The Historical Regatta (ItalianRegata Storica) is a sporting event which takes place along the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, on the first Sunday of each September. It begins with a procession which is a historical re-enactment, and this is followed by a regatta which includes a variety of competitive races.
Rowing different kinds of boats has always been essential in the Venetian Lagoon, both for business and for recreation. Speed and endurance challenges soon arose, and rules to regulate them.[1]
It is uncertain when the regatta tradition began. Scholars have suggested that one origin was in the year 942 when an event occurred with similarities to the rape of the Sabine women. During a festival, pirates kidnapped young Venetian women, but they were pursued by men who rowed fast enough to free the kidnapped girls. This episode is claimed to have given rise to the Festa delle Marie and its regatta.[1]
The term "regatta" first appeared in 1274, in a note in an anonymous codex which reads "Splendor magnificissime Urbis Venetorum, 1274, die 16 septembris, indicta regatta cum navigiis habentibus remos viginti" (The most magnificent splendour of the City of Venice, on the 16th of September 1274, a regatta was announced with boats having twenty oars).
In 1315, the Venetian Senate issued rules for the annual Marian regatta.[1]
The earliest surviving image of a boat race in the city dates from 1500, when a view of Venice by Jacopo de' Barbari depicts a race between fours in the stretch between the Venice Lido and Saint Mark's Square.[1]
The regattas took place in the open lagoon, only exceptionally along the Grand Canal. In the 15th and 16th centuries they were organized by the Compagnie della Calza, until 1631, when the Council of Ten gave the State the task, but granting licenses to people who would have to bear the costs. From 1687 the grants were to patrician families and craft guilds.[1]
From 1670, leaflets were published to report on the regattas and their outcomes. The champions were above all the professional boatmen and gondoliers.[1]
After the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, the city was ruled by the French, but some regattas went on, although genererally fewer. In 1797, the French organized two regattas, one on 14 July and another on 18 September for a visit by Josephine Beauharnais, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then still a general. In 1807, a further regatta took place in honour of a visit by Napoleon himself, now Emperor of the French.[1]
After the Congress of Vienna of 1815, the city came into the Austrian Empire, and a regatta was organized in honour of the Emperor Francis II. The tradition of regattas slowly regained strength, and in 1841 regulations were made for the holding of an annual regatta along the Grand Canal, at public expense, with a new limit on the number of boats taking part in races, either seven or nine. It was also ordered that the gondolas were all be of the same pattern and would be supplied by the city. In 1843, racing colours were introduced to identify crews.[1]
The annual regattas came to an end again in 1848, when there was an insurrection against the Austrians, and did not resume until 1866, when Venice became part of the Kingdom of Italy. In 1875 the number of boats in a race was finally fixed at nine, and in 1892 a colour scheme for the boats was laid down which is still in use. From 1866, the colour of the flags awarded as prizes also changed: previously they were red for the winning boat, green for second, light blue for third, and yellow for fourth. Red remained the winning colour, but in honour of the Italian flag white second became white and third green; blue for fourth represented the new royal family, the House of Savoy.[1]
The name of Regata Storica was introduced in 1899, as proposed by the mayor at that time, Filippo Grimani, who included the regatta in the events of the third Venice Biennale. In that same year, the opening with a historical procession also began, including boats built from studying old paintings and prints.[1]
During the twenty years of Fascist rule, the organization of the regattas gradually became exclusive to the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro. In 1925, but only that year, the Historical Regatta was called the "Fascist Regatta", and gondolas replaced gondolins. From 1928, participants in the races were required to be members of national unions or other fascist or military organizations.[1]
The invasion of Poland by Germany on 1 September 1939 led to the cancellation of the Regatta scheduled for the following day. The official Regatta was suspended for the whole of the Second World War, but in 1942 a regatta was organized by the film company Sol, as part of the poduction of a film called Canal Grande.[1]
In 1946 the annual Historical Regatta was relaunched, and for that year was called the Liberation Regatta.[1]
It was only after the Second World War that the historical procession began to be associated with the re-enactment of the arrival in Venice of Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, who in 1489 was forced to abdicate her throne in exchange for an annuity and the lordship of Asolo, allowing the island to become part of the possessions of Venice.[1]
The Regata has taken place in every year since 1946, mainly along the Grand Canal.[1]
With effect from the Regatta of September 2021, the prize money awarded to men amd women became the same, ending a long controversy.[3]
The procession is made up of dozens of typical Venetian rowing boats, including the bissone which are used only on this type of occasion, with rowers and figures in period costume, including the Doge and Caterina Cornaro. The boats parade in a procession that starts from the San Marco Basin and runs along the entire Grand Canal up to the Constitution Bridge , and then retraces its journey back to the arrival point of the rowing races, the Machina , a floating stage built of in front of Ca' Foscari , amidst the applause of Venetians and tourists, who watch the show from the banks and from the private homes that overlook the route of the procession.
