Today our post from “Detourism: La newsletter di Venezia”, the newsletter prepared by the Tourism Office of the Town of Venice, is dedicated to the Venetian New Year’s Day. Until 1797, March 1st was New Year’s Day, according to the Venetian calendar. Let’s find out more!

For centuries Venice has celebrated New Year’s Day on a date other than January 1. In fact, according to the Venetian civic calendar, which corresponds to the early Roman calendar and has been in use up until 1797, the first month of the year is March. This month marked a new beginning for the Venetians, being also reminiscent of the city foundation, traced back to March 25 of the year 421 (discover the history and the masterpieces of the Doges’ Palace, symbol of the Venetian republic).

Originally, the Venetian New Year started on March 25; it was not a random choice: this date, close to the vernal equinox, corresponds not only to the legendary founding of Venice, but also, maybe even more significantly, to the day on which the Church celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary (discover the Annunciation by Paolo Veronese in the Gallerie dell’Accademia). Later on, for the convenience of calculation, the date of the New Year’s Day was brought forward to the first of March. This date, abandoned after the fall of the Venetian Republic, had been maintained even after 1582, when in many other countries the new calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, still used by most of the world, replaced the old-style calendar. To avoid misinterpretation, in the official records of the Venetian Republic, dates falling between January and February (the last two months of the year in Venice) were followed by the initials MV, “more veneto”, indicating the peculiarity of Venetian use.

Find out more about life and culture of the Venetian Republic!

[source: La newsletter di Venezia, N° 04/2021 del 18.02.2021]
[immagine: Vittore Carpaccio, “Il Leone di San Marco”, 1516, detail]

We are proud to publish some selected contents of such newsletter (see previous post: “Detourism for the Up and Down the Bridges“). On our website, in several episodes, we will only present some samples (see all posts in our archive page “Detourism Newsletter“), but the invitation addressed to all the friends of the Up and Down the Bridges is to subscribe to the newsletter directly.
Special thanks to the Councillor for Tourism for having enthusiastically welcomed this new important collaboration between TGS Eurogroup and the Tourism Office of the Town of Venice and for giving us the precious opportunity to publish on the pages of this blog some extracts from this newsletter, both in Italian and in English.

To receive the newsletter “Detourism” directly in your email box every fortnight fill in the online form proposed by the Town of Venice.

Discover all the itineraries of #Detourism to explore a different Venice, promoted as part of the #EnjoyRespectVenezia awareness campaign of the Town of Venice.
Adopt conscious and respectful behaviors of the cultural and natural heritage of Venice and its lagoon, a site protected by UNESCO.

Sustainable Tourism Service of the Town of Venice:
www.comune.venezia.it/it/EnjoyRespectVenezia
www.veneziaunica.it/it/content/detourism-venezia
turismosostenibile@comune.venezia.it
Facebook: @DetourismVeneziaOfficial
Instagram: @Detourismvenezia
Twitter: @DetourismVenice