Venice

After about two weeks traveling through Southern Austria and into Northern Italy, Felix Fabri and his group of travelers make it to the “Mistress of the Mediterranean,” Venice (Fabri, 22). The arrival in Venice marks critical progress in the pilgrimage towards Jerusalem and an important adjustment in his caravan’s means of travel. Fabri arrives in Venice on the 27th of April where he plans to stay for fourteen days to completely prepare for their long journey across the sea.  The tone of Fabri’s narrative changes in Venice, he focuses more on details of specific people of importance, and a new lighthearted and joyful energy is woven into his description of his journeys and the city of Venice itself. 

Once Fabri arrives at the spot where the “river glides into the jaws of the Mediterranean” he is overcome with an uncharacteristic sense of joy (Fabri 21). The crew sings a pilgrim song to praise the Lord and celebrate their feat of reaching the Mediterranean Sea. Fabri writes the song in his native German tongue, but it is translated into English and Latin which reflects his general interest in linguistics. The pivot from land travel to water travel is thoroughly described, Fabri notes many small trials and tribulations of the boats he embarked upon. This pattern mirrors Felix Fabri’s previous interest in the trails of his journey but through a different medium: “our boat was driven to one side by the shock, and struck upon a post which stood in the water, so as to threaten to overset” which shows his broader fascination into means of travel (Fabri 21). Despite the initial difficulties of boat travel, Fabri’s spirits remain uplifted as he slowly sails to the “famous, great, wealthy, and noble city of Venice” (Fabri 22).

In Venice, Fabri narrates a more well-rounded description of the city. He cares about the architecture, the natural beauty, the history, the language, the demeanor of the residents, as well as the influential people he meets. He names the Rialto and remarks on the impressive feat of Venice’s existence “we were astonished to see such weighty and such tall structures with their foundations in the water” presenting the city as a marvel itself (Fabri 22). When they reach their place of residence, Fabri is characteristically focused on language as a means of morality. He describes his hosts as “especially friendly…eager to wait upon us” and attributes this to their German nationality and speech (Fabri 22). Because “no word of Italian was to be heard in the house, which was a very great comfort to us; for it is very distressing to live with people without being able to converse with them” he asserts German’s superiority over Italians (Fabri 23). However, in this description, Fabri leans into something new – superstition – to further separate Italians and Germans. He describes a dog’s response to people of different nationalities. The dog (of German descent) receives “all Germans with joy” whereas it greets Italians (and people from all other countries that are not Germany) “as if it had gone mad, runs at them, barking loudly, leaps furiously upon them, and will not cease from troubling them till someone quiets him” (Fabri 23). Fabri dedicates a whole page to the dog and its varied reactions which differs from the rest of the narrative where he is greatly unconcerned with both non-religious superstition and animals.  As Fabri travels farther away from his native land, he becomes more attuned to cultural differences and more focused on presenting Germans as the superior group of people.