The Eyes of Venice
Alessandro Barbero
Language: English
Pages: 448
ISBN: 1609450825
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Venice at the end of the 1500s is an unforgiving city. The Doge rules with an iron fist and the Holy Office harbors suspicions about everything and everyone. Even the walls have eyes. The Republic of Venice watches and listens, then passes judgment swiftly and definitively. In a city where everyone is assumed guilty of something, a young stonemason by the name of Michele has been accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Afraid for his life, he flees the city aboard a galley carrying gold coin, leaving behind his young wife, Bianca. Banished from his home, Michele embarks on a series of extraordinary adventures as the ship he travels on stops in every port and on every island of the Mediterranean. In order to survive this once naïve and immature boy must fast become a man, one possessed of cunning, courage and fortitude.
Bianca remains alone in the cruel and treacherous Venice. She faces challenges that are, if anything, even more difficult than those of Michele, and will encounter all the terrors and mysteries that the labyrinthine city holds in its blind alleys and narrow passageways. And she, like Michele, will discover in herself a tenacious and indestructible will to survive.
and if you serve me well we will be friends. Now, go.” “I don’t know how to thank you, Signora,” the man declared; he bowed again and headed for the door. “Sir Giacomo! Remember, it doesn’t take much to twist a man’s neck!” Clarice shouted behind him, already worried that she’d put him too much at ease. As soon as the door was closed again, and the man’s footsteps had faded away on the stairs, Clarice turned to the other door, ajar, that led to the next room. “Bianca! Come out,”
the most powerful, unpredictable, and dangerous of its neighbors, and whose office was considered the most prestigious to which a Venetian diplomat could aspire. Then, one fine day, the dossier was taken in hand by Morosini, slipped into a case that he wished to carry in his own hands to the Ducal Palace, and became the topic of a very long conversation between Master Zuanne and the Doge, Pasquale Cicogna, which lasted from after lunch into the middle of the night. A few more days went by and
dozen letters, several of which were sealed with the crest of the bailo of Constantinople. “As you know, I have the authority to open them,” declared Sir Lorenzo . The sopracomito, the secretary, and the dragoman, who were with him in the stern cabin, assented. “Sir Francesco, let’s keep a record,” Sir Lorenzo ordered Vianello. “You, gentlemen, please do me the courtesy of going outside.” When they were alone the secretary broke the seals. “They are in cipher!” he exclaimed, on
dangerous invitation. So he came out into the open and smiled at him. “Don’t be afraid, it’s your old friend Lupo,” he said. Michele glared at him, but then his knitted brow relaxed. Instinctively he’d never liked the guy, and after being forced to pay him a kickback when he joined the crew, he’d decided never to have anything more to do with him. But anyway, he wasn’t a stranger. “What do you want?” he asked. “I got to talk to you. It’s a big deal,” Lupo improvised. He had no
three, his son Michele, and then went down a few more steps before jumping directly into the court. The building was coming along nicely; even the architect who’d designed it on commission from the senator would have to admit that—and God knows Matteo had spent most of his working life fighting with architects. If they’d taken a brick in hand just once, instead of spending all their time sitting at a desk with a ruler and a quill pen, they wouldn’t make such impractical demands! Among his fellow