Festa della Sensa Event Religious event

The Festa della Sensa, Venice’s marriage to the sea

On Ascension Sunday, forty days after Easter, Venice reconnects with one of its oldest civic rituals: the Festa della Sensa (“Sensa” means Ascension in Venetian), which commemorates the founding bond between the city and the sea. The tradition is said to date back to the year 1000, when the fleet of Doge Pietro II Orseolo set sail from San Nicolò to conquer Dalmatia; it took its current form, the symbolic “marriage” to the sea, after the reconciliation of 1177 between Doge Sebastiano Ziani, Pope Alexander III and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

The morning opens with a grand nautical procession of traditional boats, led by the historic vessel Serenissima, which crosses St Mark’s Basin and then the Giudecca Canal to the Bocca di Porto of the Lido, where the ceremony takes place.

Plan ahead: the date varies each year according to the liturgical calendar (Ascension Sunday, usually late May); the best observation points are the Lido quays near San Nicolò, or the procession’s passage along St Mark’s Basin in the late morning.