ANTONIO PIGAFETTA RETURNS TO VICENZA
You never quite know what you’ll find happening in the city
of Vicenza.
Take, for example, a commemoration honoring the 500th
anniversary of Magellan’s voyage around the world. Why in Vicenza? Magellan
didn’t make it home from the 2-year cruise, struck down in a hail of spears on
a remote Phillippine island, after turning his canon on indigenous residents,
having chosen the wrong side during a local rebellion. But Antonio Pigafetta, a
Vicentino scholar and paying passenger on the ship, survived the attack. Upon
his return he gave the only eyewitness account of Magellan’s untimely end. Pigafetta’s
house still stands in Vicenza, the finest example of Gothic architecture in the
city, and an oft-visited destination on the architectural walking tour, which
mostly includes the finest examples of works by Palladio.
Unexpected things always appear year-round in little Vicenza,
less known than its nearby sisters Venice and Verona, both easily accessible,
about a half hour distant. A re-enactment of Pigafetta’s return home included a
procession of costumed actors followed by horn players, drummers and
flag-throwers, who stopped intermittently among Vicenza’s narrow cobbled
streets and Renaissance plazas to perform balletic routines to stirring drum
rolls. The procession ended on Pigafetta’s doorstep, where the great man
himself read from his diaries of the circumnavigation completed five centuries
ago.
In the town square called the Piazza Signori, a thriving
market of delicacies was in progress, and later in the day local residents
could be seen sampling from the stalls: cheeses, salumeria, exotic honeys,
rustic breads and the first black truffles of the season.
posted by Stanley at 5:31 AM
