by S. D. Sykes
In City of Masks I describe how John Bearpark donates his cog ship to the authorities of Venice, allowing the ship to be filled with the dead and then sunk out at sea. This is a story of my own imagination, as there are no recorded incidents of this happening—but the idea was inspired by a story that I came across when researching for the book. In the 1990s two ancient ships were discovered, buried in the lagoon beside the island of San Marco in Boccalama. This island is now submerged—such is the transitory nature of land in the lagoon—but San Marco in Boccalama was once a monastery, and in the years of the Black Death it was quickly designated as a site for burials. Faced with two mounting problems: the increasing number of the dead, and the encroaching sea, it seems that the monks of San Marco then deliberately sank two galleys in the harbour, in a vain attempt to bolster the sea defences of the island and save what was left of their burial site.
An aspect of Venetian life that features largely in the book is the industry surrounding pilgrimages. To undertake a pilgrimage was a common aspiration in the 14th century, and the average person hoped to visit a holy shrine at least once in their lives—though for most English people it was somewhere like Canterbury, Walsingham or Winchester. However, if you were wealthy or determined enough, then you might also hope to visit Jerusalem or one of the other shrines in Europe such as Santiago di Compostela or Aachen Cathedral—though such pilgrimages were rare, and if you managed to return home then you were viewed with awe, as these journeys were long and dangerous.
Many of the pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem chose to travel via Venice, mainly because the Venetians ran a very efficient and relatively safe operation to the Holy Land. The pilgrim galleys would sail from Venice in a flotilla known as a Mude to the port of Jaffa on the Mediterranean coast (near to modern-day Tel Aviv) from whence they would travel overland to Jerusalem. These sailings were often delayed by their Venetian captains in order to encourage the pilgrims to spend more money and time in Venice itself—visiting the relics and shrines of the city. In this way, Venice herself became something of a destination on the pilgrim circuit.
I sometimes like to think of the Venetians as 14th century tour operators, selling their journeys to Jerusalem and hoping to sell return excursions via the Sinai or even Cairo. The Venetians certainly took this business seriously, even setting up a tourist office in Venice known as the Tholomarii, which could recommend accommodation and help a pilgrim to negotiate a berth with one of the galley captains. There was even an office set up to deal with complaints, known as the Office of the Cattaveri.
In City of Masks, Oswald finds himself in debt to Vittore, to the tune of forty ducats—so I wanted to give the reader an idea of the value of this sum in today’s money. Information regarding historic exchange rates can be conflicting, so in the end I chose to use an amount that corresponded to the average cost of a return trip on a Venetian galley to Jaffa in the 14th century—which was forty ducats. Given that this was a long journey (taking five weeks in one direction) and given the risk to the boat and its passengers from pirates, inclement weather and potential hostility at any stop-over ports, you can imagine that this was not a cheap undertaking. So, for the purposes of this book, I’ve estimated that the forty ducats that Oswald owes would be in the order of ten thousand British pounds in today’s money.
Another point I should quickly raise regards the festival of Giovedi Grasso, which literally means “Fat Thursday.” In Venice, this was a festival celebrated as part of the carnival season on the last Thursday before Lent, but you may also see this term used elsewhere for “Maundy Thursday”—which, of course, is later in the church’s calendar, being the last Thursday before Easter Sunday. Both are correct.
I hope this book has inspired you to visit Venice, especially if you have never been. Yes, it can be a crowded, noisy, confusing (and sometimes expensive!) city, but you really only have to wander a few streets away from Piazza San Marco to find something of the city that Oswald visited, six hundred and fifty years ago. Ignore the Palladian and classically-inspired buildings such as the churches of San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore or the palaces of Ca’Rezzonico or Palazzo Grimani di San Luca. The Renaissance had not yet happened at the time I’m writing. Instead, look at the Basilica San Marco, the Doge’s Palace, and the Piazza San Marco, then take some of the side alleys (you will almost certainly become lost!) and look upwards at the pointed, Moorish-style arches of the windows of the great gothic palaces, with their stone fretwork, trefoils, balconies and pilasters. Then look at well-heads at the center of each small square (campo) and the thin, twisting streets that still follow their earliest routes, dating from the times when each sestiere was a separate island. And, if you have the time, take the vaporetto (water-bus) to the outlying islands of Torcello and Burano, and enjoy the city from the lagoon. She truly is a masterpiece of the medieval. I know of nowhere like her in the world.
I’ve spent the last two years both writing and researching this book, but I could spend the rest of my life getting to know this city. For this reason, I cannot claim to be any sort of expert on Venice, and I must reiterate that this novel is a work of fiction. But if you are inspired to learn more of Venice’s history, then I can thoroughly recommend the following books.
Venice, Pure City by Peter Ackroyd
Pilgrims to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages by Nicole Chareyron
Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton
Elements of Venice by Giulia Foscari
Margery Kempe and her World by Anthony Goodman
The Architectural History of Venice by Deborah Howard
The Art and Archaeology of Venetian Ships and Boats by Lillian Ray Martin
Francesco’s Venice by Francesco da Mosto
Venice, The Hinge of Europe, 1087–1797 by William H. McNeill
Venice by Jan Morris
A History of Venice by John Julius Norwich
Medieval People by Michael Prestwich
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to thank my brilliant editor, Nick Sayers. City of Masks took rather longer to write than I had anticipated, and for many months it was little more than a formless mass of words. It was only with Nick’s calm and insightful editorial guidance that it finally became a novel. I would also like to heartily thank my agent Gordon Wise, whose encouragement and constant support has been invaluable. Gordon was voted Literary Agent of the Year at the 2015 British Book Awards, and it was very much deserved.
Writing can be a lonely business, so I want to especially thank my friends from the writing world – Martine Bailey, Nick Brown, Antonia Hodgson, Laurinda Luffman, Laura Macdougall, Rebecca Mascull, Jake Woodhouse, all the fabulous writers from the Prime Writers group and the Historical Writers Association, and not forgetting everyone at Curtis Brown Creative. I also wish to thank my assistant editor Cicely Aspinall for all of her help and guidance, my copy editor Charlotte Webb for a detailed and thorough copy edit, and Kerry Hood and her wonderful team in the publicity department at Hodder and Stoughton. My thanks go as well to my American publishers, Pegasus, and especially Claiborne Hancock and Jessica Case for all of their enthusiasm and passion. It is fantastic to be supported by such a team.
Lastly I want to express my gratitude to my family for their endless encouragement and patience—my husband Paul, and my twenty-something children Natalie and Adam. They are my first trusted readers, and I truly appreciate their feedback—both positive and negative! I would like to end by saying something about my father, who died suddenly just as I was finishing City of Masks. Unfortunately he never got to see that this book was dedicated to him, and I thoroughly regret now that I didn’t think to tell him. Well Dad, I love you and this book is for you.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Plague Land
The Butcher Bird
CITY OF MASKS
Pegasus Books Ltd.
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Copyright © 201
7 S. D. Sykes
First Pegasus Books edition July 2017
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
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