The Republic of Venice had its feasts and celebrations like any other state, except most of these traditions are now long gone and very often entirely forgotten.

Popular feasts

• The Festa delle Marie was a very popular event in Venice, celebrated from sometimes in the 900s until the 1370s.
  • Podcast: Episode 24 — Festa delle Marie.
• Associated with the Festa delle Marie was the annual feast of Santa Maria Formosa on February 2nd, when the doge with much ceremonial visited the church of Santa Maria Formosa.
  • Newsletter: Oranges and straw hats
• Of course, there was the month-long Carnival every year, until the very end of the Serenissima.
  • Podcast: Episode 25 — The Venetian Carnival

Celebrations and anniversaries

• The Festa del Redentore celebrated (and still celebrates) the end of the plague epidemic of 1575–1577.
• The Festa della Salute still celebrates the end of the last great plague epidemic of 1630–1631.

State ceremonial

• The elaborate, and rather curious, ceremonies around the death and burial of the Doges of Venice.
  • Newsletter: However, we’ll make another
• The Festa della Sensa is an ancient celebration of the Venetian dominance of the sea, in the form of a symbolic marriage between the Venetian state and the sea.
• The feast of Giovedì grasso, during carnival, celebrating a military victory in 1162 over the Patriarch of Aquileia, which included the decapitation of a bull.
  • Podcast: Episode 25 — The Venetian Carnival
  • Newsletter: Beheading bulls

Religious feasts

• The Easter procession on the night of Holy Thursday.
  • Newsletter: The Blood of Christ
  • Scuola della Passione — School of the Passion — Grevembroch 2-62
  • Scuola della Passione — School of the Passion — Venetia Descritta (1581)
  • La processione del Venerdì Santo — The procession of Holy Friday — Gabriel Bella

Related articles

• Feasts and Celebrations in Venice — a list.