Part 1

My introduction to Venice was not from books, a vacation, or a class in school. Instead, my first time ever seeing Venice was from my couch whilst watching the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I was about eight years old, but I remember being completely obsessed with the whole franchise and begging my mom to buy me the VHS when we saw it at our local Blockbuster Video store. Back then, the adventures of Indiana Jones seemed to teleport me far and away from the boring cornfields that surrounded my house in rural Pennsylvania.
 
In the movie, there’s a plot beat where Dr. Jones and Dr. Schneider are searching for the burial site of a knight in Venice. They start at the library, where you would expect them to begin. But upon finding the ‘X’ that marks the spot on the tile floor, Jones picks up a stanchion and starts smashing it down to see what is underneath. The floor caves in, revealing some sort of substructure below. Upon entering, Jones and Schneider discover a rather extensive tunnel network spanning some great distance that is both sewer system and catacombs (and also somehow a petrol hold). The skeletal remains are, for the most part, placed neatly in loculi cut into the thick stone walls in most places.

At the time, I had no idea what made Venice so special. I couldn’t even tell you where to find it on a map. Venice was just a place-name, like New York, Philadelphia, or Pittsburgh. There was what looked to be a river running through the city, but back then I lived at a confluence of rivers so it didn’t really challenge my adolescent brain. But the catacombs and underground tunnels? Yeah, those stuck with me. There was mystery and a cool factor to them – I remember wanting to visit this Venice place and see these for myself.

Bizarrely, this is not the only instance where a movie creates a fictional underground. The 2011 reimaging of The Three Musketeers also features an opening sequence which takes place in the lavish underground vaults of Da Vinci – a far cry from the damp and decaying catacombs of The Last Crusade!

The keen reader will have spotted the contradiction. With the exception of a few proper crypts under the Church of San Simeone Piccolo, nothing like this tunnel can be found in real life Venice. There is nothing underneath the streets except for some small pipes; anything more would be impossible. Venice is literally built on top of packed vertical logs set into the silt of the lagoon. It would be extremely ill-advised for anyone to build a massive (and heavy!) tunnel network (or large vaults for that matter) through these load-bearing beams! For one thing, it would just cause the city to sink faster, and, frankly, would be under water.

This is not something I was aware of as a child. It would not be until I was much older (embarrassingly so) that I would find out that I had been deceived. But instead of being disappointed, I grew even more interested! How could such a marvel of a city – one as ancient and stunning as Venice – even exist? And what other secrets did the city hold? Why were directors so fascinated with trying to give Venice a literal underground?

These questions were put on hold for some time. They would resurface during a discussion with my editor about future proposals following the release of my Calabria supplement for The Silver Bayonet.

To learn more about that conversation, however, you’ll have to read Part 2 next week.

- T.C. Stephen

 

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The Silver Bayonet: Venice: The Alchemist's Legacy is now available.

 

Watch this space for more blogs coming soon!

 

Explore the rest of The Silver Bayonet here.