Can you imagine the incredible cloud of oleander blossoms and wisteria (!) in the last week of June, and in early July? Well, until three years ago, you could witness this scenery in Nonna Lina’s garden.

As we’re describing here in the home tour, hers is a hanging garden made up of terraced “garden rooms”, with upper terraces completely exposed to the sun, very strong in early summer.

While from beginning, Nonna has been focusing on growing edible plants in the garden, there’s one white-washed terrace overlooking Campo San Zaccaria on which no other plants are able to survive - not even cacti or agaves! A bright space with desert climate so to say, also because the white paint relentlessy reflects the strong Mediterranean sun. In summer, even as early as 9 am, it’s impossible to sit on one of the stone benches on the one side of this terrace.

Well, white oleanders1 do have a special story to tell, and as they’re beautiful but poisonous, they were given a separate space to live in .. They were here long before Nonna’s family purchased the house from the suore tedesche, as they were called in the neigbhorhood: German nuns who took care of the gardens, as San Zaccaria was the first monastery to be suppressed in 1797 when the French army occupied Venice.

They were lush, white and tall, incredibly hardy, blossoming from late April to mid-October, while creating a thick roof above the terrace. They also smelled heavenly, protecting cacti and agaves from the summer heat.

And they were very old - you could easily notice their age touching their rough and knotty trunks. They were already growing lush before the German nuns had moved into the house on the premises of the former monastery San Zaccaria, in the late 1930s.

These special oleanders lived well until the night of 12 November 2019, when a huge flood caused by three winds out of balance2 hit Venice. In the wake of the floods and heavy storms, Nonna’s garden, almost as low-lying as Piazza San Marco, was severely damaged: Heavy rain and the rising water from the ground turned the garden and its terraces into one muddy scene.

Oleanders are much loved in Venice, and are also the “centerpiece” of an ancient campo nearby, called Campo della Bragora. It’s one of my favorite campi (squares), as there’s also a mimosa albizia (silk tree) and a lush pomegrante tree, and a tiglio (linden tree) as well. Imagine the most beautiful green oasis in the bright morning light of summer solstice!

Fragrant summer blossom trees like these, and the oleanders are used to structure this campo into several “rooms”. Each is used for a topic: Singing, dancing, watching movies, cooking and eating. And when night falls, you’ll feel enveloped by the heavy lemon-vanilla scent coming from the huge white oleander blossoming on the campo. A scent almost as strong as the smell of coffee and grilled fish at the food stall put up for the solstice feast in the corner next to the church, San Giovanni in Bragora.

This oleander plant on Campo della Bragora is also special - often overlooked during daytime, but never while it releases the sweet vanilla scent of its blossoms in the calm morning light or after sunset.

White plants are a rarity in secular Venice, there are almost no “completely white gardens” if you take a closer look around. Occasionally, there are white spots like the wisteria alba growing in secret gardens on the Lido: Amongst them is the tallest white-blossoming wisteria I’ve seen in the Lagoon, whose cascades of blossoms open in the first week of May.

It’s different with the monastery gardens: The color of the (few) ornamental flowers in these gardens is still white. You can also notice it in the gardens of the monastery on Fondamenta Santa Caterina (Cannaregio).

White oleanders are the relics of times long past on ancient monastery grounds like our garden. So for this reason, we feel like these plants connect us to another world, long gone, but one that we’re still longing for to witness and explore, especially in a house like Nonna’s.

As oleanders used to be propagated by hand by the nuns, we can be quite sure that ours were the descendants of the oleanders once growing in the San Zaccaria gardens. They looked and smelled differently from the plants we can purchase at the garden centers (such as Serra dei Giardini) in Venice. As you can see in the images above, the blossoms are double-flowered, slightly ivory, and their smell is so much stronger - like the heavy vanilla-lemon waft I’m describing in this post on the “Paradise garden”.

Sadly, all of these white oleanders died in November 2019, with the exception of five twigs that Nonna was able to save and is now trying to propagate - “work in progress"! So far, two of the young plants have survived, growing slowly but steadily, lovingly protected by the shade of Nonna’s other oleanders, blossoming red and pale pink.

In the Lagoon of Venice, the Night of San Giovanni (23 to 24 June) is dedicated to celebrating la splendida natura in estate - the splendid nature in summer.

On the one hand, summer solstice is celebrated in large groups around foghi (bonfires), and the summer feasts in the city. Such as celebrating in the Campo della Bragora neighborhood, or La Festa di San Piero, with lots of summer street food.

But there's also a very intimate tradition on La Notte di San Giovanni (23 - 24 June) cherished in the private gardens in Venice, the estuary and on the islands: A tradition still very much alive in the small villages along the river Sile, from Altino to San Donà, and Eraclea on the Adriatic coast. And during the past few years since 2020, it has become extremely popular! Can you guess what it is?

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Cultivating spices1 in the Lagoon of Venice? Yes, we’re talking of cinnamon and pepper, cardamom and saffron, to name just a few. In this post, a special journey awaits you, back to the year 1500, when spice plants were considered “normal” plants in Venetian gardens.

Sounds incredible, but was possible because of the exceptionally mild climate of the Lagoon, and spice plants being protected in the gardens by larger endemic Mediterranean plants.

Well, this sort of “jungle” was actually normal in more than 400 botanical gardens you’d have seen in Venice in the year 1500!. The formal gardens that one might expect also existed, but they were located next to the house and terrace. The rest of a Venetian garden of the past looked deliberately “wild” imitating “nature”. In Venice, formal gardens all’italiana were only created in the 19th century in Venice.

The images you can see in this post were taken in Venice in late April, in one of the last gardens that have kept the original look and feel. It’s a private garden, that is not open to the public, and in this post, we’re taking you on a fascinating journey back in time, discovering the verdant paradise that Venice was in the 15th century.

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Ombriola is the forgotten name of an island in the Lagoon … Imagine having an island all to yourself, rather large, solid unlike the wetlands and marshes, which are so difficult to build on because always swampy. No, this island, the largest of an archipelago, is just perfect: No need to extend space and build a platform of bricks resting on wooden poles.

Ombriola still exists, just its name has changed1. This island is located in the geographical center of the Lagoon. In the 5th century, its soil was overgrown with erbe alofile - herbs loving the salty environment, like rosemary, nettles, wild hops and bruscandoli.

Ombriola is located in the midst of an archipelago looking south-east, towards a mighty sand barrier2 partly overgrown overgrown with pines, shields the Lagoon from the open sea.  

To prepare the soil for orchards and vegetable gardens, the nuns needed to clean nettles and reeds but left the plants on the edges of the island as “natural fortification”, that is to prevent the soil from crumbling and shifting.

Around their little wooden church, built in the 6th century, there’s plenty of space to grow vineyards, while the northern shore of the island is overgrown with osmarin (rosemary), which the nuns use to make ointments and flavor fish soup. And soon, apple, pear and cherry trees were planted alongside vines which the inhabitants of the islands had learned to grow from the Romans:

Ombriola’s inhabitants had originally come from Altino3, a Roman city overlooking the port facilities of the Lagoon, trying to find permanent safety.

First, they moved to the Torcello archipelago (northern Lagoon), but soon, some moved to the group of 118 natural islands in the center of the Lagoon, because those were less exposed to the tides and almost free from swamps and wetlands. Here in the midst of this 550 km²-sized Lagoon, they felt safer from the enemies who had overthrown the Roman Empire in the year 476 AD.

