Room two - difesa di Venezia (defence of Venice)
Proceeding along the ramp, we come across the room dedicated to 1849 that is again painted by Bressanin of Venice, also the painter on the first floor. Here an event from the Difesa di Venezia (Defense of Venice) is represented that is really unique, since having to choose a moment from the siege of the city the artist decided to portray a moment of almost total, anguished inaction. The scene recaptures an event often dealt with by contemporary painters, and is set on the Sant’Antonio fort, one of the last bulwarks of the citizen’s defence after the loss of Fort Marghera; in the background we can faintly see Marghera along with the remains of the ferry point that connected it to the city. On the rampart, that catches our eye in the foreground, the fortification workers work feverishly under the leaden sky of a hot summer’s day with no rain. The air, heavy and sultry, is made even thicker by the puffs of smoke coming from the cannons and from the melancholy of the soldiers, some of whom are wounded, others dead, others, such as the one in the centre, with back turned is bound and a prisoner. In the background, all of a sudden recognisable later, we see some men carrying the body of Cesare Rossarol, a volunteer in the Neapolitan army, struck during an assault. Following him, reciting a ritual prayer is a mournful cleric. On the left, standing upright on the fortification, a young boy with hands in his pockets with a challenging air watches the enemy far away on the horizon. Next to him a young soldier is intent on writing a letter, possibly to his mother, possibly to his fiancée; here, an acute moment of intimate tenderness, balanced on the right by the feverish activity of a group of moustached soldiers. The choice on the part of the painter to use light colours and elegantly light tints is not enough to cancel out the sense of profound anguish that the image conveys; anguish due to the knowledge of the imminent tragedy, that does not completely cancel out however the knowledge of a future victory. A trace of vital hope is here made concrete by the presence of the very young ones portrayed on the left.