The Mascherari: A Novel of Venice

BOOK: The Mascherari: A Novel of Venice
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The Mascherari

A Novel of Venice

 

 

 

 

Laura Rahme

THE MASCHERARI

Copyright @ 2014 Laura Rahme

ePub - ISBN:
978-0-9872937-2-5

 

Cover Artwork and Title Font

Caryn Gillespie

www.caryn.com.au

 

 

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, locations and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locations or events is entirely coincidental.

 

 

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any forms, or by any means, without the prior written permission of the Author.

 

www.laurarahme.com

 

 

To my beloved grandparents,

Yves Candeau

and

Tran Thi Phuong-Lan

 

CONTENTS

The Mascherari

Acknowledgments

The Republic

Character List

PART I

A Dream in La Serenissima

The Mask maker of Santa Croce

A Cry in the Campo

Murders in Venezia

The Testimony of Lorenzo Contarini

The Third Body

In the Prisons

Carampane

The Mascherari

The Moor

A Woman’s Secret

Rolandino

Catarina

Angelo’s Flight

In the Atelier

To the Canal and to the Roofs

Catarina’s Story

The Milanese

The Giudecca Gardens

Esteban’s Story

Catarina’s Torment

Giacomo’s Diary

Strega

In the Library

Magdalena’s Pendant

Schemes in the Piazza

The Pendant Maker

Blanca’s Secret

In the Cancelleria

Non Scribatum

The Deposition of Signor Vivaldi

LA BEFANA

Maffeo’s Lost Deposition

The Hidden Message

PART II

The Art of Unmasking

Death to the Janara

Donna Laura

Return to the Silversmith

Whispers at the Loggia

The Wells

Maleficio

Antonio’s Visitor

Last Letters

A Finder of Lost Things

C.X.

The Path to Evil

The Minotaur

Malek

The Dark of the Moon

La Torre

Epilogue

Aradia

Glossary

Acknowledgments

 

The Mascherari
is a work of fiction but it remains informed by some of the most fascinating historical research on Venice. I want to acknowledge the wonderful Peter Ackryod, Iain Fenlon, Associate Professor Ellen E. Kittell, Professor Thomas F. Madden, Professor Guido Ruggiero, historian Peter Burke, late historian Horatio Brown, Dr Sandra Sider, Professor Yadira González de Lara, Michael Rocke, the late historian Flavio Biondo, Richard Covington and Professor Faruk Tabak.

I am indebted to archivist, Giovanni Caniato, from the Archivio di Stato in Venezia, who kindly assisted me during my research on the Council of Ten. I want to thank the Fundazione Musei Civici of Venezia for their excellent guide during my visit to the Palazzo Ducale and for answering my questions on the Council of Ten’s secret chancellery.

During my research of Italian witchcraft, I cannot overstate the precious inspiration I drew thanks to the works of the late Charles G. Leland from the Gipsy Lore Society, Jules Michelet and Raven Grimassi. Finally, I want to acknowledge the elusive and most honorable late 14
th
century swords master, Fiore Dei Liberi whose contribution to martial arts has also aided this novel.

A special thank you to novelist and Historical Novel Society member, Lisa J. Yarde, for dedicating time from her demanding schedule to beta-read this novel.

Thank you also to beta-readers Joel Morris, Melanie Zanetti and Emanuele Gelsi.

To French Armenian writer, the late Alex Varoux, my dear uncle who once told me I was capable of writing books, your words have carried me to this day.

To my wonderful partner, Shane Krause, for believing in me and in witches, I am ever grateful.

 

The Republic

 

The reader may find these terms useful for understanding the different layers of 15
th
century Venetian society and the bodies that governed it.

Patricians
– the hereditary ruling class, comprising around 200 clans; includes such families as, Contarini (one of the most illustrious), Morosini (one of the oldest), Foscari, Canal, Loredan, Mocenigo and Vitturi. Together with the
cittadini
, they composed a tenth of the Republic’s population.

Cittadini
– citizens of the Republic, either by birth (
per nazione
) or granted through certain conditions (
per privilegio
or
per grazia
), such as tax contributions over ten to fifteen years; a middle class that was permitted to vote.

Popolani
– the non-citizen majority who could not vote; comprises some merchants, artisans, glassworkers, shopkeepers, fishermen, gondoliers, servants and slaves.

Government and judicial bodies:

Doge -
the figure head of the Republic; symbolic prince appointed for life; representative head of the Great Council, Senate, Collegio and the Council of Ten.

Signoria -
figuratively, the term employed to designate the ‘government’; is the highest level of government and consists of the Doge, six councilors and the three heads of the Quarantia.

