Vaporetto

Vaporetto (pronounced vap-uh-ret-oh or vah-paw-ret-taw (Italian))

A steam-powered public transit canal-motorboat used as a passenger bus along the canals in Venice, Italy.

1926: From the Italian, the construct being vapor(e) (steamboat) + -etto.  Vaporetto is a diminutive of vapore (steam) from the Latin vapor & vaporem.  The origin of vapor is uncertain but may have been related to the Ancient Greek καπνός (kapnós) (smoke) and the primitive Indo-European keawp (to smoke, boil, move violently), via the older form quapor, the pronunciation of which softened over time.  The etto- suffix was used to forms nouns from nouns, denoting a diminutive.  It was from the Late Latin -ittum, accusative singular of –ittus, and was the alliterative suffix used to form melioratives, diminutives, and hypocoristics  and existed variously in English & French as -et, in Italian as Italian -etto and in Portuguese & Spanish as -ito.  With an animate noun, -etto references as male, the coordinate female suffix being -etta, which is also used with inanimate nouns ending in -a.  It should not be confused with the homophonous suffix -eto (grove).  In Italy, steam-powered vessels were quickly dubbed vapori in the way similar ships were in English known as steamers. The noun plural is vaporettos in English or vaporetti in Italian although in Venice, the locals call them batèlo or vaporino.

Vaporettos long ago were converted to run on diesel engines but the name (derived from vapore (steam)) had assumed its own identity and was retained.  Venice’s first vaporetto company was founded by a prominent member of the city’s Jewish community, the lawyer & councilor Amedeo Grassini (1848-1908) and businessman Giuseppe Musatti (1796-1877) who created a holding company which was instrumental in the transformation of the Lido into a tourist destination.  The vaporetto was the vessel which made mass-market tourism possible among the canals, offering what was by historic standards a system of mass-transit which operated with the economies of scale necessary for financial viability.  The first vaporetto service was launched in 1881 and despite the fears of the boatmen operating the gondoliers which also plied the routes, their business was stimulated and they remain essential to this day for the transport system to function, their narrow boats able to sail along the narrower, tighter waterways.  With dimensions dictated by the size of infrastructure such as bridges and docks, vaporettos were built to be as large as possible so that the passenger load could be maximized.

Amedeo Grassini is also noted as the father of Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961), one of the Italy’s most renowned art critics of the early twentieth century and the mistress & first biographer of Benito Mussolini (1883–1945; Prime Minister of Italy (and Duce) 1922-1943)).  She was interested in politics from a young age and was a left-wing activist during World War I (1914-1918), one of many who noted with dissatisfaction what little Italy gained from the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) although to what extent this influenced her change of political direction has never been certain.  Her affair with Mussolini began in 1911 and was tolerated her husband Cesare Sarfatti (1866-1924) (who these days newspapers would describe as a “colorful character”) but Rachele Mussolini (1890-1979) was not best pleased, something with which the Duce had learned to cope.  Husband and Duce remained friends.

Lindsay Lohan disembarking from vaporetto, Venice Film Festival 2006.

Upon being widowed in 1924, signora Sarfatti wrote a biography of Mussolini (published in Italy as Dux (Leader) and in English language editions as The Life of Benito Mussolini).  In Italy, the book was of course a great success but it was translated into seventeen languages and internationally was well-received and widely read, reflecting the positive image many had of Italian fascism in the 1920s and 1930s when the system appeared dynamic and modern.  However, as the influences of the Nazis began to affect the Duce, even signora Sarfatti began to harbor doubts although she continued to maintain there was no “Jewish question” in Italy and declared the fascist regime would never follow Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies.  However, on Bastille Day 1938, The Manifesto of the Race appeared in the Roman daily Il giornale d’Italia.  Written mostly by the Duce himself, the document condemned the corruption of the Italian Aryan race through intermarriage with Jews and marked the point at which the Rome-Berlin axis (signed in 1936) ceased to be merely symbolic and became emblematic of Italy’s vassal status.  At this point, signora Sarfatti, who had ended the affair two years earlier because of unhappiness with the Duce’s colonial adventures and the implications of his dalliances with the Nazis, left Italy for Argentina in 1938, not returning until 1947.  Despite it all, her memoir Acqua Passata (Water under the bridge (1955)) was unapologetic.

