‘Now, let’s dress up as an avogadore,’ he muttered, donning the white wig with ringlets down to his chest and the floor-length black state gown complete with train. He looked at himself in the large mirror and was not particularly impressed by the solemn figure he saw there. Who knows why we have to administer justice in this get-up? he wondered. It’s a different matter when we have to accompany the doge in processions or attend the Senate, but what possible good is a robe and wig on ordinary days when we have to question the suspect and the witnesses before a trial?
Taking care not to trip on his way out, Marco crossed the square, which was already busy, given the time of day. He nodded to his acquaintances and glanced wistfully at the coffee shops, but he knew it was too late to stop. He entered the ducal palace through the Porta della Carta, which was surrounded as always by the desks of public notaries waiting for clients, then climbed the Giant’s Staircase and crossed the loggia to the second floor and the clerks’ offices.
The offices of the Avogaria were in the block of rooms between the mezzanine and the second floor, together with those of the other high magistracies, such as the criminal court of the Quarantìa. They stood between the basin and the New Prisons, to which they were linked by a covered bridge.
Neatly dressed in black, in keeping with his office, his secretary, Jacopo Tiralli, was waiting for him. ‘Today, 7 December 1752, at dawn,’ began Tiralli in his official voice, ‘the body of the patrician Marino Barbaro was found close to Rialto. Death seems to have been by strangulation. The murderer was brought to the Carceri Nuove, where he is waiting to be interrogated. I have been told that he was caught in the act. Given that you’re available, I fear that this task will fall to you, because the other avogadori haven’t arrived yet.’
Short and skinny, Tiralli, who came from a bourgeois family and, like Pisani himself, had studied law at the University of Padua, was a valuable collaborator. Entirely devoted to his office and completely lacking anything resembling a sense of humour, he would often talk as if reading from an official document and was rarely seen to smile.
‘Well then, Tiralli, let’s see what it’s all about,’ Pisani sighed. Straightforward cases held little interest for him. ‘It seems to be an open and shut case, probably a robbery that ended badly. Tell me what you know as we walk over to the prisons.’
Among their other tasks, the three avogadori di Comùn were responsible for preparing trials and prosecuting charges. Marco didn’t mind this aspect of his position, since it brought him into contact with people, and often he didn’t stop at summoning witnesses but instead preferred to visit them in person, taking the place of the guards, and the judges and soldiers from the criminal court. But as he didn’t get involved in political issues, and never used his prerogative to overturn decisions taken by the other high magistracies in the event that he believed them to be unlawful, no one had ever complained.
As they crossed the bridge joining the ducal palace to the prisons – a massive stone building that had been erected a century earlier because there were not sufficient cells inside the palace itself – Tiralli updated Pisani on the facts. ‘They speak for themselves,’ he ended. ‘This young Tommaso Grassino was found holding the body.’
Tiralli was precise and honest, but he sometimes jumped to conclusions. When the prison guard opened the cell on the ground floor, Marco almost burst out laughing. The prisoner stood pressed against the wall, shaking like a leaf, as if he wished the stones would swallow him whole, and looked at him beseechingly with reddened eyes.
‘So, this is the dangerous murderer Tommaso Grassino?’ asked Marco.
‘Yes, Your Excellency, no . . . I mean, no, sir,’ stammered Maso. ‘My name’s Grassino but I’m not a criminal.’
‘Well, what were you doing holding the body of Marino Barbaro this morning?’
Maso told the story and explained that he went that way every day on his way to the workshop, adding that his acquaintances could testify that he was an honest man with a job and a future. He added that His Excellency could ask his mistress, the owner of the manufactory where he worked.
‘You mean the master’s wife?’ clarified the secretary.
‘No, sir, I mean my mistress, or rather Signorina Chiara Renier; she’s unmarried and she owns the workshop. She inherited the business from her father and she’s very talented. You know,’ Maso added with a note of pride in his voice, wiping away his tears, ‘we make the most beautiful brocades and gold cloth in all Venice and we export them throughout Europe. Signorina Renier knows me well. What motive would I have had to kill that poor man?’
