2 - Painted Veil (30 page)
Authors: Beverle Graves Myers
Tags: #rt, #gvpl, #Mystery & Detective, #Historical, #Fiction, #Opera/ Italy/ 18th century/ Fiction
Secret societies were rife throughout eighteenth-century Europe and the American colonies. Almost exclusively male oriented, most of the organizations mixed fellowship with devotion to the betterment of society along Enlightenment lines. A few were more interested in the pursuit of esoteric wisdom and power. Many influential eighteenth-century figures were members of one group or another: Isaac Newton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Giacomo Casanova, to name a few. Freemasonry was, and continues to be, the most prominent of the societies, but Dr. Palantinus’ unique blend of quasi-religious and occult beliefs owes more to the Ancient Mystical Order of the Rose Cross, also called Rosicrucians. More information on secret societies of the era can be found in David V. Barrett’s
Secret Societies
(Blandford, 1999).
Francesco Florio is a fictional character inspired by historical
castrato
Luigi Marchesi. Handsome, vain, and extraordinarily demanding, this virtuoso’s pretentious behavior undoubtedly contributed to the change in public taste that led to the demise of the
castrati
. Henry Pleasants, in
The Great Singers
(Simon and Schuster, 1966), notes that “He insisted on making his first entrance descending a hill and wearing a helmet crowned with plumes a yard high, his arrival heralded by a fanfare of trumpets.” Of course, our Tito would never stoop to such self-serving antics.
The first Jews to settle in Venice were from central Europe. After Queen Isabella’s expulsion of 1492, many Jews from Spain and Portugal also arrived. Hebrew moneylending activities were welcome when Venice needed loans to finance a war with neighboring Chioggia, but in 1516, intolerance triumphed. A decree of the Republic confined Venetian Jews to a small neighborhood which had been the site of some foundries,
getti
. Thus the first ghetto in Europe was created. The gates were not thrown open until Napoleon’s conquest of Venice in 1797. Today, most of the ancient buildings still stand and are the center of a thriving community with its own museum, library, and synagogues.
Special thanks to my husband, Lawrence, for believing in me and putting up with a writer’s angst; to all friends and family who offered unflagging support; to Kit Ehrman, for her insightful comments on the manuscript; to the staff at the libraries of the University of Louisville and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville; to my agent, Dan Hooker, for encouragement along the way; and to my editor at Poisoned Pen Press, Barbara Peters.
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