Giorgia Meloni.

Although it has exercised the minds of many in chanceries around Europe, the specter of Mussolini (the younger or older) seems not to have disturbed enough of the 64%-odd of the Italian electorate which in the election of 22 September delivered a majority in both houses to a coalition of right-wing parties, described by some, fairly or not, as “neo-fascist”.  Giorgia Meloni (b 1977) seems set to become Italy’s first female prime-minister, heading a coalition including former prime-minister (and aspiring president) Silvio Berlusconi’s (b 1936) Forza Italia and aspiring prime-minister Matteo Salvini’s (b 1973) League.  Actually, the F-word was never far from the election campaign, signora Meloni in her youth having been a member of Italy's neo-fascist movement although it may have been a youthful indiscretion (perhaps something like the flirtation of Liz Truss with republicanism) because she claimed in her book Io sono Giorgia (I am Georgia (2021)) not to be a fascist and her 2022 campaign was more about getting trains to run on time than anything which overtly recalled the fascist past.  Despite that, she continues to use an old fascist slogan "God, fatherland and family" and during electioneering repeated "I have taken up the baton of a 70-year-long history".  The coalition’s margin of victory wasn’t as great as some of the polls had suggested but there are unlikely to be any surprises in upcoming public policy, signora Meloni having long campaigned against LGBT rights, advocated a naval blockade of Libya and has warned against allowing Muslim migrants.  Although unlikely to match the Duce’s two-decade tenure (although things for him ended badly), she’s promising Italy’s seventieth government since his fall from office will be stable and durable.  Given her partners’ reputation for intrigue and willingness to pursue their own agendas, all wish her well.

Vaporetto passing under Rialto Bridge.

Although on occasions rebuilt since the twelfth century, the Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge, Ponte de Rialto in Venetian) across the Grand Canal is the oldest in Venice and now a noted tourist attraction.  It was once even more important for the city, for three centuries the only way to cross the waterway, something of great commercial value to the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers who surrounded it in medieval times.  The Rialto district was the origin of Venice, the ninth century settlement there the first in the area and it gained the advantage from its early establishment by emerging as the financial and commercial hub, the Rialto Bridge the gateway to the main market which, by the eleventh century, was claimed (perhaps optimistically) to be the finest south of the Dolomites. 

Il Ponte di Rialtoby (circa 1877) by Antonietta Brandeis (1848–1926).

The original structures to accommodate crossings were made of wood which, between occasionally collapsing under the weight of humanity and burning down, for centuries provided their vital link but in the sixteenth century, the decision was taken build in stone and in 1591, after three years of construction, Ponte de Rialto was opened to the public.  In an example of a cultural phenomenon that persists to this day when anything startlingly new is built, not all admired the appearance, some thinking it jarringly out of place; history has been kinder to the architect, Antonio da Ponte (1512–1597).  More concerning perhaps were the opinions of some engineers who had little faith in the mathematics used in the design, doubting whether the then radical structure would long survive the stresses the weight of the passing traffic would impose but it’s stood now for over four centuries, during which, many others have tumbled.

Ponte de Rialto design by Antonio da Ponte (1512–1597).

The bridge is built with two inclined ramps, each with its own row of shops, an important revenue-generating aspect of the design and access to the pinnacle of the archway is through a staircase at each end.  The arch is, by Venetian standards, tall and the vaporetti could be higher and still comfortably pass underneath but the arches of most of the city’s bridges are lower so the boats are built low.  Some twelve-thousand wooden pilings provide support and proved adequate, if the local legend is to be believed, to withstand the stress of the canons said to have been fired from atop the bridge during the riots of 1797.