The Remedy (56 page)
The church too has changed. The interior walls, which were once perforated with the grilles through which the nuns sang and observed the world, are now hung with paintings. But there is still a representation of the nuns, in a painting by Antonio Zonca (1652-1723), that shows the annual visit of the Doge to the convent, among a series of pictures depicting the important events in the life of San Zaccaria. The nuns are shown fresh, plump, and pink-faced behind their grille, interested but not straining to see the outside world; self-contained without needing any other kind of enforced confinement. The abbess has the prime position in the large aperture where two bars, vertical and horizontal, have been removed to make an opening four times the size of the other fifty-two holes.
Nor can the modern visitor to Venice enter the church of S.S. Cosma e Damiano on Giudecca. It is deconsecrated and derelict now, though the façade retains its handsome late renaissance brick and marble. Its former convent, however, has been restored and is used for art exhibitions during the Venice Biennale.
Sant’ Alvise, in contrast, is still a working convent, today inhabited by just twenty-three white-clad sisters of the Canossian order. If “dressed adequately,” a visitor may roam among the echoing corridors of cells and the gardens. The brick cloister is these days enclosed in glass and part of the convent is now run as a school. The atmosphere, peaceful and friendly, is of another world, miles and centuries away from the tourist hub of Venice.
By one of those coincidences that invariably and felicitously befall the historical novelist, quite late in the writing of this book I discovered that the church of Sant’ Alvise was endowed by an ancient member of the Venier family. In 1388, Antonia Venier had dreams in which Saint Louis (Sant’ Alvise in Venetian) of Toulouse appeared to her. He told her that God wished him to be venerated in Venice also. Sant’ Alvise even showed her where the church was to be situated.
The musicals seen by Valentine Greatrakes in his pursuit of the actress were those performed in the relevant theaters of Venice in the 1780s. Domenico Cimarosa’s comic opera
L’Italiana a Londra
was composed in 1778. The heroine, Livia, comes to London under a false identity, searching for an English lord with whom she once shared a romance, but who could not be persuaded to marry her. The other details of the plot have been slanted to suit this story.
Modern Venice is still remarkably like eighteenth-century Venice. You have to stay up very late at night to understand the major difference between the Grand Canal of 1785 and today. The difference is silence. Today the Grand Canal is a motorway: By day the symphony of a hundred different boat engines dominates every aural sensation. Only late at night can you hear just the waves lapping for more than a few minutes at a time. And then you can also hear the rare sound of a gondola prow slapping the water and footsteps echoing over bridges.
MEANS OF DEATH
Hangings of condemned prisoners from London and Middlesex still took place at Tyburn gallows, near modern-day Marble Arch, until the end of 1783. But the crowds became too restive and the executions were transferred to the yard of Newgate Prison. Like the Clink, Newgate was destroyed by the Gordon rioters. But it was quickly rebuilt, unlike the Clink.
Mimosina’s technique for breaking out of her prison is based on one used by the notorious eighteenth-century London escape-artist Jack Shepherd. He made small holes in the wood that framed the bars of his Newgate cell; in this way he weakened the window and was able to pull the whole structure loose.
Popular belief in cruentation dates back to the Middle Ages, and is even mentioned in Shakespeare’s
Richard III.
Catarina’s dream of being roasted alive at San Zaccaria reflects a true story: An instance of a London baker throwing his apprentice girl into an oven was recorded in 1787.
Pasteur’s work on bacterial infections was not undertaken until the 1860s. Eighteenth-century physicians were unaware of the existence of microorganisms. Gangrene, also known as mortification of the flesh, was seen as a natural and usually fatal result of wounds but its processes were not understood.
Casanova, who suffered a lifelong weakness for nosebleeds, records in his memoirs that a Milanese countess tried to murder him with Sternutatory Powder.
Glass stiletto daggers were indeed a deadly export of Venice.
AUTHENTICITY
Every historical novelist faces the problem of how to spice their story with the picturesque aspects of the past without embalming the characters in the equivalent of museum cases, through which their emotions may only be dimly viewed, at a distance. I have tried to paint the London and Venice of the eighteenth century, in all their flavors, but more importantly to bring to life two personalities with whom the modern reader can identify. Incorporating historical research in a novel makes for a difficult balance—like decorating a home—contriving how to add an agreeable amount of interesting clutter without obscuring what’s important.