Ombriola was one of the first islands to be settled of the Rivus altus archipelago: These new inhabitants had come to stay, drawn by the fertile soil and mild climate of the Lagoon.

At that time, those Byzantine - Greek merchants and their families were looking for a safe place and trading post on the northern Adriatic shores, from where they could monitor events during these unstable times.

This is how Ombriola became the ancient heart and soul of Venice. From here towards Rialto, a chain of islands and canals would lead the way to the market, and boats and rafts packed with fruit and vegetables would slide along the winding canals every morning.

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From mid-May to early June, the purple rose bush Nonna received in 1973 from the monks of the island San Lazzaro degli Armeni, blossoms in the little garden. For a long time, that is since 1968, just a tall yellow rose was growing on the upper terace, and below, two climbing roses, light pink and violet, had survived the floods of 4 November 1966. So there was indeed space for another rose in the garden, this special gift of rosa damascena (damask rose).

This rosa damascena from San Lazzaro took well in its own corner just below the laurel terrace, protected from wind and harsh weather. It thrives next to a row of pink hydrangea, which is really a coincidence because in Venice, you can never know whether plants will take well or not.

That’s because most of the time, you don’t know what type of soil you have in your garden: It could be mixed with debris of former buildings, which means your plants won’t take well. It could be mud which means the soil will turn rather brittle in the sun. Or, it might be fertile grounds. Lina’s courtyard has all three of these types of soil, which means that gardening in the hortus conclusus can be a challenge!

In addition to its flamboyant purple color, the damask rose smells heavenly. And it’s easy to propagate. It might even thrive in a large container although it would be smaller.

Of course, Nonna, grateful for this special gift, couldn’t resist harvesting its blossoms and using them for her own recipes and those from the San Zaccaria library.

As you can see, the rose looks quite lush, it’s about three meters tall. From mid-May, a portion of its petals are harvested and used to test recipes (not all of them - a part are left and turn into rose hips in late summer).

From the blossoms, we make jam and syrup. The syrup can be used to flavor many drinks and cakes, gelato, sweet breads, short breads, and also spritz, the all-Venetian or rather, “all-Italian drink”.

Actually, you can find vin spezià ae rose - rose-flavored wine - in the monastery libraries in Venice:

For example, the library of the former Spatiaria (spezieria) of San Zanipolo holds a number of recipes using roses. The term “spritz” goes back to the 1840s when the Austrian military during the occupation of Venice asked for wine mixed with water to fight off the heat in summer with this “light drink called spritz or Spritzer”.

In the 1920s and then again, in the 1990s, Venetians changed the way their spritz tasted and looked like: They kept the name spritz but changed ingredients: Prosecco was used instead of vino liscio (white wine), sparkling water was added instead of tap water, and colorful liqueurs such as Aperol or the Venetian Select.

• Aperol is a bitter liqueur consisting of rhubarb, cinchona bark, yellow gentian, bitter orange and a special secret herb and spice mix.

• The Venetian Select tastes similar to Aperol but includes yet another herb and spice mix: It was first produced by Fratelli Pilla residing in the sestiere di Castello. To me, Select tastes more balanced and is even capable of sweetening prosecco a bit. In the 1920s, the Venetian heritage of making liqueurs was more present in the city, so Select was made based on the historical way Venetians used cook or make drinks. We’ll have more recipes with Aperol and Select over at Laguna in Cucina - our Culinary Venice Newsletter + Membership.

But let’s return to our spritz, or rather spriss, as it’s called in Venice: Readers of our Venice blog recently voted it the “recipe of the month May”, so we’re sharing it here. And its defining ingredient is rose syrup made from the petals of our rosa damascena.

Spritz ai petali di rosa (rose-scented spritz)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of freshly picked rose petals

• 1/2 lemon (medium-sized)

• 1 1/2 cups of white cane sugar1

• A hint of cinnamon2

• 2 cups of prosecco

• 1 cup of Select (you can substitute this with Aperol)

• Serve with a slice of orange or with cherries

Instructions:

• STEP ONE: MAKE A SYRUP: Bring the rose petals (clean them carefully) to the boil in one cup of water. Leave to infuse 10 minutes, then add the lemon juice and cinnamon, and leave to infuse for another 50 minutes.

• STEP TWO: PREPARE THE DRINK: Pour the prosecco, Select and 1/2 liter of tap water into a bowl, then add the rose syrup. Stir well and leave in the fridge for 30-60 minutes before serving.

Did you try this recipe at home, or have questions? We’d love to hear from you :-)

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Had you come to the Lagoon of Venice 2000 years ago, your first impression would have been one of purple sea lavender carpets, spreading everywhere in that shallow stretch of water.

And the notion of Seven Seas would have been familiar to you: Just south of Chioggia was the entrance to the so-called Seven Seas, green lagoons interspersed with marshy swamps and lidi sottili (narrow islands), stretching from Ravenna to Aquileia, and bordering upon the Roman merchant hub called Altinum.

Back then, the Romans were living in little villages along the estuary and mainland, and it was them calling the lagoons lining the northern Adriatic sea Septem maria (Sette Mari in Italian, that is Seven Seas). The Adriatic shoreline was further inland than now - in the meantime, the estuary and mouths of the rivers have grown, surrounded by marshes and sand banks.

Salt was extracted from saline (salt marshes), fishermen lived amongs the thick reeds in huts built from canes, reeds and straw. Even the settlers living along the shores ventured into the Lagoon to hunt geese and other water fowl on special flat wooden rafts and boats. So those Seven Seas were a well-known territory to the people living along the rivers and on the shores of the lagoons to find a safe haven when they were threatened by foreign invaders from the 5th century onwards.

Our Lagoon was ONE rich garden for these first soon-to-be-settlers: pine trees were lining the Cavallino and Equilium shores, with wild horses living there (equilium / cavallino means “horse”).

The Roman author Plinius the Elder (23-79 AD) tells us about the ancient lagoonscape, separated from the open sea by sandbanks and “sprinkled” with tiny islets. Lagoons quite different from today’s because they used to be very shallow and thus a challenge to navigate: During those times, the expression “sailing the seven seas” was coined, meaning that special know how was required to cross those marshy lagoons crisscrossed by reeds and natural canals, following water flows surprisingly turbulent especially in spring and autumn.

In fact, those stretches of shallow waters seemed endless, several lagoons connected by natural canals, and covered by mauve colored sea lavender – limonium.

This ancient lagoon actually stretched from Ravenna in the South to Aquileia in the North. The Romans built a road crossing its fringes in northern direction, called Via Popilia, to reach their merchant hub called Altinum (Altino in our times).

From Altino to Aquileia, the Via Aemilia, 62 miles long, skirted the northern lagoons. But parallel to these land routes, lagoon waterways following natural water courses amongs the islands and marshlands had been carved out.

There is also a legend connected to the Seven Seas: Around the year 50 AD, Saint Mark traveling from Aquileia to Rome, when crossing the lagoons he was surprised by a gale and had to find refuge on an island that was to become part of Venice later, and where the monastery of San Francesco della Vigna is located, in the Venetian sestriere of Castello. Here, St. Mark had a dream when an angel told him that he would return to a future city to be built right in that place in the midst of the lagoon and become its patron saint.

Image: The dream of Saint Mark seeking refuge in the lagoon during a gale: Capella Zen, Basilica di San Marco

So well, this is the ancient landscape on which the first settlers of the Lagoon undertook a surprising task: Building settlements and gardens!

