Murder in Venice

by Maria Luisa Minarelli

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2015 by Maria Luisa Minarelli

  Translation copyright © 2019 by Lucinda Byatt

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Scarlatto Veneziano by Amazon Publishing in Luxembourg in 2015. Translated from Italian by Lucinda Byatt. First published in English by Thomas & Mercer in collaboration with Amazon Crossing in 2019.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, in collaboration with Amazon Crossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Thomas & Mercer and Amazon Crossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542094184

  ISBN-10: 1542094186

  Cover design by @blacksheep-uk.com

  First edition

  For my beloved Martina and Luca

  CONTENTS

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  LET’S SPEAK VENETIAN: A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  GLOSSARY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Marco Pisani, an avogadore (a high magistrate of Venice)

  Daniele Zen, a lawyer, Marco’s friend

  Nani, Marco’s gondolier

  Rosetta, Marco’s housekeeper

  Jacopo Tiralli, Marco’s secretary

  Chiara Renier, a businesswoman and clairvoyant

  Tommaso Grassino, aka Maso, Chiara’s apprentice

  Alvise Cappello, Patrono of the Arsenale

  Marino Barbaro, an impoverished noble

  Lucia Piumazzo, Marino’s maid

  Lucrezia Scalfi, a courtesan, Marino’s lover

  Piero Corner, a young aristocrat

  Dario Corner, Piero’s brother

  Francesca Corner, Piero and Dario’s mother

  Biagio Domenici, Piero’s former gondolier

  Maria Domenici, Biagio’s mother

  Lucietta Segati, a former maidservant in the Corner household

  Paolo Labia, a dissolute noble

  Zanetta, owner of a second-hand clothing shop

  Marianna Biondini, a fine-linen seamstress

  Menico Biondini, Marianna’s father

  Giannina Biondini, Marianna’s aunt

  Angela Sporti, Marianna’s friend

  Giorgio Sporti, Angela’s brother and Marianna’s fiancé

  Baldo Vannucci, an informant working for the inquisitors

  Francesco Loredan, Doge of Venice

  CHAPTER 1

  It was poor young Tommaso Grassino, whom everyone called Maso, who literally stumbled into the first dead body.

  It had been a freezing night in early December, one of those Venetian nights when it feels as if icy droplets have risen from the canals by some process of sublimation, filling the calli with damp air and drenching the clothes of passers-by. It was still dark when Maso reluctantly dragged himself out of the warm bed in his parents’ house behind Campo San Polo. Then, in the half-darkness, he walked down Ruga del Ravano and over the Rialto Bridge, hands deep in his pockets as he headed towards the heart of the Cannaregio district, to the silk-weaving workshop in Calle Venier where he worked as an apprentice.

  Hardly anyone was about, just the occasional baker on the way home from work, wrapped in a heavy cloak, and a couple of tipsy patricians who had spent the night gambling at the Casin dei Nobili in Campo San Barnaba, now drawing into sight just a little further ahead.

  He could hear the calls of the youngsters who worked in the drinking houses and taverns, sent ahead by the landlords to remove the shutters on to the street and light a blaze in the fireplace. They were waiting for the first vegetable sellers and fishermen who would soon start to arrive and would come in to warm themselves with a nip of wine before they started work offloading the boats around the Rialto Market.

  Maso hurried along the street, whistling a jaunty tune as he went, when, perhaps because of the biting cold, or maybe because he’d left the house too soon, he felt a sudden and urgent need to urinate.

  He swung right and headed into the maze of alleyways behind San Silvestro, ducked under a portico lit by the guttering flames of a candle-end below a shrine to the Virgin, and took a few steps into the pitch-darkness of a small courtyard. He had relieved himself quietly and gone back towards the street when his foot came into contact with something he couldn’t readily identify. Someone must have left it lying there. He bent down to pick it up, curious to see what it was, and in the flickering candlelight from the shrine found himself staring at the wide-open eyes and protruding tongue of a face twisted into a grimace of terror. It was unquestionably the terror of death.

  ‘Aiuto!’ Maso croaked. Then, more loudly and with growing fear: ‘Help! A man’s dead! Someone, help!’ His legs had turned to jelly, and he went on holding the lolling head in his hands and didn’t even hear the rush of footsteps in the calle.

  Two hands grasped his shoulders and pinned him against the wall. A gravelly voice shouted, ‘What have you done, you scoundrel?’ Another answered in shrill tones, ‘He’s killed him.’

  A knot of people gathered in no time at all. The young men from the nearby taverns arrived, one of them carrying a lantern. The nosier ones bent down to look at the dead man. ‘The poor sod’s been strangled!’ cried one.

  ‘The guards! Call the guards!’ shouted a man’s voice. He was tall and well built, perhaps a porter from the market.

  All around now the inhabitants were wide awake. Shutters clattered overhead, candles were lit, women wrapped in shawls peered out of the windows.

  ‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ asked an old woman from above.

  ‘He’s strangled him,’ someone answered. ‘He’s going to pay for this.’

