How do you envision Venice in the future? Carlo Alberto Tesserin, First Procurator of St. Mark's Basilica

For #RiscrivereilFuturo of Venice, Venetians must recover the spirit of the Serenissima and the responsibilities that have been handed down to us. Carlo Alberto Tesserin, First Procurator of St. Mark’s Basilica

For the #RiscrivereilFuturo project, Venezia da Vivere and Associazione Piazza San Marco asked entrepreneurs, curators, museum directors, university professors, hoteliers, event organizers, and citizens who live and work in Venice to envision Venice in the future.

An open debate with the citizenry to give rise to an idea of a city in harmony with the environment, work, and its civitas. Here is the interview with Carlo Alberto Tesserin, First Procurator of St. Mark’s Basilica.

How do you envision Venice in the future?

I envision Venice more beautiful than ever. We have had the good fortune to be born here, we know it, and we have the duty to protect it. Misfortune can be an opportunity: Venetians must recover the spirit of the Serenissima, the quality and the responsibilities that have been handed down to us; we cannot afford to make mistakes. The city must be less crowded but with greater quality.

What can politics and citizens do for a rebirth of Venice?

One cannot create a project for Venice without the citizens and without the citizens themselves choosing their representatives. Politics then has the responsibility to govern the metropolitan city and its lagoon.

Venice has enormous potential; one need only think of the two universities present in the city or the cultural richness of the great schools of Venice: they are incredible resources, understated, each following its own path, each doing it very well. It would be important for all these realities, as well as many others in the city, to meet in converging paths. Venice today is obliged to pursue this type of synergy; otherwise, it is a disaster.

The role that the Patriarchate of Venice can play is important, as it has been in the past: beyond the religious and cultural aspect, the Basilica was the Doge’s chapel and the meeting place of the Serenissima and the entire political-institutional world.

It is from the past that Venice must draw inspiration and keep pace with the times. We must systematically harness all the potential that the city’s cultural institutions offer.

According to the latest statute of the Veneto Region, it has been established that Venice is also a capital, not just a provincial seat. Not all regions are like this; it was done because Venice’s history qualifies the city to have this role. Venetians first and foremost must have an awareness of the responsibility of the place they inhabit.

I think of the MOSE and the duty to know whether it will work or not: immersing ourselves in the beauty of Venice, in the lagoon with all the disadvantages and advantages this entails. We must know how to face the new problems that climate change imposes. 400 years ago the Murazzi were built: one cannot wait for things to happen; they must be confronted.

Venice had many problems well before the arrival of the virus; we have not yet effectively and decisively addressed the problem of the high waters that occurred in November. We cannot hope that disasters will not happen or wait for the vaccine to arrive. We must begin a path of change: attract the best of world tourism, safeguard ourselves, and secure our safety.

Propose a specific idea in at least one of these areas: environment, residency, work, culture, safety, tourism.

Residency is a fundamental issue; a city abandoned by its own children has no future. Venice must rely and depend on the people who live in it and want the best for it, for themselves first and foremost, and subsequently for visitors.

If those born in Venice grow up already with the idea that they will have to leave by necessity, consequently they will not invest in their city. Only if citizens have confidence in the city’s potential can Venice consequently become a source of productivity and income.

Veneto cannot exist without the best Venice. Italy cannot exist without the best Venice.

Carlo Alberto Tesserin, First Procurator of St. Mark’s Basilica.