A Venetian children’s book describes the ancient lagoonscape in a very poetic but useful way:

Why is this relevant for gardeners?

I think this poetic introduction explains quite well what a challenge it must have been to build settlements and gardens in such a liquid and eternally unstable environment.

Originally, each island was surrounded by barene, which is why these marshlands have the function to consolidate soil otherwise exposed to wind and water flows.

Also, there are various types of islands in the Lagoon, and not all are ideal for gardens, let alone permanent settlements, because some islands are too low-lying, too unstable, too easy to erode. For example, one could never build on barene (marshlands overgrown with herbs) and velme (sandbanks).

Also from the beginning it was clear that the Lagoon, almost entirely covered by marshlands, was too shallow to allow larger merchants cogs to pass: By carving out deeper canals, lagoon morphology would be changed, allowing stronger currents in and eroding the barene:

The first settlers knew all about this, and thus, in the 11th century AD, instead of digging out deep water canals, they moved the ancient port facilities, out of the Lagoon, next to the inlet of San Nicolò (Lido).

In short, Venice wasn’t built on “artificial islands” resting on wooden poles.

This city was built on 118 islands surrounded by barene (salt marshes overgrown with herbs and reeds) - just think of “a reedy area” called Cannaregio (canna meaning reeds) in the northern part of the archipelago. The most stable ground to build on was called Dorsoduro, which could be translated as “solid ground”, another expression we recall today as it is the name of a Venetian sestiere (district).

But how and when were gardens created in Venice?

The first settlers being hunters and fishermen were soon followed by monasteries. And here’s where the San Zaccaria monastery comes in, to whom this substack garden magazine is dedicated:

San Zaccaria was the first monastery in Venice, founded by bishop Magnus in the 6th century, as legend has it. It was a monastery where the daugthers of noble families were living. It was a rich monastery as well, whose possessions comprised about one third of the southern Lagoon, as we could make out on ancient maps in the monastery. This included fishing grounds off the Lido and the island Poveglia, and orchards stretching all along to the Grand Canal, to the area where the church of San Moisè is located.

Just imagine what an immense effort this must have been to urbanize these islands. Another challenge was experimenting with growing fruit, vegetables and wine in a salty environment!

Continue reading below how the garden was created, step by step.

Terrazza San Zaccaria

The Story of Ombriola, the Garden Island in the Lagoon

Ombriola is the forgotten name of an island in the Lagoon … Imagine having an island all to yourself, rather large, solid unlike the wetlands and marshes, which are so difficult to build on because always swampy. No, this island, the largest of an archipelago, is just perfect: No need to extend space and build a platform of bricks resting on wooden poles…

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4 years ago · 1 like · Iris Loredana

The story of our garden was first told in July 2018 as a chapter in the book “First Spritz is free” by Kathleen González. The garden was also mentioned in this article on L’Italo-Americano by Liz Salthouse.

In Venice, each garden and plant could tell a story, and the garden I grew up in is no exception. It’s an ancient, inspiring, and energizing garden that taught me, above all, that there are two Venices. And it tells me that the ancient Venice still exists.

Take a look beyond the familiar façades of our town and you’ll discover that there’s a whole private city behind the scenes, consisting of horti conclusi, forgotten courtyard gardens.

They hide behind red brick walls and are never visible to passersby. It’s an unknown city where the true vocation and origin of Venice have survived, after all. This unknown city is rather large because private gardens make up almost half the surface of Venice.

Exploring the hidden, private Venice has been my favorite pastime since I was a child. During the long school summer holidays, I used to slip away from the house on hot afternoons and spend hours on end in the cool and leafy courtyard of the Greek Orthodox Church, San Giorgio dei Greci, reading or chatting with friends. Sometimes, I sat on a white marble bench under an olive tree, recalling the stories my father had told me the evening before. He used to tell all kinds of stories, of Venice and Constantinople, spices and Levantine gardens built around exotic and forgotten recipes.

As a child, you get the opportunity to bond with the city even deeper, and I did make use of this privilege, exploring every nook and cranny of my neighborhood, which is San Zaccaria and San Giorgio dei Greci.

By the time I was ten years old, I had made up my mind that I was going to explore and write about this second, private Venice, the city I couldn‘t recognize in guides or art books for tourists. Venice, this lively, kind and humane city, the last remaining polis of the world as one of my best friends calls her, still exists.

Yet, most visitors just don’t know where to start to look for it. In the maze of calli and campielli, one can get lost so easily but then, there’s a red thread to follow, but you must be prepared that it will lead you in a surprising direction.

In my opinion, if you really wish to explore Venice, the first tool you need is a map in your mind consisting of stories opening the doors to this secret, forgotten world, where the authentic Venice has survived.

Venice can be very crowded, but her core is still here, untouched and hiding from prying eyes. Especially my neighborhood, the part of Venice I know best, could tell a few memorable stories. The one I’m telling you here is how you can step back in time in a special garden. It was created in the fourth century AD, which makes it the oldest garden in Venice, and for a few centuries, it was also the largest in town. All you need to do is enter a little red house overlooking a narrow campiello, walk up a white marble staircase, and there it is, lush and green and filled with flowers, just like it must have looked hundreds of years ago.

But first, you must cross a bridge. It’s called Ponte della Canonica, the oldest stone bridge in town built in the year 1170.

Even at 6:00 a.m., sleepy tourists are stopping here, taking pictures of the Bridge of Sighs just ahead, shimmering in a rose-tangerine hue, while the only sound you can hear are martins circling above the city in the balmy morning sun. Without noticing, you just stepped on historical territory, yet, this isn’t clear, for the campo (Venetian square) beyond the bridge looks like an average Venetian al fresco living room, enveloped in a smell of fresh brioche coming from a bakery and bacari-style restaurants, wine bars, and the rustic corner coffee shop. Here, you stop for a minute and watch the barmen arrange tramezzini and chocolatecream filled croissants. This is the type of croissant you will only find in Venice, buttery, warm, soft and crispy at the same time. Yet, you turn towards the archway in front of you, behind which a glowing white and polished church façade demands attention.

While quickly crossing a narrow campo, you don’t notice that little house painted in rosso veneziano — Venetian red, whose windowsills are adorned with geranium and rosemary pots.

Only for a second do you stop to try to find out where that scented cloud of heavy vanilla and zesty lemon balm has come from. But then, you might as well forget about that beckoning scent and continue walking onto more familiar territory, the vaporetto world of Riva degli Schiavoni.

You just walked past my neighborhood AND the oldest garden in town. The flowery scent came from this garden, forgotten while it hides behind the buildings you just passed by on your left.

In 400 AD, it was called El Brolo, a rambling vineyard-orchard spreading across two islands whose names sound strange as well, for who recalls Ombriola and Le Gemine? These names make up the authentic, second Venice, whose map may sound completely unfamiliar to tourists in our times.

El Brolo, the garden, once belonged to the nuns of the first monastery built in Venice, San Zaccaria. In 826 AD, the nuns donated a large portion of their garden to the fledgling Republic to build a Doge’s Palace and a chapel, later called Basilica di San Marco. The garden soon changed its name and became known as Piazza San Marco—St. Mark’s Square.