Pisani was quite ready to believe him. It was clear that the young man had merely had the misfortune to find the body and then to run into a foolish guard who thought he’d caught the murderer. Apparently Barbaro really was penniless, so it was difficult to imagine anyone wanting to rob him. Who knew why he had been killed?
‘For the moment,’ Marco said, ‘you’ve been arrested and charged, and you’ll have to stay here for a few days, as prescribed by law. Your relatives can come and visit you and bring you food, you’ll be treated well, but until such time as we find something that exonerates you, I’m afraid you cannot be released.’
Pisani also thought to himself that the excuse of building the case would allow him to protect this young man from being interrogated by the soldiers from the criminal court. They were quite capable of making a naïve youngster like him confess to anything they liked.
Back in the guardroom, Marco Pisani stopped to look at the dagger, which still had slight traces of blood on it, and to question the guards who had arrested Maso and carried the body home. The oldest, Luigi Biasio, seemed a bit more on the ball than the others. ‘What more did you learn?’ Marco asked.
‘Barbaro lived in a run-down place in Dorsoduro, near Campo San Barnaba,’ the man explained. ‘He was looked after by an elderly maid, who started crying when she saw him in that state. We laid him down on the bed, alongside the rope he’d been strangled with. The maid is sure that he would have been going back to his mistress, Lucrezia Scalfi, with whom he often stayed until dawn; she said she knew nothing about his situation. But in any case, we’ve got the murderer.’
‘Yet if the dead man was still clasping that bloody dagger,’ Pisani objected, ‘the killer must be wounded, and young Tommaso Grassino isn’t. So why is he in prison?’
‘Er . . . well . . . he was on the spot. And everyone said he’d done it . . .’
Once again Pisani found himself thinking that it was just as well that he only trusted his own judgement. Aloud, he said, ‘Now that he’s here, I’d prefer to keep him in prison, but there’ll be trouble if you mistreat him. And get Lucrezia Scalfi to come and see me in my office this afternoon.’
When he returned to the Procuratie Vecchie to put his gown and wig back in the cupboard, Marco stopped for a moment to look at himself again. The mirror reflected a good-looking man in his prime. At thirty-five he still had the slim, muscular figure of a youth, thick chestnut hair tied at the nape, a high forehead and an aristocratic, slightly aquiline nose. Under his dark cloak he wore a knee-length jacket and waistcoat, both well cut but lacking any sort of adornment. It was the perfect outfit for passing unnoticed. Marco had no intention of renouncing his chosen anonymity, even if many regarded him as a bit of an eccentric.
He glanced quickly out of the mezzanine window, which lay below the level of the portico, and admired the sight of the piazza bathed in the pale wintery sun. To the left was Saint Mark’s Basilica, an oriental fairy-tale of a building whose domes rose above the Gothic pinnacles surmounting the arches. Behind it was the miracle of the ducal palace, a lace-like fortress that looked as light as a cloud, and beyond again was the glittering sea. In front of him stood the line of the Procuratie Nuove, the pulsing heart of the state.
The huge square, paved in trachyte, hosted the usual mixed crowds: women in wide skirts, their faces covered by brightly coloured shawls or veils, were admiring the f
abrics laid out by street vendors on the stalls protected by awnings; gentlemen dressed in yellow or pale blue satin with silk stockings were chatting in small groups, while merchants bustled past on business. Amongst the crowds, he could also make out a couple of Dominican monks, a few women selling fritters from wooden trays hung around their necks and the odd beggar.
Pisani had no wish to join the gossiping patricians who thronged the coffee houses around the square at this time of day, so he headed to the Mercerie and to Caffè Menegazzo, which was reputed to attract scholars and writers. He chose a corner table, ordered a few snacks – baby squid, salt cod and polenta, and sardines in sauce – and immersed himself in the newspapers provided by the coffee house for its intellectual clientele.
