A Venetian Affair - Softcover

Robilant, Andrea Di

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007154704 ISBN 13: 9780007154708

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2003

Synopsis

The true story of forbidden love in 18th-century Venice between an Italian noble and the brilliant, illegitimate daughter of an English baronet.

In 1754 Andrea Memmo, the dashing and gifted scion of a distinguished Catholic family, fell in love with illegitimate English beauty Giustiniana Wynne. This match went against every convention of their day; it was an ‘impossible love’.

The lovers chased each other through peeling palazzos, ballrooms, salons, theatres and gambling dens, rubbing shoulders with legendary figures such as Canaletto and their friend, Casanova. Increasingly desperate, they decided Giustiniana should marry to conceal their relationship. A summer passed in flirting with the English Consul, Joseph Smith, but he soon saw through the deception and the affair became public.

The consequences were disastrous. Casanova was imprisoned for his ‘pernicious’ influence. Disgraced, Giustiniana left for Paris, where she launched herself into society in the hunt for a new husband. Her love for Memmo had lingering consequences that were to break this match, and she left again for London, hoping to build a new life, but a different fate lay in store...

Andrea di Robilant is Andrea Memmo’s great-great-great-grandson. The idea to write ‘A Venetian Affair’ was seeded when his father discovered Andrea's letters to Giustiniana mouldering in the attic of the family's crumbling Venetian palazzo. His father's violent murder inspired di Robilant to fulfil his father's dream of writing about the lovers.

About this title

Review:

It's hard to imagine a more romantic real-life story than the long and forbidden love affair of the 18th-century Venetian nobleman Andrea Memmo and a half-English beauty named Giustiniana Wynne. Andrea Di Robilant's A Venetian Affair is drawn in part from a cache of letters discovered by the author's father in his ancestral palazzo on the Grand Canal. In 1753, his ancestor Andrea Memmo had been introduced to a lovely girl of uncertain station (illegitimate, although her parents later married). The Wynnes' position was precarious enough in Venice's rigid society, and Giustiniana's mother took every step to prevent the young aristocrat from corrupting her daughter. But the two lovers began to meet in secret: exchanging letters through confederates and communicating in public through an elaborate code of nods and gestures. They even came within a few days of being married before further dark revelations about Giustiniana's family put a permanent end to their hopes. Although Memmo went on to have an illustrious career in the dying Venetian Republic, it is Giustiniana's astonishing later life that really captures the reader. A Venetian Affair provides both a rich picture of the times--including cameo appearances by Casanova--and a convincing account of an enduring passion. --Regina Marler, Amazon.com

Review:

"Splendidly engrossing. . . . An extraordinary story." --The New York Times Book Review

"Jane Austen herself could not have conjured a romance with more passion, deception and intrigue."--People

"Thoroughly fascinating. . . . Has all the hallmarks of a Henry James novel. . . . Interweaving dramatic scenes and keenly observed expository passages [di Robilant] creates a narrative of novelistic resonance." --The Washington Post Book World

"A story of Venice at at time when people lived for romantic intrigue and where social and political restrictions led men and women into liaisons that made for delicious, tormented melodrama." --Salon

"Filled with quiet intensity and elegant, thought-provoking prose...An elegiac and powerful novel with a fresh presentation of evil and the healing potential of forgiveness." --People

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0007154704
• ISBN 13: 9780007154708
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320