alan bowman / the freeformfreakout organisation: January 2009

The Freeformfreakout Organisation Archaeological Surveys Division
Preliminary Site Survey /Initial Findings Report

Site Location: Punto/Isola San Giuliano, Canale San Secondo, Venice, Italy
Report Title: Initial Finding Report:
Site Details – Suspected site of a Legendary Papal Banquet
Celebrating the Reversal of the Ex-Communication of Lord
Byron

Date: September 26th, 1966
Arch. Off. Alan Bowman FFFO(bar)

Some background information on "The Reversal of the Excommunication of Lord Byron"

Long related amongst the calle and campi of La Repubblica Serenissima, The Most Serene Republic "The Reversal of the Excommunication of Lord Byron" tells of a tale which relates the story of an opulent feast held out in the Venetian Lagoon. Long considered to be simply a folk-tale, a type of renaissance urban legend, the story talks of a lavish banquet of such outrageous luxury, cost and scale that it almost bankrupted Venice whose coffers had already been depleted by the long and costly liver embargo imposed by the Ottoman Empire which also included a blanket ban on the import/export of blankets through Venetian controlled ports in the Adriatic. Recently discovered documents, contemporary with the time of the banquet, appear to now have raised the status of the 'legend' to that of fact. The subsequent finds in the Lagoon by the FFFO Archaeological Survey Division also lead us to view this story now, not as fiction but as fact.

In brief the banquet is said to have taken place at the beginning of the period of great might and wealth of the Venetian Republic, not actually in the city itself but out in the lagoon, the area of Rivo Altus, the commercial and legal heart of the city being simply too small to accommodate all the guests. Also at the time the area now known as Piazza San Marco was still a bean field.

Contemporary reports write of a huge table, floated out into the waters on pontoons, between the area of Santa Croce and Punto San Giuliano or St. Julian’s Fiat. Archaeological evidence leads us to believe that Pope Gregory, Henry Tudor, Lord Byron and in fact Marco Polo were seated at the San Giuliano end and not at the "Venice" end as so oft stated in the legend. One theory is that the noise and smell from the bus station could have triggered one of Pope Gregory's migraines and therefore the potential flaying alive of any guest who was perhaps a little heavy handed with his soupspoon. This is now thought to be a load of absolute tosh and that it was more likely that the humidity of the saltwater marshland would have been the cause of the Pope’s congestion.

Doge Enrico Dandolo is thought to have been seated at about one kilometre from the "Venice" end, however a large margin of error must be considered to allow for the tide.

Giacomo Casanova, King Louis XIV of France, Quentin Crisp and Mary Magdalene are thought to have occupied the foot of the table, the Santa Croce or "Venice" end. Studies of fossilised footprints found under the platforms of the present railway station point to the fact that a right old time was probably had by all. Close scrutiny of the footprints show that Casanova and Crisp fared much better than Magdalene and The Sun King when dancing in heels.

Pope Simon, responsible for Byron's excommunication was not present at the banquet, on account that; a) he wasn't really one of Byron's favourite people; b) the presence of two popes at the same dinner table may have been as a bit of a bad show and in fact raised doubts over Papal succession. (Pope Simon's election is purportedly the result of the actions of Cardinals Point and Synne, who used the wrong wood when stoking the Vatican pizza oven); c) he'd been dead for 501 years, curiously dying at the age of 501, killed by Divine intervention and a miraculous eight dart finish.

One particularly interesting fact about the finds uncovered by the FFFO archaeologists is that they were uncovered on an island, which if truth be known, simply could not have existed at the time of the banquet. The island actually being well documented spoil-heap created during the construction by, the Austrians, of the railway bridge connecting Venice to the mainland.