FESTA DELLA SENSA 2023
The “Festa Della Sensa” takes place Sunday, May 21, 2023, in Venice, a festival that revives the thousand-year history of the Serenissima, its intimate relationship with the Sea and the practice of Venetian rowing.
The Festa della Sensa (Feast of the Ascension) was a festival already in the time of the Republic of Venice on the occasion of the Ascension of Christ (in Venetian dialect Sensa).
On this feast takes place the rite of the Marriage of the Sea. On that day, every year, the Doge, on the Bucintoro, reached S. Elena at the height of San Pietro di Castello. Waiting for him the bishop, aboard a boat with golden banks, ready to bless him. To underline the domination of the Serenissima Republic with the sea, the festival culminated with a sort of propitiatory rite: the Doge, once he reached the Bocca di Porto, in fact launched a gold ring into the waters.
Today the event is celebrated with the Venetian rowing competitions and a parade on the water of traditional rowing boats from San Marco to Lido.
Still today the rite of the wedding with the sea is celebrated through a suggestive ceremony of launch in water of a ring and a subsequent religious service in the church of San Nicolò di Lido.