For example, popular misconception sees the entire Georgian period costumed in exaggerated panniers and hoops and towering wigs. It is true that these styles were fashionable for a time in the later eighteenth century but by the mid-1780s, when this novel is set, hairstyles were simpler and the architectural nature of dresses had softened. Hair was often still powdered with a mixture of flour, nutmeg, starch and, at times, gold dust. A powder containing arsenic or flat white lead was sometimes painted on to the face to render it fashionably—deathly—pale.… Six hundred Italian men were said to have died of inhaling the fatal complexions of their women. Lips were rouged with a powder of red plaster. False eyebrows made of mouse fur were applied to shaved brows. But it was possible to choose to be subtle, and naturalistic, and for this reason I have not made a point of describing such things to the point of boredom.
I have not discovered any reference to the Venetian state employing actresses as spies. But espionage was the time-honored way for the Republic to keep a finger on Continental politics. And this was a state that in its time even employed Casanova as a spy.
SMALL OBJECT LESSONS
Pevenche’s “ukulele” is anachronistic by a hundred years (the name was given to a small guitar-like instrument brought by Portuguese immigrants to Hawaii)—she would have had access to a miniature mandolin, however. These instruments were very popular in the eighteenth century and many composers, such as Vivaldi, included them in their orchestration. Handel, working in London, also made use of mandolins.
The story of Hansel and Gretel is of antique origin. It was published in the Brothers Grimm’s
Kinder- und Hausmärchen
, issued in two volumes (1812—1815). The Grimms wrote down most of the tales from oral narrations, collecting the material mainly from peasants in Hesse.
The sculptor Andrea Brustolon was indeed commissioned to produce numerous boxwood and ebony sculptures for the Venier family. A large number of them, including the blackamoors with eyes of vitreous paste, can still be seen at Ca’ Rezzonico, the museum of eighteenth-century life in Venice.
I have countless reasons to be grateful for the wit, warmth, and tact of both my editor, Jill Foulston, and my agent, Victoria Hobbs at A. M. Heath.
In London, I would also like to thank Karen Howell, the curator of the Old Operating Theatre Museum, for her help and enthusiasm; William Helfand and Vladimir Lovric for reading the manuscript with expert medical eyes; John Waite and Melissa Stein for helping me to eliminate anachronisms and other blights; Jim O’Brien for purging the manuscript of “Hong Kong Paddyisms;” Kristina Blagojevitch and Jane Birkett for their editorial assistance; Dave Fennell for his historical delvings in the Clink Street area; Paola de Carolis for her good advice; Ornella Tarantola and Clara Caleo-Green for keeping an eye on my Italian. As always, I thank the staff of the British and London Libraries.
In Venice I would like to thank Carole Satyamurti for allowing herself to be murdered repeatedly on the bridge at the Fondamenta de l’Ogio; Lucia Spezzati and her family for their hospitality at Ca’ Zenobio; the kind sisters at Sant’ Alvise for permitting me to wander round their beautiful convent; Colonello Ilio Ciceri of the Comando Provinciale, Carabinieri di Venezia, for personally showing me around the military zone that now occupies the former convent of San Zaccaria. As always, I thank Graziella, Emilio, Fabrizio, and all at da Gino in San Vio for the 6:00 A.M.
cappuccini.
I really should pay rent for my alfresco “desk” there. Finally, a thank-you to Sergio and Roberta Grandesso for their constant kindness, expressed both in words and
in prosecco.
Other Books by This Author
Also by Michelle Lovric
The Floating Book
A paperback of this book was published in Great Britain in 2005 by Virago Press, an imprint of Time Warner Books, U.K.
THE REMEDY. Copyright © 2005 by Michelle Lovric.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © 2005 ISBN: 978-0-06-201359-0
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2005 by an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
First U.S. paperback edition published 2006.
Lovric, Michelle.
The remedy: a novel of London & Venice / Michelle Lovric.
1st U.S. ed.
ISBN: 978-0-06-083703-7 (acid-free paper)
0-06-083703-9 (acid-free paper)
1. London (England)—Social conditions—18th century—Fiction.
2. Venice (Italy)—Social conditions—18th century—Fiction.
PS3562.08765 R46 2005 2006274013
ISBN 13: 978-0-06-085986-2 (pbk.)
ISBN 10: 0-06-085986-5 (pbk.)
06 07 08 09 10 PC/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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