Decades of Neglect for Lazise’s Venetian Galley Wreck and Museum
It has been over nine years since Lazise last talked about the galley and its museum. It has been fifteen years since Jacques Picard, with his small submarine «Forel», scoured the depths of the lake to assess its health and at the same time took a «look» at the remains of the 15th-century Venetian galley, lying on the lakebed at a depth of approximately 25 meters and about 40 meters from the recently «renovated» lakeside promenade.
The condition of the wreck and research activities
It is a unique wreck in the world, an unmistakable archaeological find of the highest historical value, as it recalls an extraordinary enterprise carried out by the men of the Serenissima Republic over five centuries ago. Today, in the 21st century, the third millennium, the «galley», or rather what remains of it, is still resting on the lakebed in front of the port. Silt and time are further damaging it, reducing the priceless relic to a heap of dust and a few «barren» remnants of the Venetian prow, the product of a skilled «master shipwright» who worked diligently in the Doges’ arsenal.
The wreck and recovery attempts
It is a «24 oars» vessel, sunk in 1508 by the Venetians to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Captain Zaccaria Loredan ordered his men to fill the ship with large stones to make it sink faster and to set it on fire so that it would be rendered unusable and effectively useless to the enemy. «It has awaited recovery for over half a century», read an article from our newspaper back on August 18, 1990, «but its preservation cannot wait until 1991».
Negligence in protection and current state
Ten years have passed, and neither the Ministry of the Environment nor the Veneto Region has paid further attention to the issue, despite their earlier assurances to the public administrators. People have changed, times have shifted, but the galley ||| remains there, in a state of total abandonment and neglect. Time, as is known, heals wounds, but it also brings every ruin.
Images and memories
Watching again today the footage filmed in 1990 and 1991 by Alberto Scipolo during the submersions of the Carabinieri divers, on behalf of the ministry, is moving and strikes a «heartfelt blow». And to think that during those years, there was even talk of opening a museum possibly managed by private individuals but regulated by a ministerial convention; the Colombiadi have also passed, and the galley still lies under twenty-five meters of water and mud.