The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova (36 page)

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Such was the usual fate of Venetians who did not adhere to the strict rules of marriage and sexual fidelity. A glorious exception to this rule came in the case of Bianca Capello, who was born in Venice in 1548. Both her mother and her father came from distinguished noble families, and Bianca grew up amidst circumstances of some privilege, blossoming at an early age into a flame-haired woman of considerable beauty and intelligence. However, at the early age of fifteen she fell in love with a twenty-four-year-old Florentine clerk called Petro Bonaventuri, who worked at the Florentine Salviati bank, whose Venetian branch lay directly across the canal from the Palazzo Capello. When the young couple eloped to Florence in November 1563, this caused a sensation in Venice. Her outraged father lodged a complaint with the Council of Ten, and the affair gave rise to a diplomatic incident when the Florentine ruler Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici refused to allow Bianca to be taken back to Venice. The Council of Ten replied by declaring her an outlaw.

In Florence, Bianca was quickly married to Bonaventuri and in July 1564 gave birth to a girl, who was christened Pellegrina. However, the impulsive Bianca was by now beginning to regret her marriage, as she was forced to live with Bonaventuri’s impecunious family, where instead of being allowed to read books and play music she was expected to perform what she looked upon as servants’ tasks about the house.

The presence of a young Venetian aristocrat of radiant beauty living in a lowly commoner’s house caused widespread public interest in Florence, and it was not long before she came to the notice of the twenty-three-year-old Francesco de’ Medici, the eldest son of the Grand Duke. According to a contemporary source, Francesco was ‘a man of quiet thoughts … and a melancholy disposition’. But besides being somewhat impenetrable and spending long hours in his laboratory practising alchemy, he was also an avid womaniser. At the time he was married to Johanna of Austria, but this marriage had been arranged for dynastic reasons and had not blossomed into a love-match. Johanna remained homesick, and Francesco continued to womanise. He soon contrived to seduce Bianca, and to the annoyance of his father established her as his mistress, giving the cuckolded Pietro Bonaventuri a compensatory post at court, where he soon began to exploit his own philandering tendencies. All this had not endeared Bianca
to the Florentine people, and she quickly realised the vulnerability of her position. All she could rely upon was the not-altogether-trustworthy love of Francesco de’ Medici.

In 1572 her husband Bonaventuri was set upon and stabbed to death in a back-alley, ostensibly for having an affair with another man’s wife, but possibly on orders from Francesco de’ Medici. Bianca was now free, but felt even more exposed. Two years later Grand Duke Cosimo I died, and his son succeeded him as Grand Duke Francesco I. Bianca’s fears were somewhat allayed when Francesco installed her in a palazzo literally around the corner from the Grand Ducal residence in the Pitti Palace, and also built her a superb country residence, called Villa Pratolino, whose gardens were replete with artificial waterfalls and grottoes. Francesco spent an increasing amount of time at Villa Pratolino, neglecting his duties, but to Bianca’s delight he now publicly acknowledged her as his mistress. The humiliated Johanna of Austria isolated herself in her apartments in the vast Pitti Palace and took consolation in religion. She had by now produced six daughters, and Francesco I was becoming increasingly concerned that she would not produce a male heir.

Bianca saw an opportunity and hatched a daring plot. When Francesco I was forced to return to Florence on state business, she remained behind feigning illness. Eventually she announced that she was pregnant and gave ‘birth’, producing a male child which she passed off as her own. Francesco I was overjoyed, and the son was christened Antonio de’ Medici – though it soon became clear to Bianca that her scheme had only partially succeeded. Although Francesco appeared to regard Antonio as his heir, in the eyes of the other members of the Medici family, who regarded Bianca with disdain and suspicion, this illegitimate child could not succeed to the title. This view was held with some vehemence by Francesco’s younger brother, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, who saw himself as the legitimate heir. However, in 1577 Bianca’s illusions were utterly shattered by the unexpected news that Johanna of Austria had given birth to a son, who was christened Filippo de’ Medici. At last Francesco I had an undisputed male heir and the people of Florence gave way to wild rejoicing.