  In the midst of this uproar, Maso stuttered, his voice edged with terror, ‘But I didn’t . . . it wasn’t me . . . I found him . . .’ No one listened.

  He became increasingly frightened as he was manhandled by a group of youths who thought it was their job to hand him over to justice. Around the corpse, the crowd swelled as hastily dressed men and women crowded into the courtyard and inquisitive passers-by in the calle were attracted by the shouting.

  ‘Make way! Move aside!’ The shouts announced the arrival of four agents in uniform, complete with bandoleers, high boots and lanterns. Maso heaved a sigh of relief at the sight but was then seized by two of them, while the others moved the corpse into the calle and examined it carefully. The sky was now filled by a milky dawn, and it was light enough to assess the situation
.

  ‘It’s a patrician,’ commented one of the guards. ‘Look at his jacket and cloak, and his silk stockings.’

  ‘But one of those impoverished types,’ added his colleague. ‘The shirt’s darned and that wig looks moth-eaten.’ It was true. The victim’s clothing looked unkempt.

  ‘He’s been strangled,’ the first went on. ‘The rope’s still around his neck. And he tried to defend himself with that dagger, see?’ He pointed to the dagger clasped in the man’s hand. ‘It’s got blood on it, so he must have wounded his attacker.’

  The guards needed to disperse the crowd and decide what to do. But they were baffled. It wasn’t every day that a corpse was found in the street. In fact, for all four of them, it was the first time something like this had happened in Venice, and the event had already made quite an impression on them.

  ‘It’s really up to the soldiers from the criminal court,’ noted the youngest one wisely. His name was Antonio.

  ‘But given that we’re here now, we can’t lose face over this,’ replied another. ‘Let’s move the crowd on, for starters.’

  It was not easy to convince the overexcited onlookers to return home or go about their affairs, but in the end the guards found themselves alone with Maso and the corpse.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the oldest guard, one Luigi Biasio. ‘Why did you kill him? Were you trying to rob him?’

  ‘I haven’t killed anyone,’ said the young man defensively. He was deathly pale. ‘I’ve never even set eyes on this gentleman before!’

  ‘So why did they find you holding the body?’

  ‘I was on my way to work and needed to take a leak, so I ducked under this portico. It was then that I stumbled over the body, but he was already dead.’

  It had to be said that the young man, tall and scrawny, with a round face and ears that stuck out, did not look like a criminal as he stood there shaking with fear and indignation, dressed in his honest workday clothes. Nonetheless, he would have to be handed over to a magistrate.

  And what should be done with the body? Before displaying it in public on the Ponte della Paglia in front of the prison, as was customary when the identity was not known, it would be just as well to make a few enquiries.

  One of the guards took it upon himself to call a few of the local shopkeepers over to see if they could identify the man. And indeed a certain Zorzòn, the owner of a small general store, knew him. ‘It’s Marino Barbaro,’ he said. ‘He’s one of those barnabotti and he lives behind Ca’ Rezzonico, not far from here. He never had a copper on him, and he’s gone and left me a pile of debts. I’ll be lucky if I ever see my money again! But what a way to go . . .’

  So, he was a barnabotto, the guards nodded. One of those impoverished nobles who would do anything and everything to make ends meet while living in the cramped apartments paid for by the Republic in the nearby parish of San Barnaba. That accounted for his shabby clothing.

  For the time being, they could do nothing except carry him home, so two of the officers, Luigi Biasio and young Antonio, who had rustled up a sheet and a stretcher, began the necessary preparations. The other two, Giuseppe and Momo Serpieri, tied Maso’s hands together and headed for Rialto, and then through the elegant streets of the Mercerie towards the ducal palace and the New Prisons.

  The city was waking up. In front of the Erbaria, below the palace of the Camerlenghi, the Grand Canal was bustling with crafts of all types – rafts, burchi and caorline – piled high with fruit and vegetables from the islands. The fresh produce was gradually being unloaded on to the market stalls by tradesmen wearing heavy aprons. The icy air was filled with shouts of encouragement in a variety of local dialects, occasionally accompanied by the snatch of a tune or a hoarse cry of warning.

  A little further on, the fishing boats from Chioggia and Pellestrina, rowed by well-muscled fishermen wearing coats and woollen hats, arrived with supplies for the fish market. A silvery stream of sardines, sole and scad poured from their baskets and lay, still quivering, on the stalls, surrounded by brilliant red prawns and mullet and black eels. Garrulous voices rose up to blend with the cries of the gulls.

  Early customers had begun to arrive: working-class women with their shopping baskets on their arms, old men impatient to meet someone with whom to pass the time of day, a couple of mendicant friars.

  Beyond the bridge, on Riva del Vin, the porters unloading barrels tried to avoid the small groups of young patricians wrapped in their cloaks who lurched rather unsteadily back from a night of partying, many wearing glazed expressions or still in the embrace of heavily made-up women.

  For Maso, slouched between the two guards, it was a nightmare: the relief of having escaped a lynching by the crowd had evaporated and now nothing made sense. How could this possibly be happening to him, an honest apprentice who had never hurt anyone? How could he be accused of murder? It was all a misunderstanding and surely he would soon be freed.

