La vecia del morter (The Old Woman of the Mortar)
Sotoportego del Cappello Nero, San Marco
Venice, October 2012
“Over the Sottoportego del Cappello (first left after the Torre) is a relief known as La Vecia del Morter - The Old Woman of the Mortar. The event it commemorates happened on the night of June 15, 1310, when the occupant of this house, an old woman named Giustina Rossi, looked out of her window and saw a contingent of Bajamonte Tiepolo's rebel army passing below. Possibly by accident, she knocked a stone mortar from her sill, and the missile landed on the skull of the standard-bearer, killim him outright. Seeing their flag go down, Tiepolo's troops panicked and fled back towards the Rialto. (Scores of other rebels were killed in the Piazza - those ringleaders who survived the carnage were punished with execution or exile.) Asked what she would like as her reward for her patriotic intervention, Giustina requested permission to hang the Venetian flag from her window on feast days, and a guarantee that her rent would never be raised; both requests were granted.” (Jonathan Buckley, The Rough Guide to Venice & the Veneto)
Raises the dangers of urban warfare to a whole other level. Now soldiers have to be on the lookout for clumsy old ladies worried about paying their rent. Sheesh!
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