Yet this did not last long. The following year Johanna of Austria died, falling downstairs at the Pitti Palace whilst heavily pregnant, an accident
that aroused considerable suspicion. Two months later Francesco I secretly married Bianca, and the following year he announced that he would marry her publicly in a great ceremony to be conducted in Florence. Now that Bianca was to become the next Grand Duchess, she seized the opportunity to affect a reconciliation with her family and her native city. Francesco was persuaded to write to the doge requesting that friendly relations between the two states be sealed by the appointment of his future wife to the befitting honour of Daughter of the Republic (of Venice). This placed the authorities in something of a quandary. The Capello family, amongst the most noble in Venice, had been grossly insulted by the previous Grand Duke when he had refused to return their daughter, and this same daughter remained an outlaw. However, as ever in Venice pragmatism (or hypocrisy) overruled all other considerations. For their part, the Capello family quickly forgot the earlier insult as it was superseded by the honour of having one of its members become a Grand Duchess. Meanwhile the Senate, having received a letter from the future Grand Duchess promising that she would use her position to work in the interests of Venice, immediately decided to grant Francesco’s wishes: the outlawed Bianca Capello was designated a Daughter of the Republic, and for good measure her father and brother were both granted the distinguished title
cavaliere
and assigned to the illustrious delegation being sent to represent Venice at the wedding in Florence. Once again the actions of the individual were deemed as nothing beside the interests of the Republic. Bianca Capello was now a foreign-policy asset, no less.

The new Grand Duchess would keep her promise, with the alliance between Florence and Venice growing stronger over the years. Yet the one event that would have united this alliance in blood was not to be. Although Francesco I’s heir by Johanna of Austria died at the age of five in 1582, Bianca was unable to produce her own legitimate heir to the Grand Duchy. In desperation she tried once more to effect a false pregnancy, but to no avail. Cardinal Ferdinando and the other disapproving members of the Medici family hovered in the wings, waiting for the succession. And the following year they were rewarded.

In the autumn of 1587 Francesco and Bianca retired to one of the Medici villas in the countryside ten miles west of Florence. Here they were visited
by Cardinal Ferdinando, and some days later both Francesco and Bianca were struck down with a violent illness, which Cardinal Ferdinando claimed had been caused by overindulging in rich food in Francesco’s case, and grief in his wife’s case. Their illnesses rapidly worsened, and on 19 October Francesco died, with Bianca dying twelve hours later. Francesco I was forty-six, and Bianca just thirty-nine. In order to allay any suspicions against him, Cardinal Ferdinando at once ordered an autopsy to be carried out. This revealed no evidence of poison, and the new Grand Duke Ferdinando I was exonerated; it was generally believed that Francesco and Bianca had died of malaria. In the first decade of the twenty-first century Francesco I’s tomb was opened in the course of two forensic examinations: one of these found evidence of the malaria parasite, another found unmistakable evidence of arsenic poisoning.

Bianca Capello had not been buried alongside her husband in the Medici tombs. On the orders of Grand Duke Ferdinando I her body was wrapped in a cloth and spirited away to the anonymity of a common grave behind the nearby church of Santa Maria on the edge of the woods. He also ordered that all evidence of Bianca’s residence in the ducal palace, such as portraits and family crests, be removed and replaced by those of Johanna of Austria. There were also instructions that there should be no public mourning in Florence, and in accord with his feelings the Council of Ten agreed to a similar lack of observance in Venice. This craven behaviour was despised by the citizens of Venice, where her family crest remains to this day on the Palazzo Capello, in which she had grown up and, as a fifteen-year-old, had dared to follow the love that would transform her life.

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The modesty of Veronica’s fee has led some to suspect that
Il Catologo
also had a certain mischievous satirical intent. This is indeed possible, given that amongst the 210 courtesans listed, several charged five times more than this amount, and one Paula Filacanevo charged as much as 30 scudi. On the other hand, it has been argued that the coinage referred to in Veronica’s case could have been silver scudi, which were each of only slightly less value than a gold ducat.