El Brolo stretched all along the Grand Canal to where San Moisè is located today, at a time when Venice still was called Le Venetie, a loose agglomerate of reed-covered islands. San Zaccaria was founded at the same time as Santa Fosca in Torcello was, and soon, it became a lively place populated with merchants from Constantinople, Greece, Egypt, Syria, and Dalmatia, whose boats were moored along Riva degli Schiavoni. The nuns didn’t like the noise and crowds, so they had a wall built to protect their garden, and a wooden door was closed at night. Only one public entrance remained, the church and guest house opening up on Campo San Provolo. The former guest house is the little red building I mentioned above. German nuns lived here until 1968, when Grandmother Lina, who writes the blog La Venessiana with me, and her family bought the red house and its terraced gardens.

In less than ten years, they created a verdant paradise, and I think that’s what the monastery gardens of San Zaccaria must have looked like for centuries.

This garden became my favorite place on earth and its story the main inspiration for writing a blog whose purpose is to show readers that there is a second Venice, the ancient city that has survived, though often not accessible to visitors. When I was a child, in the 1980s and 1990s, Grandfather took care of the gardenscape. He told me a thousand stories about gardening in the Lagoon, its rewards, challenges, and particularities.

Even though she just turned 95, Grandmother Lina still takes care of the plants. A few years ago, she returned home with pink carnations from San Francesco della Vigna. She was given a rose bush from San Lazzaro degli Armeni twenty years ago, and there are other plants on the terrace that could tell a story.

In May 1992, I sat on the terrace one day while Grandfather was watering the plants and made a drawing, complete with description of all the herbs, flowers, trees, and shrubs.

There were tall plants growing in terracotta pots, one yucca, two aralias, a few palm trees, and soft green ferns. A pergola was overgrown with uva fragola grapes. Purple wisteria and climbing pink roses were thriving next to white and red blossoming oleander.

I was enchanted by the scent of fragrant jasmine and pittosporum, blossoming next to each other. In the garden below, the level where salt water puddles sometimes form during high tides, blue lilies and a red maple tree were growing, just like today, next to an old cedar, pomegranate trees, kitchen laurel, strawberries, red currents, and pink hydrangea.

The air was filled with the scent of lily of the valley, blossoming in pots arranged in a protected corner of the terrace. And there was a geranium plant whose petals Grandmother used to make syrup.

Today, the garden has changed, like all gardens do, and the first impression you get now is a fluffy cloud of white, pink, and red blossoms.

It was—and still is—such a quiet garden. When you live in Venice, you can hear the sounds of footsteps at all times of the day. This garden is different, and it seems that our jungle somehow muffles every noise except the chirping voices of the birds.

The kitchen garden is still there and Grandmother’s four staple herbs that she considers essential for cooking in the Venetian manner. She’s got parsley, chocolate flavored mint, Moroccan mint, lemon-flavored sage, and spike lavender. Herbs from the Dolomiti mountains flourish here, sweet woodruff and chives, doing surprisingly well in a quiet corner in the shade.

There’s erba cristallina, anise mint and rosemary, tomatoes, eggplants, courgettes, and a variety of lattughe, soft salads of the Lagoon. This is a giardino movimentato, stretching across several levels, which means that a greater variety of plants can be grown, so important in Venice.

I think that Lina succeeded in turning back time and prolonging the life of the ancient monastery garden. This is just one example how the original Venice is still there, just a few steps from where the crowds are passing. There is this second city after all, surviving in an unexpected way, lovingly tended by the Venetians.

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In this article, you’ll disover the characteristics of the three historical types of Venetian gardens, and how this helps you determine the age of a garden:

• Late Roman - Early Byzantine Gardens

• Gardens created during the Republic of Venice

• Venetian Gardens of the 19th century

• Contemporary Gardens in Venice

During the last two decades, another garden type has developed in Venice: Nonna and I call them giardini rivisitati, experimental lifestyle gardens created to learn more about ancient gardening know-how of the Lagoon, traditions and lifestyle. It’s all about re-discovering those times when gardening played a major role, and gardens were necessary for self-sufficient life in Venice.

Just think of terms like “urban gardening”, “guerilla gardening”, “neighborhood gardening”, as this way of making the most of gardens in public and semi-public areas is called in other parts of the world.

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In the beginning, Lagoon cuisine was a mix of local ingredients used in recipes inherited from the Roman and Byzantine Greek population of the Lagoon (read more about the original settlers in the Lagoon in this episode).

After the fall of the western Roman empire in 476 AD, the Romans of the mainland partly moved into the Lagoon, coming in close contact with Byzantine Greek merchants, who had built a port and trading hub around Turicellum, today known as the island “Torcello”.

These Byzantine merchants had brought with them olive trees, citrus plants and spices, enriching the plant and fish-based diet in the Lagoon.

So yes, Torcello looked very different, a bustling port city and largest trading hub in the northern Adriatic during a time when Venetia (Venice) didn’t even exist.

The Byzantine merchants introduced their own way of cooking, influenced by Persian, Indian, and Chinese traditions. This was the birth of the Venetian fusion cuisine, embracing elements from Asia and the Middle East, and in particular, from Syria, Egypt, Persia, and the Indian Ayurvedic cuisine.

A healthy and balanced cooking style, embracing the power of herbs and spices to balance out acid and alkaline food, which we summarized in the Venetian Flavors Square.

To make this a little more practical: Fast food, wheat, sugar, artificial lemonade and drinks, artificial ingredients and flavors in general, and even coffee, but also drinking too much sparkling water, shifts the alkaline balance of the body towards acidity. And today we know that keeping the balance between alkaline and acid food is also important to protect cells and reduce the effects of the free radicals.

Another example illustrates that eating alkaline food only (like salads) does not contribute to improving health in the long run: It won’t strengthen your immune system because valuable vitamins and proteins lack. And you won't be able to lose weight because of accumulated toxins.

This is where Venetian spice cuisine comes in, balancing out acid and alkaline food: In my opinion, exploring its secrets is so useful, especially in our times!

Venetian cuisine consists of two major components:

• Local ingredients, herbs, vegetables, fish, and fruit, such as quinces, pomegranates, citrus fruit, and mulberries. Salad herbs, artichokes, with both cool and soulfool wintry colors, such as endives, cards, and radicchio.

• Spices: All-time favorites in Venice have been the following: White pepper, black pepper, yellow mustard, turmeric, chili, and sea salt. These mixtures change with the seasons.

We can deduct basically two styles of Venetian fusion cuisine:

• Cucina povera, based on Lagoon herbs and ingredients sourced in the Lagoon, and

• Cucina Speziata - the elegant spice cuisine.

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It all began with an idea, courage and a vision, more than fifty years ago. And the opportunity to restore the oldest garden in Venice after the floods of 1966 had badly damaged it.

Before we take you inside, let’s discover the history of the San Zaccaria gardens.

Perhaps you’ve seen the church of San Zaccaria, its artworks, and crypta. And perhaps you also read about the convent, whose nuns were known best for their “libertine lifestyle”. But that’s just a tiny part of the story because like most convents in the Lagoon, San Zaccaria depended on its gardens to be self-sufficient.

San Zaccaria, founded in 468 AD by Bishop Magnus, was the largest monastery in Venice until 1797, when the Serenissima Republic of Venice ceased to exist. It was the first convent to be suppressed by the French military stationed in Venice.

In particular, San Zaccaria was famous for its sprawling gardens, vineyards, orchards and herb gardens. Until 1100 AD, the gardens reached from Campo della Bragora to the shores of the Grand Canal where the church of San Moisè and the hotel Bauer Grunwald are located.