Maggior Consiglio (Great Council)
- a large group of patricians who met regularly to vote on constitutional laws and who elected the Senate and the Council of Ten; entry was restricted to those families in Venice’s Golden Book which contained records to ascertain hereditary privileges.

Quarantia (Council of Forty)
– an assembly electors, chosen from the patrician class, who could nominate a Doge; a body with both political and judicial functions.

Collegio
- an executive branch which directed the daily functioning of the government, including passing information to the Senate; consisted of the Doge and his councilors.

Consiglio dei Pregadi (Senate) –
diplomatic and administrative body of the Republic which dealt with foreign relations; composed of the ‘wisest men’ of the city.

Consiglio Dei Dieci (Council of Ten)
– a powerful judicial institution operating as an internal police force; a secretive body appointed to oversee the Republic’s security and serenity, its coinage, and morality. It was headed by three judges, called the three Capi.

Procurator of San Marco
- second most prestigious role after the Doge; oversaw the administration of the Basilica di San Marco and its extensive treasury, dispensed charity and attended to wills.

Character List

 

*Historical figure

 

Antonio da Parma
- a Tuscan, schooled in law; highly skilled as an inquisitor

Almoro Donato
- member of the Council of Ten

Francesco Visconti -
a Milanese artisan in his late fifties

Magdalena Visconti
- wife of Francesco Visconti

Giacomo Contarini -
a reputed merchant from Castello, late forties; schooled in Padua university

Catarina Contarini -
wife of Giacomo Contarini, late thirties; member of the Santa Maria Formosa parish

Lorenzo Contarini -
son of Giacomo and Catarina Contarini, enamored of Daniela Moro

Giovanna (Zanetta) Contarini
– sixteen year old daughter of Giacomo Contarini and Catarina Contarini

Ubertino Canal -
a reputed broker

Guido Canal -
a reputed broker, brother of Ubertino Canal

Rolandino Vitturi -
a wealthy merchant in his mid-thirties, partner of Giacomo Contarini

Balsamo Morosini
- an adept negotiator, mid-thirties

Esteban del Valle -
part Catalan, part Ghanaian; a swordsman who lives by commission

Gaspar Miguel Rivera -
Catalan
condottiere
hired by the Venetian navy

Doge Tommaso Mocenigo
* (1343 - 1423) - Admiral and merchant; named Duke of Candia; served the Venetian Republic for many years – first in the Council of Ten, later as Procurator of San Marco, then in his eighties, as Doge

(Leon) Battista Alberti
* - a young banker who helps Antonio da Parma

Blanca Canal -
a prostitute

Daniela Moro
- a Jewish young woman; sweetheart of Lorenzo Contarini

Laura Rivera -
wife of Gaspar Miguel Rivera; an Aragonese from the Kingdom of Sicily

Abram Elia -
a Jewish physician

Malek
- a mysterious sword master

Maffeo -
an
Armenian slave and gondolier appointed by Francesco Visconti

Luca -
a Slav gondolier appointed by Catarina Contarini

Angelo -
friend of artisan, Francesco Visconti, who regularly cleans the Visconti atelier

Margarita
- a prostitute from Ca’ Rampani

 

Other historical figures mentioned in this novel:

 

Anselm Turmeda
(1355 - 1423) - writer from Majorca who studied in Bologna and later migrated to Tunis, where he became
vizier
(political advisor); he wrote in both Arabic and Catalan.

Filippo di Bartolomeo Dardi
(died 1464) - a fencing master who opened a fencing school in Bologna in 1412.

Bernardino di Siena
(1380 – 1444) - a Tuscan monk known for his inflammatory and homophobic sermons in Siena, during the early 1420s.                            

Carlo Zeno, Admiral
(1333 - 1418) - Venetian admiral and hero of the Battle of Chiogga.

Fiore Dei Liberi
(1340s – 1420s) - 14
th
century Italian knight, diplomat and fencing master.

Francesco Foscari             
(1373 – 1457)
-
served as Venice’s Doge from 1423 until his death.             

Petrarch
(1304 – 1374)
-
14
th
century Italian scholar and poet; the “Father of Humanism”.

Pietro Loredano
(died 1439)
-
popular
patrician and admiral, known for making Venice a dominant power in northeastern Italy; defeated by Francesco Foscari in the 1423 Doge election; later murdered, possibly by Foscari’s son.

Rolandino Roncaglia
- a Venetian man and self-confessed cross-dresser, known to have been charged with sodomy in 1354.  He was burned to death.

Sebastiano Ziani
- Doge of Venice from 1172 - 1178; he built the second Ducal palace, also called the Ziani Palace, after the first was destroyed by a fire.

BOOK: The Mascherari: A Novel of Venice
13.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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