November. In 835 AD Pope Gregory IV officially authorized the festival, and it’s been celebrated ever since. Allhallows was once one of the four greatest and most important festivals in the pagan calendar, but most Christians today have never heard of it, because the Church has done such a good job of changing the original purpose and meaning of the celebrations.
‘And, just to ram home the fact that November the first was a Christian celebration, the Church also created another festival day on the second of the month – All Souls’ Day, which is a celebration to help cleanse and purify the spirits of the dead. And you’ll find similar crowds out on San Michele tomorrow, because the Venetians celebrate both days.’
‘But surely the early Christians weren’t celebrating death?’
Angela shook her head. ‘No, not death, but the dead themselves. Allhallows was intended to help people remember the dead, and to say prayers for the souls of the departed. Interestingly, it’s not just in Western Europe that you find this kind of celebration. Over in Mexico they have a Day of the Dead, which is also on the second of November, and that’s a kind of combination of an ancient Native American tradition and the Catholic All Souls’ Day. The people there decorate their homes with fake skeletons, visit cemeteries to clean and tidy the graves of their deceased relatives, and even leave offerings of food and drink for various wandering spirits.’
‘And I suppose the Venetian Festival of the Dead is something similar?’ Bronson asked.
‘Exactly, but over here they don’t so much tend the graves as wander about the cemetery carrying lighted candles and chrysanthemums. Those flowers have become firmly associated with burial ceremonies in Italy, and it’s a very bad idea to offer a bunch to anyone who’s still alive. But, being Italy, it’s become a social event, too, especially for locals – and because we’re here in Venice, I thought it would be interesting to come along.’
‘So we’ll be spending the evening in a graveyard. How nice!’ Bronson turned his back on the city they had left and looked ahead at the Isola di San Michele, colloquially known as the ‘Island of the Dead’ because it was simply a huge graveyard.
He’d read that the idea of using one of the islands in the Venetian lagoon as a graveyard dated back to 1807, when Venice was conquered by Napoleon and was suffering under a French occupation that virtually bankrupted the city. Burial on Venice itself was deemed to be unsanitary, so the neighbouring island of San Cristoforo della Pace was selected for the task. When that proved inadequate in size, the narrow canal that separated San Cristoforo della Pace from the larger San Michele was filled in, during 1836, and the combined island became known simply as San Michele. For a very short period the island was also used as a prison, but afterwards reverted to solely being a graveyard, which still held some very famous corpses. The bodies of the dead were transported across to the island from Venice on special funeral gondolas.
The edge of San Michele lay only a couple of hundred yards from Venice itself, but the vaporetto stop was at the most northerly point of the island, right beside the Chiesa di San Michele, one of the earliest Renaissance churches in Venice. Bronson could see it now, its stark white Istrian stone standing out in the gloom, and marking it out from the mellow colours that characterized most Venetian architecture.
A couple of minutes later, the vaporetto was stationary alongside the jetty, and the gangway had been opened. The passengers surged off the vessel and started making their way towards the entrance. Bronson and Angela were in no particular hurry to leave the boat, so they waited in the stern until almost all the other passengers had left. Then they too stepped on to the jetty and followed the rest of the crowd who, noisy and gesticulating, seemed to be getting in the mood for the evening ahead.
‘The wind’s dropped, which is good news, but it’s getting a bit murky,’ Bronson said to Angela, pointing at the blanket of fog that was descending fast. They had seen patches of mist forming over the water after they’d left Venice, but what lay in front of them was more like a real peasouper. Within minutes, visibility was reduced to just a few yards, and they were glad that the path itself was visible, though the family in front of them were still making enough noise that following them was very easy.
Angela shivered again. ‘You’re right – it’s quite spooky now. And this mist is exactly the right atmosphere for an evening in a graveyard.’ She took a map of the island out of her pocket and smoothed it out.
‘Well, as long as we can find our way back to the jetty and the boat I’m not bothered,’ Bronson said. ‘But I certainly wouldn’t fancy spending the night out here. Do you see that kind of yellow glow in the mist over to the left of us? Shall we head towards it?’
Angela looked in that direction as well, and nodded. ‘It’s probably from all the candles people are carrying.’
They were now catching up with the people ahead, who had walked along the semicircular path that curved around in front of the church, and had then turned down another path that seemed to be leading in the opposite direction.
‘Where are they going now?’
Angela looked down at the map. ‘This path takes us over towards the centre of the cemetery, and also towards some of the older areas. One slightly odd thing about this graveyard is that, these days, the bodies are removed after about ten years. They’re buried in the usual way in the ground, with the grave marked by a slab or headstone, but because this graveyard serves the entire population of Venice, space is pretty limited. So once the body has been reduced to bones, it’s exhumed and the skeleton stored in an ossuary, or bone box. Apparently, there’s an exhumation timetable posted near the entrance.’
Most of the more modern graves they were passing displayed photographs of the occupants, and almost all of them had been decorated with fresh flowers, giving the graveyard a strangely colourful appearance despite the gloom.
Even through the fog, Bronson could tell that the cemetery was huge, a vast expanse of ground studded with ancient vaults and individual tombstones, some standing erect, others either deliberately placed flat on the earth or having presumably fallen at some point over the centuries.
Walking through one of the older parts of the cemetery, they paused at intervals to look at some of the inscriptions. These varied from the simple to the flowery: from just a name, date of birth and date of death, to elaborate verses written in Italian or even Latin, to glorify or justify the life that had ended.
Angela had been right about the source of the yellowish glow. Almost every person they passed – and there seemed to be literally hundreds – was carrying a large candle, and the combined mass of tiny flames was giving the heavy mist a distinctly yellow or orange colour.
‘So what do we do now?’ Bronson asked.
‘It’s a shame we didn’t think to bring any refreshments,’ Angela replied, pointing at the people milling around them. Many were carrying bottles or flasks, and a few had even brought wicker picnic baskets with them, others clear plastic boxes containing food.
Angela had been absolutely right: it was obvious that Hallowmas or the Festival of the Dead was a major social and family event. Men, women and children were wandering around the graveyard, obviously determined to enjoy their evening in the somewhat unusual surroundings.
‘Well, I’ve got a bar of chocolate in my pocket if you want to share that,’ Bronson said, passing it over.
Angela snapped the bar in two and handed back one section. For a few moments they just stood there, enjoying their impromptu snack and soaking up the atmosphere.
‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ Angela asked, after a minute or two, looking around at the noisy and cheerful crowds.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Here we are in a graveyard, walking above the decaying bones of hundreds or even thousands of long-dead citizens of Venice. This should be a place of sorrow or sombre reflection, but actually we’re in the middle of a huge party.’
Bronson grinned at her. ‘That just goes to show the importance of atmosphere. In those old Hammer films you used to be so fond of, the director would try to get the audience quivering expectantly just by showing them a couple of polystyrene tombstones with some fake mist swirling around them, while some suitably spooky music played in the background. And here we are, surrounded by the real thing, and everyone’s really happy, laughing and joking. The dead aren’t bothering them at all.’
But then, in the distance, they both heard a distant howl, the sound so faint that the animal – which Bronson presumed was an Alsatian or some other breed of large dog – clearly wasn’t anywhere near the Isola di San Michele.
‘What the hell was that?’ Angela asked, her face white and strained in the darkness.
