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| The Borges Labyrinth on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore - Photo: Cat Bauer |
(Venice, Italy) I remember when the magical Borges Labyrinth was unveiled here in Venice on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore a decade ago, back on June 14, 2011, to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of the renowned Argentinian writer and poet, Jorge Luis Borges, who died on June 14, 1986.
The Borges Labyrinth is a reconstruction of the maze that Randoll Coate, the British diplomat, maze designer and Borges friend, designed in Argentina inspired by the short story The Garden of the Forking Paths. It was created at the behest of Maria Kodama, the widow of Borges, who wished to commemorate her husband's love of Venice. The aim of the project was to "create a garden full of spiritual meaning in memory of Borges" and generate public interest in his work.
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| Renata Codello, Andrea Erri, Ilaria D'Uva, Antonio Fresa (not posing:-) |
I have walked the maze before accompanied only by the sound of birdsong and silence. This time, as I wandered the maze with a handful of others, I actually felt like I was in a movie -- a real-life movie -- with Teatro La Fenice Orchestra playing the score. I became misty-eyed by the music wafting through the headphones and the gentle twists and turns of the path. Fresa said, "Walking the Labyrinth is a four-movement suite that tells the metaphor of existence flowing backwards, experienced through evaporation, solidity, chaos and the origin of life."
And that is what it felt like -- that time was flowing backwards, and I was in the same labyrinth, starting in the present and zigzagging my way back through time, feeling the same way I felt back in 2011 when it first opened and then forward and backward throughout the years when it was open for special events, and now here I was in the labyrinth again in 2021 with the music of Teatro La Fenice in my ears, the theater which has burned and resurrected and burned and resurrected throughout time -- it felt so familiar and wonderful that these heavenly vibrations cannot be destroyed but resurrect and still hover in the air for more than a thousand years on the ancient Island of San Giorgio Maggiore and that I could bear witness.
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| The Borges Labyrinth - A Sountrack Experience - Photo: Cat Bauer |
"The advice about turning always to the left reminded me that such was the common formula for finding the central courtyard of certain labyrinths. I know something about labyrinths. Not for nothing am I the great-grandson of Ts'ui Pen. He was Governor of Yunnan and gave up temporal power to write a novel with more characters than there are in the Hung Lou Meng, and to create a maze in which all men would lose themselves. He spent thirteen years on these oddly assorted tasks before he was assassinated by a stranger. His novel had no sense to it and nobody ever found his labyrinth."
"Under the trees of England I meditated on this lost and perhaps mythical labyrinth. I imagine it untouched and perfect on the secret summit of some mountain; I imagined it drowned under rice paddies or beneath the sea; I imagined it infinite, made not only of eight-sided pavilions and of twisting paths but also of rivers, provinces and kingdoms. ...I thought of a maze of mazes, of a sinuous, ever-growing maze which would take in both past and future and would somehow involve the stars."
"An invisible labyrinth of time."
"At one time, Ts'ui must have said, 'I am going into seclusion to write a book,' and at another, 'I am retiring to construct a maze.' No one realized that the book and the labyrinth were one and the same."
"Differing from Newton and Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not think of time as absolute and uniform. He believed in an infinite series of times, in a dizzily growing ever spreading network of diverging, converging and parallel times."
Until now, it was only possible for the public to see the Labyrinth from the terrace of the Branca Center, not actually walk it. Seen from above, the Labyrinth looks like an open book with 3,200 box hedges arranged to form the name Borges forward and in reverse, dotted with references to the works of the Argentine writer: a walking stick, mirrors, two hourglasses, a huge question mark, a tiger, the name Jorge Luis and the initials of Maria Kodama.
After I twice journeyed through space and time inside the labyrinth, I joined the other travelers at the San Giorgio Café, which has also reopened, for drinks and nibbles with a view of the sailboats along the quay. And just like meeting a familiar acquaintance on a forking path inside the labyrinth, it turned out that I knew the new chef, Najada Frasheri, about whom I had written for LUXOS Magazine back in 2018 when she was cooking at Vecio Fritolin (which has sadly closed), and who has now manifested on the Island of San Giorgio. Najada assured us that visitors will leave the San Giorgio Café well-fed.
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| Tomaso Buzzi exhibit in the Longhena Library - Photo: Cat Bauer |
Antonio Fresa has also composed a soundtrack to accompany the tour of the Vatican Chapels which are located in the woods of San Giorgio Maggiore, which I have seen previously, but not heard. In addition, there is a tour of the Giorgio Cini Foundation itself, and a free tour of the whimsical sketches in the Venezia è tutto d’oro. Tomaso Buzzi: disegni “fantastici”1948-1976 exhibition in the Longhena Library, as well as different combinations of all the tours.
In order to visit the Borges Labyrinth and the other excellent offerings under the umbrella of the Giorgio Cini Foundation on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, you must make a reservation. At the time of this writing, if you go to the English Visit Cini dot Com website, you will see that it says "Tour Temporarily Not Available." Actually, that is not true -- the tours are available, but only if you make reservations on the Italian website. So, for those who do not understand Italian, here are some clues to help you wind your way through the reservation labyrinth: First go here to the English website so you can see what tours are available (some are listed in English, but not all), then go here to book which tour you would like after you decipher the Italian site.
UPDATE 2022: You can now book directly on the English-language site.