La Sensa

The name comes from Ascension Day, a movable feast celebrating Christ's ascent into heaven that takes place 40 days after Easter. For 795 years of Venetian history, however, La Sensa meant much more: it was Venice’s own symbolic apotheosis as the husband, lord, and master of the sea.

It was on Ascension Day in the year 1000 when Doge Pietro Orseolo II began his campaign against the Dalmatians – Venice’s first foreign conquest and the source of immense civic pride.

Whatever ceremony ensued was given a boost by Pope Alexander III in 1177, who gave the doge a ring in gratitude for his help in securing the submission of Emperor Barbarossa: ‘Let posterity remember that the sea is yours by right of conquest, subject to you as a wife to her husband,’ said the Pope.

What really got under the skin of Venice’s many rivals was her joyously excessive arrogance, much of it concentrated in La Sensa, an astute mix of politics and religion and trade fair that followed the city’s maxim: prima di tutto Veneziani, poi Cristiani (Venetians first of all, and Christians second).

On the big day