A Venetian Affair: A true story of impossible love in the eighteenth century [Paperback]

This is a wonderful read: lively, funny and full of appealing characters. The fact that it is all true, and based on actual correspondence between real people, makes it significant and illuminating at the same time. If you have ever wondered what was really going on behind the masques of Venice in the days of Casanova, how people lived and loved in those far-off days, then this book is all you need. Such historical gems come to light but rarely.

This is an absolutely beautiful and fascinating look into a great passion between a young patrician and a woman with a questionable past. The author's approach - it was really a family enterprise based on the 250-year old letters his father found from a direct ancestor - is to paint a wide tableau of the era from the point of view of two young and doomed lovers. Though this may sound melodramatic, it is the perfect vehicle for an incredible historic narrative, one of the best I ever read.

Andrea Memmo is the scion of an ancient Venetian family, destined by blood and talent to become one of the most powerful politican-functionaries of a dying republic. Memmo is steeped in the ideas that were "in the air" of the Enlightenment and reform, mentored by some of the most brillant men of the era, and friends with such colorful figures as Casanova and Denon, the later founder of the Louvre for Napoleon. Also witty and handsome, he seemed destined for greatness from the youngest age. Then he met Giustiniana, a semi-aristocrat whose mother was Greek and whose father was of "solid stock" from Britain, and Andrea's life took an unexpected turn involving passion, secrecy, and impossible hopes; she was one of the great beauties in the British expatriot circles. However, by tradition that extends to the Venetian bureaucracy, Memmo must marry a "correctly" aristocratic woman by family arrangement.

The author does a brilliant job of placing these two in the context of the times. As the reader, you sympathise with the concerns of all the protagonists, from Andrea's familial obligations to Giustiniana's difficult mother who wants to avoid unneceassy prying into her murky past. These are not two-dimensional characters, but full-bodied people trying desperately to control their destinies while falling prey to their weaknesses and vanities. The vagaries of many intersecting careers of the protagonists and their friends are examined with perfect detail and brevity, an additional window into the life of the times and an exquisite treat. From Venice, the reader is taken on a tour of the major European powers of the time, following Giustiniana and her family as they try to make their way in the decaying world of the old regime and unable to find a suitable place for themselves.

While Memmo more or less fulfills his destiny, it is Giustiniana who emerges as the most original person in the book. Her desires and career, from searching for a rich aristocrat to marry to her later success as a pioneering writer, are as facinating as they are reflections of what a troublesome person she must have been, always stepping into a hornets' nest of conventional expectations but somehow emerging admired and the nucleus of a salon that she built through friendship and talent.

There is not a single boring page in this book, and it is written with a subtle elegance that covers what is happening in the 7-years' war to the rumblings of the French Revolution and the demise of the Venetian Republic, of which Memmo might have become the last Doge. It all adds up to a masterpiece and is based on the personal correspondence of the lovers that were assembled from many different sources.

I read this in Italian, which was very difficult as there are long sections from the letters in the Venetian patois of the time. But the clarity of the writing is truly luminous. I only hope that the writer will produce more. He is truly first rate.

Highest recommendation.

A wonderful insight into life in the main cities of Europe in the 18th Century and a beautiful romance combined.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the lives of women throughout history.