This tradition dates back to 1162, when Venice defeated the Patriarch of Aquileia.
During the battle, Patriarch Ulrich and 12 of his canons were taken prisoner.
As a symbol of submission, the Venetians - not without a touch of sarcasm - demanded an annual tribute of twelve pigs and a bull in exchange for the prisoners.
Since then, the animals have been ceremoniously put to death in an annual festival of mockery: in front of the Doge and the people, the pigs were thrown from St. Mark's Tower, and the bull's head was cut off.
This was the highlight of Carnival. In the 16th century, this festival was delightfully refined: instead of pigs, an acrobat swung from a raft in the Bacino di San Marco on a rope to the top of the Campanile and let himself down from there across the Piazzetta to the Doge's Loggia in the Palazzo - "as fast as an arrow," as the chroniclers say - and presented the Doge with a bouquet of flowers.
The Flight of the Angel today.
After the first of these acrobats, a Turk, this part of the festival has since been called the Volo del Turco, the Flight of the Turk, even though by the 16th century it had become an established privilege of the arsenalotti, the shipyard workers of Venice.
Giovedi Grasso ended with a magnificent fireworks display on wooden towers, relics commemorating the conquered castles of Friuli. Over time, this Volo became increasingly diluted, and so the rope was eventually stretched only between the Campanile and the Doge's Loggia. Ultimately, people contented themselves with lowering an angel from the Campanile.
An article by
Dr. Susanne Kunz Saponaro.