After moving into the guesthouse of San Zaccaria in April 1968, Nonna Lina restored the ancient herb garden, a small orchard and vegetable plots in the low-lying courtyard.

In one corner, she created a wild garden for the birds (blackbirds, sparrows and merlins mostly) with a little pomegranate grove, uva fragola grapes, wisteria, figs and olives, persimmons and blackberries. There’s also a tiny pond with purple water lilies blossoming from April to October, and a red marble water basin in which Nonna’s favorite water lily lives.

Large courgette plants thrive next to seven garden mint varieties, and the edible blossoms in the garden, like geranium and lilies, grow lush in the warm humid climate of the Lagoon.

There are also eggplants, tomatoes, water melons, but Lina is particularly proud of two projects: Her sanctuary of forgotten herbs, once the staple-diet on the sea-lavender studded islands in the northern Lagoon where she grew up.

Next to the wild herb garden, Lina planted blackberries, more of her favorite uva fragola grapes, white roses, and elderflowers. In winter, Lina harvests persimmons that go into her Christmas menu. Pomegranates and figs are also used to make jam flavored with herbs and pinoli (pine nuts).

Lina’s sunny breakfast room overlooks the courtyard garden (hortus conclusus), and via a wrought-iron staircase one can reach an upper terrace hiding behind lush kitchen laurel growing taller than me.

This is where sun-loving medicinal herbs grow, some of them in a red Veronese marble basin exposed to the sun all day long. Lina was also proud of the white oleanders growing on the upper terraces, embellishing the white-painted tiles and marble balustrade. You can read the story of these oleanders in this post. These purple and white oleanders were already there when Lina took over the garden from the nuns in 1968.

Oleanders and hydrangeas are Nonna’s favorite summer flowers, mingling with yellow cone flowers and mirabilis jalapa called bella di notte - so beautiful in summer and early autumn, opening its blossoms at dusk and only when the moon shines.

And there’s a yellow rose bush growing above the terraces - a rose with a very special story we’ll be telling soon ..

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Dear readers, you might recall that 2019 was quite a challenging year in Venice. The city had to face another challenge when a serious flood hit the Lagoon, as serious as the one which hit in November 1966.

Although the city recovered surprisingly quickly “on the surface”, cleaning the gardens were a challenge. So yes, the first part of this post might sound sad, but do keep reading as it’s a story about why Venetian gardens are so resilient.

Just before midnight on 12 November 2019, the lights went out in the third-floor apartment, overlooking the oldest garden in Venice. It had not only rained, it was pouring, and the power lines broke. A tornado swept across the sprawling terraces, breaking the fragile geranium and ancient pomegranate and fig trees. Down came the 40-year-old oleander bushes in their massive terracotta pots, whose rare cream and dark purple blossoms our grandmother Lina, a Venetian hotelier and chef owner since 1945, loves so much.

Only a large yellow rose bush resisted the storms, growing on top of the terrace, lovingly taken care of by our neighbors Gianni and Grazia. All year long, it acts like a sentinel, watching over what was once the oldest and largest garden in Venice.

The oleander falling off the terrace hit the ancient silver-purple rose that Lina had received as a gift from the monks of the Lagoon monastery San Lazzaro degli Armeni1. For more than forty years, she had been using its petals to make fragrant jam, tea, and syrup.

The water was rising quickly, turning the vegetable and flower beds in the little courtyard garden into heaps of mud covered by geranium and oleander swept down from the terrace. Within half an hour, Lina’s 50-year-old collection of rare Lagoon herbs was devoured by brackish water rising quickly from the ground. In other words, the loving work of our grandparents, who began restoring the ancient monastery garden plots of San Zaccaria in 1968, was severely damaged in less than an hour by the uncanny forces of nature.

That night, three devastating winds clashed over Venice: bora (northerly wind), scirocco (southerly wind, bringing in the floods from the Adriatic Sea), and libeccio (southwesterly wind, blowing across the Italian peninsula from Tunisia and the Balearic Islands). When these three winds meet during a tremendous storm, which happens every 20-30 years, they always wreak havoc in the Lagoon.

In the house, we were luckier: On the first floor, the refrigerators and other electric appliances were removed at the last minute before their sockets drowned in the rising water. Walls and carpets didn’t dry properly for another six weeks, and at Christmas, you could still make out the white lacings left by the salt water on the walls.

Winter felt like Venice was finally able to take a collective break, trying to recover from the devastations caused by the flood. Homes were getting dry again, and Venetians were assessing the damage. When January 2020 came and a new decade began, many people in my neighborhood were bracing themselves for a new start. But then, the Covid-19 pandemic forced everything into an involuntary break.

And in the meantime, miracles were worked behind the scenes. Days filled with bland sunshine quickly dried the gardens. What a difference that calm time made to Venice, and for some reason, it also showed in nature regaling us an unsually mild year. Gardens were starting to glow again, step by step, so to say, at their own time.

In Nonna’s garden, a strange but wonderful thing happened.

A yellow rosebush living in an improbable spots, that is on the small upper terrace exposed to the sun and the winds, was blossoming on New Year’s Day 2020!

It must be ancient as not even the nuns, who had been living in this garden before Nonna and her family moved in, could recall who had planted it, and when. A wonderful sign, and that yellow rose continued recovering as spring 2020 was mild.

As a child, I loved to conjure up stories about the rosa gialla - yellow rose of San Zaccaria, wondering what it had witnessed in Venice going on one. And Nonna as well, telling me that this rose could well be the oldest in Venice :-)

But then, returning to our question: Why are Venetian gardens so resilient - recovering after floods and even draughts, and looking so lush?

Put in a nutshell, as Nonna would say: Plant life in the Lagoon is possible because of the extraordinary moist climate and sea breeze, accentuated by frequent spells of cutting-thick fog (called caìgo) occurring especially in late winter and early spring:

When the sun heats up the humid spring breeze circling above the Lagoon, while occasional bouts of cold northerly wind make a morning in spring feel almost freezingly cold. This weather phenomenon causes damp weather in Venice, and cutting fog making your surroundings almost invisible! You might have noticed that cold breeze even on a bright day in February or March.

In any case, that humidity works wonders in the gardens of the Lagoon, “awakening” and obviously able to heal even plants that have already adapted to the salty environment. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to live in a Lagoon garden.

So after a bad bout of flood like this, particularly moist air speeds up recovery in plants. And in normal times, it’s the humidity and sea breezse that makes vegetables, herbs and fruit shiny and really beautiful to look at :-)

We know that Venice is different - this is also true for Easter! Until 1797, Pasquetta (Easter Monday), the second day of the Easter celebrations, was the most important day of la settimana santa - the Easter week. And the reason for this goes back to a wonderful tradition in the San Zaccaria monastery.

Join us in this post and taste the original Venetian specialty to celebrate the Holy Week and Easter. And there’s an unknown story that comes with it.

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It happened in the early 1970s, one day in early September, grandfather told me, when a famous guest entered the little pensione located on the grounds of an ancient monastery near Piazza San Marco. Grandfather did recognize him but offered coffee and a glass of spritz, as it was past 11 am.

The guest liked what he saw, gathered his belongings from the train station as he realized he was falling in love with the city - and the secret garden terrace hiding between hanging gardens filled with fragrant pelargonium, laurel, and sage. And while he was there, our grandparents told him the special story of the neighborhood. Friends and neighbors arrived to talk, lunch and dinner was served in the garden, and finally, the guest started painting.