Nine crews participate in each regatta plus one reserve crew, ready to take over at the start in the event of a last minute cancellation , with the exception of the Caorline regatta for which there is no reserve crew. The regatta regulations provide, for all categories, for the boats to start from a point in the San Marco Basin , lined up and blocked until the start by a cord tied to the stern of the boats called a spagheto . After the start, the crews face the delicate and fundamental entrance into the Grand Canal, which they follow until reaching the turning point or the category marker (each of which carries out a more or less long stretch in the Grand Canal, which varies for each type category). In the case of the gondolin regatta, the pole is placed at the height of the Constitution Bridge , so the route covers practically the entire Grand Canal. From this point the same stretch of Canal Grande is retraced until the finish line, set for all categories at Ca' Foscari, at the machina stage . On this stage, once the possible (and frequent) complaints of mutual misconduct between the rowers have been entrusted to the jury, they are celebrated and rewarded by the authorities.
The first four crews classified receive, in addition to cash prizes, the traditional and symbolic flags. The first ones are assigned the red flags, followed by the white, green and blue ones. Until 2002 the tradition was that the fourth place in the regatta of champions was also given a live pig, paraded aboard a boat in the previous historical procession. Welcoming the protests of animal rights activists , the prize has since been replaced by a glass pig made by the Promovetro Consortium of Murano .
The colors of the racing boats
The boats used for the regatta are distinguished not only by a number but also by hulls entirely painted in different colours, which in ancient times distinguished the various areas of Venice and the lagoon. The number also identifies the position that the boat must hold in the alignment at the start and is assigned to each crew by drawing lots. The reserve vessel is distinguished by a two-tone red and green hull and the letter "R" (for "reserve") in place of the number. The combination between number and color of the vessel is fixed, according to the following table [3] :
The winners are considered champions of the city and are held in the highest regard.
British peer, landowner, and accountant (born 1959)
Arthur Francis Nicholas Wills Hill, 9th Marquess of Downshire (born 4 February 1959), is a British peer in the peerage of Ireland and landowner in Yorkshire.
Hill was with Touche Ross from 1981 to 1987[4] and spent some twenty years working in finance and venture capital in London. In 2001, he returned to Masham to take over from his father the management of the Clifton and Jervaulx estates.[6] In 2003 he succeeded his father as Marquess of Downshire and inherited the estates.[4]
In May 2011, Downshire launched an annual Northern grassland event at Clifton Castle Farms. He was then making 3,000 tonnes of silage a year.[7] In 2014 he was farming some 700 acres of the Clifton Castle estate in hand. Some 250 acres were arable, growing mainly wheat, barley and oats. He had by then given up on a large dairying operation, which had proved to need too much new investment, but had diversified by creating biomass boilers and a hydro-electric power scheme. As well as quarrying and forestry interests, and ten tenanted farms on the two estates, Downshire also owned the Blue Lion pub at East Witton, named as "best dining inn" in the Good Pub Guide for 2014.[6]
In March 2014 Downshire became chairman of the Country Landowners' Association in Yorkshire and also joined the policy committee of the national organization. He commented to The Yorkshire Post "Estate owning is a long-term business, and any decision I make is trying to look fifty years forward, rather than a few months."[6]
He has been a member of the board of the Moorland Association since it was formed in 2014 and was its Chairman for three years.[8] In 2018 he became a member of the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster[9] and was still a member in 2023.[10]
In 2023, a new boutique guest house called Arthur's was opened in Hillsborough, in honour of Downshire.[11]
Downshire married Diana Jane Bunting, daughter of Gerald Leeson Bunting, a solicitor, of Otterington House, Northallerton, and they have four children:[4]
Lady Isabella Diana Juliet Hill (born 1991)
Lady Beatrice Hannah Georgina Hill (born 1994), married name Lady Georgina Anderson, a chef in Harrogate[12]
Edmund Robin Arthur Hill, Earl of Hillsborough (born 1996)
^ abcdefghijklmnoGiorgio and Maurizio Crovato, Regate e regatanti: Storia e storie della voga a Venezia (Marsilio Editore, 2004), ISBN978-88-317-8528-0(in Italian)
^Samuele Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia, vol. 1 (Venice: Pietro Naratovich, 1860), pp. 36–40
^"Who's Who", moorlandassociation.org, accessed 7 August 2023
^ ab"Downshire, 9th Marquess of, (Arthur Francis Nicholas Wills Hill) (born 4 Feb. 1959) company director and landowner" in Who's Who online edition, accessed 13 February 2023 (subscription required)
Category:1959 births
Category:Alumni of the Royal Agricultural University
Category:Living people
Category:Hill family|Nicholas
Category:British accountants
Category:21st-century British landowners
Category:Marquesses of Downshire
