/ FESTA DELLA SENSA 2009

The enchantment of the city's marriage to the sea is back

Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th May 2009

Every year Venice attracts millions of visitors to events that are famous the world over. The Festa della Sensa, is one of the city's best known festivals that bring to life its thousand year history and its close ties to the sea and the art of "Voga alla Veneta" rowing. The spectators that flock to this event enjoy a unique, unclichéd experience of the city, as they are able to mingle with Venetians, who are always the real stars of this occasion. The Sensa celebration is an international events with a people's festival spirit, because it is the expression of a city that succeeds in resurrecting authentic elements of its past, while maintaining its original sense of fun, religion, and most of all, history.


The history of the Sensa Festival
The Sensa (Ascension Day) Festival was celebrated by the Venetian Republic on the day of Christ's Ascension. Sensa is the Venetian dialect word for ascension.
It commemorates two important events in the life of the Republic: one on 9 May in the year 1000, when Doge Pietro Orseolo II came to the rescue of the inhabitants of Dalmatia, who were under the Slav menace. This was the beginning of the gradual process whereby Venice acquired the dominion over the Adriatic Sea, to which she had directed her efforts from the time of her origins, in order to stay alive rather than for reasons of conquest. The end of Slav expansion enabled the Republic to achieve this objective and territorial possessions thus became unnecessary, so much so that the Dalmatian towns were only asked to pay moderate amounts of tribute, calculated according to their natural and economic resources.
The second event took place in 1177, when, in the reign of Doge Sebastiano Ziani, Pope Alexander III and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa signed the peace treaty in Venice that put an end to the century-long diatribe between the Papacy and the Empire.
The rite of the Wedding with the Sea used to take place on the occasion of the Ascension Day Festival. Every year on that day the Doge on his state barge, the Bucintoro, sailed to Sant'Elena, at the level of San Pietro di Castello Church. The Bishop waited to bless him on a boat with gilt sides. To emphasise the Serenissima Republic's dominion over the sea, the Festival culminated with a kind of propitiatory rite: the Doge sailed to the channel between the lagoon and the sea and threw a gold ring into the water.

La Sensa today
Venice began to celebrate Ascension Day again in 1965, with a programme that goes far beyond mere re-evocation: the Gemellaggio Adriatico ("Adriatic twinning") project now links the Serenissima Republic with a city or a geographic area that has had a special historical relationship with Venice, joined in a bond of culture, love of the sea and the activities connected with the sea. In the 2009 edition of the Festival, the ring that is its symbol will pass from the City of Lepanto (Nafpaktos in Greece) to the Province of Bergamo, the Municipalities of Gera d'Adda and the Municipality and Mountain Communities of Val Seriana and Val Brembiana.
In addition to this, the Festival is the occasion for the award of the "Premio Osella d'Oro della Sensa", which is given to public bodies, institutions and private citizens that have given lustre to the city by means of their activities in the spheres of culture, crafts and trade.
Part of the commemoration today will be the Doge's procession in St Mark's Square, the Sensa Market at the Church of San Nicolò on Lido, Venetian style rowing races, a water parade by the local rowing clubs, the Fort of Sant'Andrea Festival and many other events that confirm that the Sensa today is a great time for meeting and fully realising the value of Venetian history and traditions: it is the festival of the city itself and its relationship with the sea.


PROGRAMME

Saturday 23 May

17.30
Venice, Palazzo Ducale: Presentation of Festa della Sensa 2009 - "Gemellaggio Adriatico" with the Province of Bergamo, the Municipalities of Gera d'Adda and the Municipalities and Mountain Communities of Val Seriana and Val Brembana - Award "Premio Osella d'Oro della Sensa 2009"

17.30
Venice, St Mark's Square - Doge's procession

14.00-19.00
Venice Lido, Cloister of the Church of San Nicolò: Sensa Market


Sunday 24 May

9.30-19.00
Venice Lido, Cloister of the Church of San Nicolò: Sensa Market

9.15
Boats assemble in St Mark's Basin

9.45
Procession of boats leaves for San Nicolò
(9.30 free shuttle service for San Nicolò from the Alilaguna terminal near the former Royal Palace Gardens, return from Lido at 12.45)

10.30
Ceremony of the Wedding with the Sea in front of the Church of San Nicolò on Lido

10.30
Start of juvenile rowing race on "pupparini" boats

11.00
Start of the Regata della Sensa on four-oar gondolas.
Regatta route: St Mark's Basin to Riviera San Nicolò

11.15
Mass in the Church of San Nicolò on Lido

12.00
Rowing race awards

12.30-18.00
Festivities at the Fort of Sant'Andrea (free shuttle to and from San Nicolò runs from 12.00 to 18.30), with concert by "Lagunaria" at 14.30

17.00
Venice Lido, Church of San Nicolò: Spiritual concert "Wedding with the sea - ascendit Christus in altum": 17th century Venetian music