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What’s blossoming in Venice in early April and during the Easter Week: Here’s what you will see in our neighborhood, and the latest glimpses of the garden.

Can you imagine which herb blossoms first in Nonna’s herb garden?

It’s the classic μίνθα = mentha longifolia = mint, and it has tiny purple blossoms. Grandmother’s mints thrive simply everywhere in the garden: Some love the humid corner next to the mimosa tree. Others prefer to live next to the fig tree and a small olive tree. Others chose greyish terracotta pots on the sunny terrace. And another menta aquatica - water mint that should grow in the little water basin, actually “moved” and now lives amongst the dry stone wall on the sun-drenched terrace! And, there will always grow mints in the nursery, next to young geranium and hemp palms.

Mint leaves also go into Easter cakes by means of sciroppo di menta - mint syrup that’s used to flavor the two cakes Nonna likes best during the Easter Week and in April: Crostata di polenta al sapore di menta (a rich mint-flavored polenta cake, sweetened with white cane sugar and mint syrup), plus an orange-blossom flavored fugassa (focaccia) which she used to eat as a child when colomba pasquale, the Italian Easter cake, wasn’t available.

We’ll share the recipe of her mint polenta in a post telling you more about the Greek Orthodox Easter Feast and its culinary traditions here in Venice.

The Easter Week brings many visitors to our neighborhood, and I love to recall a story in which Nonna, exceptionally, showed a visitor around. Incredible how lush everything looks by the first week of April - in my opinion, late March and April are the most colorful months in Venice:

A Garden in Venice

A Venetian Easter Story & Neighborhood Walk

In a few days, the Easter week will begin, which always makes me recall a special story, of how Nonna showed her little part of Venice to a guest who had been dreaming of visiting the city for decades. So you’re now in for a little walk outside the garden…

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3 years ago · Iris Loredana

This year on Domenica delle Palme (Palm Saturday) we noticed the first blossoms of the ancient wisteria growing next to a fico d’India on the terrace. And there’s still mimosa blossoms, they will be around for another two weeks at least, until mid-April.

If you have the opportunity to walk around Venice these days, you’ll discover lots of yellow blooming plants in window boxes: These are actually succulents blossoming from late March to early May, very popular here because they are the only ones able to survive those parching days of summer when not even watering the plants three times a day would help.

That’s why you can notice so many window boxes in Venice exposed to the south and overgrown with sedum palmeri, the only plants that “somehow” make it through summer. Right now, their blossoms look lush and bright, what a contrast to those blue and greyish foggy mornings in April.

As the first three months of the year were rather sunny and mild in Venice, wisteria blossoms opened about two weeks earlier than usual. Just like mimosa, the number of glicine (wisteria) in Venice has been growing over the past decade, so in April we’ll dedicate two articles to them.

A Garden in Venice

Spring Awakening: The Venetian Flower Walk (Part 1, March)

March in Venice brings collective memories of spring festivities: Did you know that during the times of La Serenissima Republic, that is until 1797, the city used to celebrate New Year’s Day (anno nuovo, more veneto) on March 1st? All during a time when the first blossoms of spring in March envelop in the city in such colorful hues: In my opinion, the…

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3 years ago · Iris Loredana

We’ll soon take you on a virtual wisteria walk around Venice, discovering some of the most lush wisteria plants! Last year, I started a wisteria map, so it’s time to publish it :-)

Another favorite plant now blossoming in the neighborhood is alberi di Giuda - Judas trees: In a few days, they will be in full bloom at the Giardinetti Reali1 next to Piazza San Marco.

As our neighbor says, sedum palmeri, together with Judas trees, violets and wisteria, are the sentori di primavera - a sure sign that spring is finally here to stay in Venice.

Coming in the next post: Discover the story of the forgotten calissoni di San Zaccaria, a special cake that wrote history and that was made for the Doge of Venice exclusively at the San Zaccaria monastery bakery.

Of course, cakes like thes are flavored with garden herbs, mint and calendula blossoms in the case of calissoni, so we’ll show you the lush mint garden in April in another post online soon.

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Pietro Antonio Michiel (1511 - 1565) is the autor of this book series called I Cinque Libri delle Piante, a treasure trove for everyone interested in Venetian garden history, and the plants Venetians used to make medical remedies and beauty products. These books were partly written in Latin, and a few chapters in Greek.1

A few years ago, I was lucky to have been invited into what has remained of Michiel’s own botanical garden in the Venetian sestiere Dorsoduro:

To this day, this garden plot, although much smaller than it was in the 16th century, looks like a tropical paradise: one is welcomed by a jungle-lined path, creating a thick barrier protecting sensitive exotic plants from the sun.

Below you can read my article about this visit to Michiel’s giardino orto botanico:

A Garden in Venice

When Spices Were Cultivated in Venice

Cultivating spices in the Lagoon of Venice? Yes, we’re talking of cinnamon and pepper, cardamom and saffron, to name just a few. In this post, a special journey awaits you, back to the year 1500, when spice plants were considered “normal” plants in Venetian gardens…

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4 years ago · 2 likes · Iris Loredana

I was so excited when the exhibition Giardini e virtù medicinali, salute e bellezza tra passato e presente, curated by Sabrina Minuzzi (Università Ca’ Foscari), was opened in Venice on 11 February 2023, at the Sale Monumentali of Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

Also 29 - 30 March 2023, a scientific conference was held at Biblioteca Nazionale about gardens and their remedies: Matera Medica: Health and Beauty in the Early Modern Age.

In short, this exhibition presents Venetian botanical heritage in an inspiring manner and grand environment: You’ll discover the notion of piante magiche - magical plants, alchemia, and the incredible plant variety of gardens Venice boasted in the 15th and 16th century.

And there’s even a “plant game” to discover, created by a well-known Venetian artist studio, explaining the concept of “magical plant” and which plants (or rather, spices!) Venetians used to produce health and beauty products for centuries.

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Nonna’s garden’s been sleeping in winter: About a week before Christmas, the season begins when frost is not just a possibility but almost certain over night during la luna piena (full moon). That’s why in Venice, we protect sensitive plants like cyclamen and begonias on balconies with plastic sheets, which are taken off in the late morning and then back to cover the plant boxes in the late afternoon1.

During those ten weeks or so, until late February, (almost) no work is done in the walled herb gardens of San Zaccaria. The grass looks slightly brownish, and so do the mossy parts of the courtyard garden. Herbs don’t grow and generally it looks frozen, even on a sunny noon when the sun is shining in January.

But then, all of a sudden, in late February, the light is changing in the Lagoon: skies are taking on a pale azure hue, which means the colors are back! But before I begin telling you more about the first signs of spring and its gardening secrets, do take a look at the sleeping garden in winter:

And then, one day in early February, the very first signs of primavera (spring) are re-appearing. In the little garden, purple crocuses start blossoming, next to pale yellow primrose blossoms appearing from under the dry leaves, which the winds2 accumulated in a corner. And of course, there’s mimosa (I’ll dedicate another post to it because it's just such a favorite here in Venice).

Can you notice the prevailing color of spring in the Venetian gardens is yellow? Not just mimosa, but also narcissi, or the corniolo (cornel cherry tree) blossoming in the image below.

And then there’s one of my personal favorites from the vegetable garden, simply because it looks so good on the plate, as decoration or part of a pasta sauce and even to eat with an omelette: It’s called broccolo fiolaro.