He was interrupted by the arrival of his friend, Daniele Zen. Daniele came from a well-off bourgeois family, and he and Marco had studied law together at the University of Padua. The meeting was extremely timely because, just as he had on previous occasions, Marco had decided to involve the lawyer in his inquiries. He appreciated his friend’s discretion and sharp mind, and he was extremely fond of him.
‘Being boorish as usual?’ laughed Daniele, pulling up a chair to face Marco. He was very handsome, with blonde hair, blue eyes and an athletic physique. He was an habitué of the social scene, where he enjoyed considerable success with both marriageable girls and courtesans. ‘You, my friend, are too serious. I bet you’ve been working all morning.’
‘And I need to be back in the palace this afternoon,’ Marco admitted. ‘But on that note, I’m dealing with a case that might interest you. It involves a young apprentice who had the misfortune to literally stumble across the corpse of a barnabotto behind the church of San Silvestro; a group of idiotic guards then decided he was the murderer and they’ve brought him to prison. I don’t believe there’s any proof against him, although the death of this Marino Barbaro is a bit odd, but if I don’t find the right trail soon, he’ll need a good defence lawyer.’
‘At your orders, Your Excellency,’ joked Zen. ‘But the murder of a barnabotto could be motivated by any number of causes: a gambling quarrel, fraud, debts, or who knows what else? Their sort will resort to anything. I’ve never really understood what they do for a living.’
‘That’s why you’re going to give me a hand.’ Pisani smiled, sipping his coffee.
Daniele was right about the barnabotti, Marco thought as he made his way back to his office. They were the scourge of the century and living proof of the decadence of the Serenissima. They belonged to those noble families who, when the profitable commerce of Venice with the Orient came to an end, had not managed to reinvest their assets in the burgeoning investments to be made by purchasing land on the mainland. What was more, finding themselves suddenly without any business interests, many of them had squandered the rest of their fortunes at the gambling table.
The ones who found themselves in the direst straits were, above all, the young men who had turned down a career in the army or a job in the magistracy on the grounds that, without money, they would have had to make do with lower-ranking positions. The more intelligent and enterprising took up posts as tutors or librarians in large households, where they were little more than servants, but the majority lived by their wits. The Serenissima granted the most impoverished nobles the possibility of using small lodgings close to the church of San Barnaba, in the Dorsoduro, hence the name barnabotti. But what was really absurd was they kept all the privileges of the aristocracy, including the right to vote in the Great Council.
Marco was sitting at his bench in the hall of the Avogaria when Lucrezia Scalfi was shown into the room. The woman bore all the hallmarks of wilted beauty: darkly ringed eyes, excessive make-up, flashy costume jewellery and clothes that had been remade once too often. A courtesan, Marco thought. She might even have been high up the list in her prime, but having failed to make provision for middle age, she was still obliged to ply her trade.
‘Signora Scalfi,’ Pisani began, looking straight at the woman, who bobbed a curtsey to him. ‘It has been brought to our attention that you were on good terms with Marino Barbaro.’
‘Yes, he was my friend. What a horrible end. But you can’t possibly think that I’m involved, can you?’ The defensive tone in the woman’s voice was immediately noticeable.
‘Don’t concern yourself with my views, signora. Did he visit you yesterday evening?’
‘Yes, he did,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘He used to come two or three times a week and would stay for dinner. A few friends would usually join us, and . . .’
‘You played cards. You are aware, I’m sure, that it is illegal to gamble in a private house.’
The woman shook her head vivaciously. ‘No, of course we weren’t gambling! We played music and chatted, and occasionally we would go out as a group to some tavern or other. Innocent pleasures.’
‘But you make a living from such innocent pleasures.’ It was a barbed remark. ‘How much money did Barbaro have? Where did he get it from?’
‘He had little, as you can well imagine. Sometimes he worked at the Casin dei Nobili, the gambling house close to where he lived; he kept a counter, a legitimate activity which, I hardly need to remind you, is only open to patricians. Sometimes, he was involved in deals—’
‘And sometimes he sold his votes on the Great Council. Yes, I’m well aware of these things.’
The woman was silent.