*
A close relative of Sebastiano Venier, the Venetian hero at Lepanto, who would be elected doge in 1570, the third in this distinguished family to be honoured with the post.

15

The Jews of Venice

N
O
WORK ON
the spirit of Venice would be complete without a description of yet another section of the population that suffered from undue discrimination: namely, the Jews. The ghetto of Venice was established as the enclosed Jewish residential district in 1516.
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This was the original ghetto, from which all others derive their name, and it is said to stem from the Italian word
getto
, the name given to the slag left over from metal-casting, as this had previously been the location of a foundry casting cannons for the Arsenale. The original ghetto, known as the Ghetto Nuovo, was limited to an island surrounded by canals in the northern Canareggio district of the city; this could only be reached by two drawbridges. (Later, in 1541, it would be extended south-west to the anomalously named Ghetto Vecchio [Old Ghetto], in order to accommodate the influx of Romanian and Levantine Jews who had become so useful to Venice’s eastern trade.)

Jews were only permitted to leave the ghetto when the daybreak bell began tolling from the Campanile in the Piazza San Marco, just over a mile away, and were required to return before sunset when the drawbridges were raised and guards were posted. As the ghetto became more crowded,
the houses were built ever higher; and by 1590 it contained a population of some 2,500 men, women and children, with buildings rising as high as seven storeys in order to accommodate them all. Fable has it that one house became so tall that from its roof one could glimpse the sea, some three miles distant, which is conceivably true, as initially the land around the ghetto contained scattered low houses amidst gardens and vegetable plots, the only substantial buildings being two nearby convents. The houses at the edges of the ghetto were not allowed windows looking out, and thus presented a cliff face of brick walls to the outside world.

Relations between the Jews and the citizens of Venice had fluctuated over the centuries since their first arrival, which may well have been as early as the eleventh century. Periods of tolerance were punctuated by outbreaks of persecution against the ‘Christ-killers’, especially during periods of danger, plague or civil unrest. The official attitude towards the Jews always contained an unsettling element of ambivalence. They were seen as foreigners – doubly so, on account of there being German Jews, Iberian Jews, Levantine Jews, and so forth. As the ghetto historian Riccardo Calimani put it, ‘the Jews’ language, religious observances, customs, dress and food were a mystery’. Jews were required to wear a yellow badge, though exemptions were granted for doctors – the only profession they were permitted to practise outside the ghetto, apart from moneylending and pawnbroking. However, many Jews disguised or hid their badges in order to pass themselves off as Christians, a practice that was frequently overlooked by the authorities. On the other hand, any Jew found having sexual relations with a native Venetian woman, including a prostitute, would be sentenced to have his testicles cut off.

It is of course no surprise that Venice housed the first ghetto. This most pragmatic of cities understood that, owing to the Christian ban on usury, the presence of the Jews as moneylenders was a necessity in promoting commercial enterprise, especially in the financing of maritime ventures by those attempting to establish themselves in this business. Indeed, in order to obtain residence Jews were
required
to lend money at interest – though they would frequently be subjected to swingeing taxes. While many of the other citizens of Venice retained elements of peasant life – growing vegetables on their plots on the edges of the city, fishing in the lagoon, travelling
to country markets on the mainland to buy wine or grain – the Jews were completely urbanised. They were not permitted to own land, their travel was restricted, and their precarious situation inclined them to preserve their fortune in the form of easily concealed and transportable currency or promissory notes. Within the ghetto the Jews developed rich cultures of their own, as varied as their different languages and the different synagogues within which each foreign group worshipped. According to Calimani, ‘The Hebrew language, spoken with many different accents, may well have been the only element common to the different groups in the ghetto.’ Amongst themselves the Ashkenazi Jews used varieties of Yiddish, with combinations of Hebrew and many different types of German dialect; whilst the Sephardic Jews used Ladino, a Judaeo-Spanish combination.
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Over time, those who did business in Venice quickly became practised in rudimentary Italian, ‘until they all eventually absorbed the sing-song cadence of the Venetian dialect’.