  Having passed the bridge beside the church of San Salvador, Giuseppe suddenly tugged sharply at the rope and Maso nearly fell over. ‘Look there, Momo,’ he said, stopping outside a drinking house. ‘The Gatto Nero’s open. What do you say to a quick glass of white wine?’ Not waiting for an answer, he opened the door.

  The three of them advanced into the room, which was lit only by the flames in the huge fireplace. In the dim light it was just possible to make out the counter in the middle and the hams and salami hanging from a heavy beam above it. The few customers seated at the tables were little more than shadows. Maso was relieved because he would have been humiliated to be seen trussed up like this.

  ‘Will you have a glass too?’ Giuseppe asked him.

  Maso shook his head. The lump in his throat prevented him from swallowing. While the officers took evident pleasure in consuming a jug of wine and a plate of fried whitebait, which smelled delicious, the young man brooded over what had happened. Who would tell his parents? he wondered. They would never believe the accusation, but what could ordinary folk like them do about it? Nothing much, he thought. But surely Signorina Renier would come to his defence. She was the proprietor of the silk manufactory where he worked and she knew him well. Moreover, she was educated and a businesswoman. She would know the right people.

  Back on the street, the three of them went on down the Mercerie. The fashionable clothes shops were still shut, but the crowds were growing: clerks on their way to the office, craftsmen heading to their workshops, women selling hot fritters, maidservants walking to the market followed by off-duty gondoliers. Maso saw none of them. He kept his head down, frightened of running into someone he knew and all the time wondering how it was all going to end. Yes, he was sure that Signorina Chiara Renier would help him; she was so clever, so well informed.

  The thought of his employer reassured Maso, until, as they neared the end of Piazza San Marco, Giuseppe gave another tug on the rope and, with a macabre sense of humour, pointed at the columns where public executions took place. ‘That’s where you’ll end up!’ he laughed. ‘Between Marco and Todaro.’ For Maso, this was too much. He broke down and sobbed like a child.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘Nani, where are you? It’s time to go.’ Marco Pisani was in the garden below his palace and, as he spoke, he looked up at a window on the mezzanine floor. In that instant, a handsome young man with a smiling face looked out. ‘I’m coming, paròn. Just putting my jacket on, and I’ll jump in the gondola!’

  ‘And where did you spend the night, Plato, you scoundrel?’ Marco smiled affectionately as he stroked a large grey cat stretched full length on the metal plate covering the wellhead. ‘Be careful, Plato. If you go on annoying the lady cats of the parish, I’ll be forced to call in the barber.’ Plato looked unconcerned and jumped off the cover and on to the ground, where he started to rub against his master’s legs. ‘Off you go into the kitchen,’ advised Marco. ‘I happen to know that Rosetta has kept you a tidbit or two.’

  Marco walked to the small jetty at the bottom of the garden and
stepped into the gondola, where Nani was now waiting. The boat slipped through the watergate that opened in the thick wall on the right and glided along the short stretch of the canal by Campo San Vio, not far from the church of La Salute.

  Nani stood on the stern, as usual, while he steered through the heavy traffic that already thronged the Grand Canal first thing in the morning, and every now and then he thought to himself that his master had many merits, but also the defect of being too modest. He would have liked to see the Pisani coat of arms on the gondola, since that would have sent the bragozzi and smaller boats scuttling. But his master liked to go unnoticed.

  The young man believed that, in Venice, elegance was a civic duty. As he rowed, he mulled over the fact that no patrician would ever go out without a wig. None, that is, except his master, who insisted on going around bareheaded. He had very nice chestnut hair, of course, and it was always neatly tied. He also dressed well and his clothes were good quality, albeit sober and correct. But you only needed to look at him, with his elegant posture and penetrating gaze, to see that he was a born aristocrat.

  Weaving the gondola skilfully around the other vessels that now thronged the canal, Nani pondered something else that he didn’t understand about his master: his mania for work. Nani knew that he was one of the most highly trained magistrates, but ever since he had been elected avogadore, his master hadn’t had a moment’s peace; if the truth be told, he worked as hard as any bourgeois. Nani craned his neck to get a better view of the plunging neckline of a gentlewoman seated in a nearby gondola, and once again regretted the fact that he was always being sent on errands by his master. The servants in other patrician houses spent the day lying on their backs and sleeping in the antechambers. However, Nani had to admit that he enjoyed himself and was also well paid. It was just that a little more flamboyance from his master would not go amiss.

  ‘Meet me here at the usual time,’ Marco said as he stepped off the gondola in the Piazzetta and headed for the Procuratie Vecchie, which housed the administrative offices of the Serenissima Republic of Venice and served as the seat of the powerful Procurators of Saint Mark’s. Heading under an archway, he climbed the staircase to the mezzanine floor, where he opened a painted door and entered a small room where he kept his official robes. Many of his fellow magistrates did the same in other small rooms around the square.