‘Did he give you money?’ Pisani continued.
‘Not much,’ admitted Lucrezia. ‘But I’d known him for many years . . . And occasionally he would bring a more affluent friend, so I could invite him—’
‘Into your bed.’
‘Well, yes, since you put it like that, into my bed.’ The women smiled brazenly and adjusted a ringlet that fell across her forehead. She still had a full head of reddish-blonde hair.
‘What I need to know from you,’ Pisani went on, seeking to catch her eye, ‘is whether Barbaro had any enemies, someone who wanted to see him dead?’
Lucrezia looked down. ‘No, not that I know of. He’d done a few deals that weren’t exactly above board, but nothing that merited murder . . . In my view he was killed by some drunk, probably by mistake.’
‘But then why was he walking home last night? Didn’t he have a gondola?’
Lucrezia burst into bitter laughter. ‘A gondola? Marino? He didn’t have a penny. He was always on foot. It must be at least four years since he was forced to sack his gondolier. He only kept on an old maid. Even his apartment belonged to the state.’
‘And who were these friends, the ones he occasionally brought to your home?’ insisted the avogadore.
Visibly shaken, the woman wound her false pearls around a finger, looking everywhere but at him. ‘Well . . . I don’t know. He never told me their surnames. Different men came, never the same ones. I don’t know them.’
She was clearly lying and did not want to compromise her clients. But there was still time. If it proved necessary, sooner or later he would make her talk. There was no question of torture, of course – it had been banned in Venice now for many years. With a woman like this, though, he would only have to make a few veiled threats.
‘When he visited, did Barbaro always go home at the same time?’ he went on. ‘Do you know which way he went?’
‘I live close to Santa Maria Formosa, in Salizàda San Lio,’ replied Lucrezia, happy to change the subject. ‘He always left after two in the morning and went to Rialto, and then on down Ruga San Giovanni and Ruga del Ravano, which took him behind Palazzo Pisani and then home.’
Whoever had killed him had hidden in one of the passageways behind San Silvestro, certain that he would come that way, Marco mused. Some years ago, lighting had been installed along the route that Barbaro had taken and this must have helped his attacker to recognise him.
Of course, it’s possible that he was the chance victim of a bag-snatcher, but then why kill him? It was unusual for a thief to commit murder, because
it was pointless and dangerous. On realising that the victim had a dagger to hand, any robber with a modicum of good sense would have legged it.
It was more likely that Barbaro was the designated victim. Perhaps Daniele had been right: gambling debts, a swindle of some sort; who knew what else this impoverished man might have done to anger someone? But a murder? It must have been something big. There was no doubt in his mind that Lucrezia Scalfi, who was stealing glances at him, wondering if she had got away with it, knew much more than she was letting on, but he would let her go for the time being, he decided. Because now it was time to embark on a course of action that his fellow avogadori would not approve of.
Dismissing Lucrezia, he sent for Daniele Zen and also sent word to Nani, who was courting a bar girl in a tavern near San Moisè, and once they were all in the gondola, the three of them headed to Marino Barbaro’s house.
CHAPTER 3
Along Riva del Vin, at the foot of the Rialto Bridge, the boatmen were hurrying to unload the last barrels of the day from the mainland. Tavern-keepers and hoteliers scrambled to load them on to their carts and push them through the crowds of commoner women laden with bags, water-sellers touting their wares and urchins getting under everyone’s feet. A woman hanging from a window was shouting loudly for her son. The smoke from countless chimneys drifted into the darkening sky.
Marco and Daniele stepped out of the gondola, holding a lantern each. ‘You can go home,’ Pisani told Nani. ‘But tell Rosetta that Avvocato Zen will be coming for supper later. Make sure that she puts out some good Burgundy! We’re going for a stroll.’
What Marco actually wanted to do was examine the scene of the crime. The two friends made their way through the crowds, skirting the church of San Silvestro to get to Ruga del Ravano. They only needed to ask a few questions in the shops in order to identify the spot where Barbaro had been found.
Murder in Venice Page 2