pope and forced him to leave in 1179.
A fifteen-year peace was concluded between Frederick and William II of Sicily, paving the way for Sicily’s golden years of peace and prosperity.
Likewise, a six-year truce was concluded with the Lombard League, but negotiations were to continue, and the emperor finally recognised the independence of the Lombard cities in the Peace of Constance of 1183.
The Doge heard Mass in the cathedral of ,S. Pietro di Castello and received from the Bishop of Olivolo,
a consecrated standard [a banner believed to depict the famous Venetian emblem, the winged lion with an open book in his paws, for the first time].
Then he proceeded in state to the harbor where the great Venetian fleet lay waiting for him, boarded his flagship and gave the signal to weigh anchor.
After a night at Jesolo, the fleet came the next morning to Grado, where the patriarch ceremonially greeted them and invested the Doge with relics of St. Hermagoras [friend and disciple of St. Mark].
A prayer was offered that “for us and all who sail thereon the sea may be calm and quiet”, whereupon the Doge and the others were solemnly aspersed with holy water, the rest of which was thrown into the sea while the priests chanted “Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor“ (“Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be clean” – Psalm 51:7).
Venetian Ring
To this ancient ceremony a quasi-sacramental character was given by Pope Alexander III in 1177,
in return for the services rendered by Venice in the struggle against the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I.
The Pope drew a ring from his finger and, giving it to the Doge,
bade him cast such a one into the sea each year, on Ascension Day, and so wed the sea.
Every year the dropped a consecrated ring into the sea, and with the Latin words “Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri perpetuique domini“
(“We wed thee, sea, as a sign of true and everlasting domination”) thereby declaiming Venice and the sea to be indissolubly one.
Despite the end of the office of the Doge and the destruction of the Bucentaur, the ceremony of the marriage of the sea continues to this day.
At the head of the parade is the “Serenissima”, a boat carrying the Mayor and other city dignitaries.
Then the mayor of Venice aboard a smaller ceremonial barge called the Bissona Serenissima, weds the sea.
The program concludes with the Venetian rowing competition and other aquatic challenges.
On the death of the Doge, the eldest of the adviser said:
With great sorrow we have heard about the death of Serene Prince of so much goodness and mercy, but we’ll make another. ”
The death was announced to the entire city by the sound twice for nine times of church bells.
The Doge was immediately embalmed and wrapped in the mantle of gold, with the Doge’s horn on his head,the golden spurs shod with
the upside down and the sword of command with the handle towards the legs.
On the third day after his death, took place funerals,in a procession attended by thousands of people.
Ludovico Manin 1789-1797 was the last Venetian Doge.
After his election Pietro Gardenigo said : They proclaimed a Friulian Doge.
The republic is daed. On May 12, 1797, surrounded by the French army,
without resistance, the Doge deposed the ducal insignia.
The abdication was made in favor of a Provisional Municipality.
On May 16, the treaty was signed for submission to the French Republic,led by Napoleon Bonaparte