Did you know? In Venice, broccolo is a favorite in winter, offered anywhere at the markets between October and February, but it tastes even lusher in spring. In our vegetable garden, the plant takes a short break in April, not growing new leaves, and is back in May with lots of young sprouts - so tasty! I think it’s best to enjoy young broccolo sprouts in a simple way: Just add fresh garlic greens (aglio) and a hint of chili (peperoncino) and fry it in a pan in olive oil. No spices this time :-) with the exception of just the tiniest hint of cinnamon (cannella).

So when does the gardening season start in the Lagoon, and what do you need to know about it? This is so important to take into account if you want to learn to grow a garden in the Lagoon:

Well, it all depends on the moon and tides: “Moon gardening”, that is “gardening and planting observing the moon phases”, is not a poetic expression here in Venice but holds a special significance in a city exposed to the tides:

In the Lagoon, spring and autumn are the decisive seasons, determining whether plants will grow well and survive the parching summer heat, floods, and winter rains. For example, the weather during the moon phases determines how long we can harvest herbs in the autumn, and whether they will still be alive in the spring of the following year.

Why spring equinox is important for gardeners in Venice

Also, in the Lagoon, the effects of equinox on nature are visible as tidal patterns change in the Lagoon around spring and autumn Equinox.

After spring equinox, the level of salinity is getting more concentrated in the Lagoon as the tides change only once a day, and because the water level is quite low due to the northerly winds (bora) which were prevailing in winter: That was also one of the reasons why many canals run dry during low tide between mid-January and early March. 3

After spring equinox (equinozio di primavera, around 21 March), high tides happen less often and are less pronounced: High tide and low tide occur only once a day. On the other hand, after fall equinox (around 22 September) the tides change four times a day (high tide and low tide arrive twice a day).

Also important to know for gardeners in Venice, as nonna and my neighbor say: “Tides are more intense during full moon (plenilunio) and new moon (novilunio): That means for us gardeners that planting seeds doesn’t make sense during the three days before and after the new moon and full moon, as they may be destroyed by extremely high salinity levels accumulating in the soil”.

Now you can see, not really easy to grow a garden in Venice. It’s all about trial and error, “learning by doing”, and taking into account a number of “natural laws of the Lagoon”.

In the upcoming posts in March, I’’ll take you on a special mimosa walk around Venice (this Substack is not just about Nonna’s garden, but also about garden culture in Venice). You’ll also disocver what the garden looks like in March, and taste Nonna’s favorite spring recipe from one of her cooking journals.

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In a few days, the Easter week will begin, which always makes me recall a special story, of how Nonna showed her little part of Venice to a guest who had been dreaming of visiting the city for decades.

So you’re now in for a little walk outside the garden around our neighborhood, taking in the fresh spring colors. It’s a walk towards the ancient church and campo San Lorenzo, which until the 12th century was closely connected to the San Zaccaria monastery. You must know that the San Zaccaria gardens were quite large at first, stretching from Campo della Bragora (Castello) far into today’s sestiere di San Marco, to the Grand Canal and the San Moisé area.

Today’s story is about a guest from southern Italy, who had arrived late on Friday, practically disappeared on Saturday, and on Palm Sunday in the morning, he finally came up to us and said: “I’m done with Venice. Everywhere I go, I’m surrounded by crowds, pigeons, sea gulls, and cheap eats. Waiters call out to me forever, stopping me five times between here and Piazza San Marco. Living in this town must be a nuisance. I’ve been longing to visit Venice for more than twenty years, and now I’m just so disappointed.”

True - on Palm Sunday morning, Venice was “booked out” and Piazza San Marco really crowded. The quiet and healing time of Lent, always a most welcome break and balmy breeze after a couple of fast-paced Carnival weeks, was drawing to a close. Our guest felt trapped and discouraged by the noise and the crowds, brought on by the start of the “cruise ship season”.

I think there aren’t many hosts like Lina when it comes to explaining Venice. She can become totally absorbed in a topic, talking with guests for hours. What I hadn’t seen her do in decades!! was show guests around the neighborhood. But then, Lina was already working full-time at her hotel and restaurants. I only recall her showing the city to visitors once, friends from Tel Aviv in the late 1990s. And on Palm Sunday in 2016, she did just that, despite having turned 93 and all her difficulties walking and crossing bridges.

So, Lina said to our guest: “Come along, I’ll show you the real Venice. You’ll now see the city we really live in.” She opened the door and turned right when the guest stopped her: “This is not the direction to San Marco??” Lina just waved him to follow her, and I was very curious and came along as well.

Lina was walking very slowly along our fondamenta that you can see in the image above, always a familiar and comforting sight. We went past people drinking coffee and eating fragrant brioches in the cafes on this misty and warm morning in late March. Actually, we made very little progress as Lina stopped at every door and window, telling the story of each building, courtyard and secret garden that may hide inside.

Slowly, we were enveloped by a magical atmosphere and the sounds of water lapping against the fondamenta when a gondola was passing. We were blinded for a few moments by sun rays trying to make it through the mist. Finally, we arrived at Rio dei Greci and watched the water rippled by a vegetable boat delivering fresh greens to a restaurant next to the bridge Ponte dei Greci. These vegetables looked so lush and green, like they had been harvested this morning in the Lagoon.

After crossing the bridge, we were smelling the water and listening to the voices of blackbirds and merlins coming across from the courtyard of San Giorgio dei Greci, the Greek church of Venice.

Turning left, we were walking along Fondamenta di San Lorenzo when I noticed our guest drawing his breath the moment another sight came into view: It was a mighty wisteria just coming into bloom, growing on a terrace overlooking the water, so we could smell its fragrance across the canal. Yes, plants are much loved here, and they do play a major role as landmarks!

Lina said to her guest: “Stand on the top of the bridge and take in the view. This is the gift Venice gives to the turista frettoloso (hustling and stressed visitor).”

Standing on Ponte di San Lorenzo, a massive bridge in white Istrian stone built in the year 826 AD, our guest took in the view of San Giorgio dei Greci in the distance. To the left, he could see the wisteria-overgrown terrace on the canal and a boat anchored at its doorstep. To the right, our guest could see a window sill on which a purple-blooming lily and young wisteria were growing.

Behind our visitor, on the left, was the church and campo of San Lorenzo. Lina left him to watch the scenery for a few minutes, and then told the story of a miracle which had happened exactly here, on the bridge, in the year 1369, during a time when the Genoese fleet appeared in the Lagoon, almost conquering Venice.

And this is Lina’s story:

“On Domenica delle Palme (Palm Sunday), a priest was carrying the reliquary of la Santa Croce (Holy Cross) across this bridge, during a procession of the parishioners to the monastery of San Zaccaria. All of a sudden, the reliquary fell into the canal. In 1369, this wasn’t a fortified canal like it is today, surrounded by stone and brick-clad fondamenta, but a muddy garden area, where the nuns of the San Lorenzo and San Zaccaria monasteries were growing vegetables, rosemary, wine and fruit.”

“The parishioners were looking on in dismay, but the reliquary didn’t sink and was still floating on the water. The priest jumped and was able to retrieve it. In 1500, Giovanni Bellini recreated this scene in Il Miracolo della Santa Croce, you can see his painting in the Galleria dell’ Accademia”.

“Here we are in the oldest part of Venice”, Lina continued, “on the ancient island Ombriola consisting of two parts, or rather, heart-shaped twin islands, overgrown with rosemary when the nuns of the monasteries San Zaccaria and San Lorenzo first cultivated it in the year 360 AD. Ombriola became the first commercial center of Venice, where Byzantine cogs were anchored and Greek diplomats and merchants were living.”

