VENICE, Italy — A dozen gondolas snaked down the Grand Canal on Saturday in a mock funeral procession bemoaning Venice's approach to the dreaded status of living museum, with a population now hovering near 60,000.

While the largely symbolic threshold is considered by some to signal the end of the city's viability, Venetian officials say reports of Venice's demise are premature, and even Saturday's somber funeral ended with a surprise, bright hope for rebirth.

In fact, while native Venetians have been fleeing the expensive lagoon city for cheaper and easier living on the mainland, the population of the historic center was officially 60,025 as of Thursday, up from the 59,992 it had fallen to in recent weeks.

"They will have the funeral in a living village, not yet dead. And it won't die, even if it goes to 59,999," Mara Rumiz, the city official in charge of demographics, said in a telephone interview Friday.

She said the numbers don't take into account the inhabitants of Venice's islands — including glassmaking Murano and the Lido beach — nor the many who are not officially registered, including students. Together, they add another 120,000 souls.

But Venice must still resist becoming merely a tourist destination, Rumiz said.

"It is evident that Venice has to safeguard its residents and attract new inhabitants. If not, we risk that Venice becomes only a tourist mecca, and this is a destiny that we don't want," Rumiz said.

While wandering the narrow alleys and waterways of Venice is a tourist's delight, life in Venice is for the hardy and financially resilient.

Housing costs and rents drop to as much as a third in the nearby city of Marghera. And consider the logistics of an everyday errand like grocery shopping. One would likely need a water taxi ride to a supermarket, another to get home with the groceries, and then with few elevators in residential buildings, there is a heavy load to lug upstairs. Historic Venice does not permit the comfort of a car parked outside the door.

Yet as if to echo Rumiz's optimism about Venice's fate, Saturday's mock funeral ended with an unexpected bright look to the future.

The ceremony kicked off with an aquatic procession of gondolas — led by a pink one carrying a flower-draped coffin — down the inverted S-shaped canal. The boats docked in front of Ca' Farsetti, the palazzo housing Venice's City Hall, where hundreds of Venetians joined the procession.