the serene republic having fallen
Lord Byron decided to insert
virtu back into the tarpaulined
marina - his lovers in that desert
quarantine replace the mechanised state
standing about the doges’ staircase -
victims of dictatorship - his bedmates
a Lock Hospital of terrible grace
the cap of state headless on a cushion
in expectation of that acephale
grabbing his lit de justice with passion
for just one more body from that corral
the head “if you please” laid between the crease
after which a sword is raised for Greece
Blackwell’s
Oxford
21 September 2018
George Gordon Byron, the 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824) lived largely in Venice between 1816-19, where composed a play in 1819, on the deposed and disgraced 55th Doge of Venice, Marino Faliero (reigned 1354-55), who had attempted a coup d’etat against his own state. He was beheaded on the very spot where his investiture as doge had been held, and his head was put between his knees when his corpse was exhibited.
After a long existence the Republic of St Mark had ended in 1797. Whenever a new doge was presented to the public, the formula was to announce ” Here is your doge, if you please” - at least until 1423. After that date, the second clause was omitted.
Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) painted ” The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero” which was exhibited in 1827 and can now be seen at the Wallace Collection in London. This sonnet reconfigures Byron’s Venetian sojourn within the spaces of Delacroix’s painting.
In ancien regime France, the lit de justice ( bed of justice) was a special session of the sovereign court of France, le Parlement de Paris, which the king attended, for constitutional enactments and vetos. A dark blue fleur de lis carpet was spread in a narrow space as the ” bed”. Delacroix’s painting was a protest at the coronation of Charles X at Reims in 1826.
Byron went on a bit of a sexual bender while he lived in Venice, with consequences for his health. The Lock Hospital was the syphilis hospital in London for ” incurables”. Both Byron and Delacroix supported the cause of Greek independence. Byron raised funds, and went to Missolonghi to contribute to the liberation of Greece, where he died. He did more in Venice than debauch himself - he learned Armenian and contributed to an Albanian dictionary.
The (highly) controversial film director Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-75) raised the problematics of Machiavellian ” virtu” in his films ” Teorema” (1968) and he depicted its inversion or depravity ( or for him, a consequence ?) in his notorious ” 120 Days of Sodom” (1975). Speaking of controversial topics, the ” acephale” or headless one, comes from the name which Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and his associates gave their secret society.