“The family of Doge Partecipazio built the church of San Lorenzo in 825 AD, and Romana, another member of the Doge’s family, founded a monastery for suore benedettine in the year 853, on the former grounds of the San Zaccaria monastery.

Today, the monastery of San Lorenzo houses a Casa di Riposo next to the church: A chapel of the original church was built where the Casa di Riposo, is located today, and if we can belive Marco Polo’s Last Will, he and his family were buried in this chapel1. The island Ombriola represents the center of the Lagoon, it is located exactly between Fusina, where the Lagoon ends in the south-west, and Torcello, the ancient harbor island where the Lagoon ends in the north-east. While the Rialto area was populated by Eneti, Ombriola is the heart of Byzantine Venice.”

“The church was dedicated to the martyr San Lorenzo, doing charity work in Rome around the year 257 AD. San Lorenzo died aged 33 on 10 August, which is why La Notte di San Lorenzo, the night of the shooting stars, is called after him. We call these falling stars le lacrime di San Lorenzo, the tears of San Lorenzo.”

The spell was broken all of a sudden when two shoppers were approaching us with their bags. As our guest wouldn’t move, Lina waved to me and we left him in his own dreamy place on top of the bridge. This time, seeing Venice with the eyes of Lina, a very special Venetian grandmother.

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March in Venice brings collective memories of spring festivities: Did you know that during the times of La Serenissima Republic, that is until 1797, the city used to celebrate New Year’s Day (anno nuovo, more veneto) on March 1st?

All during a time when the first blossoms of spring in March envelop in the city in such colorful hues: In my opinion, the protagonista (main character) of the life in Venice right now is mimosa pudica, the yellow mimosa tree. But then, the vegetable gardens are also “wearing yellow”: Broccolo fiolaro (winter broccoli) is blossming. Dandelions grow just anywhere, and there are the first yellowish blossoms of silene in quiet corners of gardens and on the sand dunes in the Lagoon.

And now we’re taking you for a short walk around Venice, with tips for you where to spot those bright blossoms of March: Gardens, flower shops, and we’ll also share the secret of a special cake made with spring blossoms.

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Did you know that almost half of Venice consists of gardens? Wherever you go, you’ll find green oases, of all sorts and all sizes. Probably, not at first sight and not in a very prominent position, as they are mostly hiding behind red brick walls and inside private courtyard.

This is not a co-incidence, because gardens in Venice were created with a special goal in mind, that no other city in Europe ever craved for. These gardens did embellish the city, they were used to grow herbs and vegetables. But their real objective was to be used by their owners to learn and experiment with plants the merchants used to bring home to Venice on board their cogs. We know that in the year 1500, Venice counted more than 500 botanical gardens. Plus, lots of monastery gardens.

But where can you find spice gardens in Venice in our times? Well, mostly, you’ll have to dream them up. The spice ateliers have been closed, there’s just a few botteghe that could be referred to as spice boutique, or are there more?

Because sometimes, in the mysterious maze of Venetian calli e calleselle (streets), you’ll come across strange scents of blossoms, coming out of nowhere while passing by a red brick wall.

And just perhaps, could there be a paradise garden hiding, a hortus conclusus (walled garden, Venetian style), that once represented the magical center of a spice garden? These walled gardens were, and still are, more than just green patches in a courtyard: Often, they’re sprawling, spreading over to terraces, balconies and even roof top terraces (called altane).

This Garden Magazine + Newsletter takes you on a secret journey into “the other half of Venice”, the realm of secret gardens hiding behind tall brick walls: Discover what the spice gardens used to look like in the past, and whether they still exist today. You’ll also discover private kitchen and palace gardens, hanging gardens and lush green courtyards.

And most of all, you’ll discover the story of spices and gardens that cannot be treated separately in Venice. As a concrete example, you’ll discover one of the last spezerie (spice ateliers) that was revived by my Venetian grandmother, renovating the ancient monastery garden and guesthouse of the San Zaccaria convent. Yes, this is located in the ancient heart of Venice, five minutes from Piazza San Marco.

One day in May 2012, I counted the plants growing on Nonna’s garden, consisting of a green courtyard, a main terrace, seven smaller terraces, and a rooftop terrace: 248 mostly edible plant species thriving in the sun but also protected in the shade, a little green jungle in the heart of Venice surrounded by the white facade of the former monastery San Zaccaria, its guesthouse and the former church of San Provolo.

It’s a garden with a long history which as a child, I used to explore step-by-step. Exploring felt a treasure hunt, that was patiently supported by my Venetian grandparents. Like they were leaving hints here and there, sharing a book from the library now and then, telling bits of stories that felt like pieces of a puzzle. This was Nonna Lina’s way of teaching valuable know-how for life.

It took me two decades to piece some of it together, with the help of family, friends and neighbors, and yet, here’s still so much we have to find out about this garden.

Just two years ago I found out that it was connected very intimately to Marco Polo. The garden was first mentioned in the year 468 AD as part of the San Zaccaria convent. Click here to view it on an ancient map!

From 1968, grandmother had been growing vegetables and herbs on the terraces, creating a sanctuary for forgotten Lagoon herbs and berries. Each had their own carefully chosen spot, a sprawling herb garden reached from the kitchen via a wrought iron staircase.

Three sharp turns on very narrow steps, it feels like climbing inside a narrow tower with no windows. And finally, you push open a dark green wooden door and step onto the sun-drenched terrace covered with beige stone flags. Laurel and oleander were wisely positioned by my grandparents to shield smaller plants from the intense summer sun.

“La Terrazza” tells a story which for the family began on 26 April 1968, when Nonna became the owner of these gardens. “Challenging times” because quite a number of the plants had been damaged or even died during the excessive high tide (acqua granda) of 4-8 November 1966.

Barely one and a half year later in April 1968, the gardens still hadn’t recovered from the floods, which was one of the reasons why the nuns had decided to leave. They approached Nonna Lina and asked her to take care of the garden and guesthouse because they had known her well as neighbor since 1945. For decades, Lina had been visiting on a daily basis, exchanging recipes and stories, and learning so much about their incredible gardening skills. They also taught Lina how to cook ancient spice-flavored dishes - well, spices!!

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A few links for you to discover the garden in Venice:

• Paradise Garden is about the botanical treasures of the garden.

• In Home Tour, we write about the layout of the garden.

• Do take a look at our About Page.

• If you’re on Twitter, would you like to connect with us here @laspezeria?

• I also set up an Instagram account. Click here to connect with us on Instagram.

Legend has it that Venice (or rather, Venetia) was founded on 25 March 421 AD, so the 365 days beginning on 25 March 2021 are all dedicated to celebrating the 1600th “birthday year” of our city.

I think it’s time to pause and travel back to this little known world of Venetia so we know who we’re talking about.

You may have heard that in the 5th century, the inhabitants of Altino, following the onslaught of the “barbarian invasions”, took refuge in the Lagoon.

This is one part of the story, but if we look at the original text of the best-known founder legend, it contains a few interesting hints.

The birthday legend of Venetia was passed on by Marin Sanudo (1466-1536), an official historian of the Republic of Venice. His book on “De Origine, situ e magistratibus Urbis Venetiae” was re-published in 2017 by a Venetian research center on medieval history, Centro Cicogna.

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