The Violinist of Venice

by Alyssa Palombo

  * * *

  That night, after the party had ended, I went into Cecilia’s room. She was still awake, though dressed for bed. “Mother,” she said, surprised. “What is it?”

  I sat on the bed beside her. It had taken me until tonight to realize how heavy secrets are, and how much heavier they grow over the years. And if there was one person I would have know the truth—other than Vittoria—it was Cecilia, the child who was most like me. My unexpected one. “I told you,” I began, “that as a young woman I fell in love with a man who could not marry me.”

  She nodded, her eyes wide.

  “It has been a secret long enough,” I said. “I will tell you everything, if you are willing to hear it.”

  “Of course, Mother,” she said.

  I smiled. “You met him once, you know,” I said. “If you recall, when you were much younger. His name is Antonio Vivaldi.”

  And then I told her all.

  71

  DA CAPO

  Cecilia and Andrea were married in April, in as beautiful and festive a ceremony as anyone had ever seen; and in June my Cecilia gave birth to a son, who was named Andrea Tommaso.

  Once the newlyweds were settled, Tommaso began asking me to accompany him on an extended tour of Europe. He wanted to show me the world before we grew too old to travel. While a part of me longed to go, I always refused. At first my excuse was baby Andrea; I could not imagine missing any part of his childhood. Then there were my other children to think of; but they, too, were growing up. Lucrezia, who had become society’s reigning eligible beauty, had scandalously turned down an offer of marriage from the doge’s son and instead married Rafaello Marino, son of Giuseppe’s friend Baldassare. Giacomo, I knew, was rolling in his grave, but I gave my daughter a sizable dowry and my blessing.

  Just as he had been a serious and studious child, Antonio grew into a serious and prudent young man. He retained his excellent head for numbers, and occupied much of his time with making wise investments with the money from his father’s estate—mostly in property, though his love of music shone through when he bought a share in the Teatro Sant’ Angelo.

  My children were prospering, as were my nieces and nephews; I could very well have left Venice, but for whatever reason, I did not. If ever the time became right for me to leave, I thought, I would know it.

  And so I remained. And I remained happy. And perhaps there are as many kinds of happiness as there are love, for each time I felt that I might lay claim to the word, it never felt quite the same. Perhaps, I mused one day, as I sat in my gondola on my way to meet Tommaso, that means that I have tasted much of life.

  CODA: ON THE OTHER SIDE

  Vienna, July 28, 1741

  I stepped out of the hired coach, looking up at the building before me. It was nondescript, even shabby; the windows were shuttered, and the stone façade was dirty and crumbling. But I gave all of this only a passing thought as I knocked on the front door and waited to be let in.

  In my hand I clutched the much-folded parchment that had been delivered to me about a week ago. The words on it were imprinted on my mind as well as my heart.

  Adriana—

  I am dying. I have no right to ask this of you, but all I want is to see you one more time.

  If you do not come, I will understand.

  A.V.

  Below his initials was an address in Vienna before which I now stood.

  I had deliberated briefly upon receiving the letter. In the end, though, I had left the next day. How could I do anything else?

  Tommaso had come to call as I was in the midst of preparations. “What is this, my love?” he asked in confusion, as I directed the servants in packing a trunk.

  “I have received a letter,” I told him. “From a … very old friend. He is in Vienna, and he is dying. He has asked that I come to him, and so I am going.”

  I could see from the look in Tommaso’s eyes that he knew exactly who this “friend” was, had been, to me. “Very well,” he said. “You are right to go, I think.” He kissed me. “When you return,” he murmured, “I shall have a very particular question to ask you.”

  I was pulled from my memories by the opening of the door. I looked up to see Anna standing before me.

  I was so taken aback that I did not immediately know what to say. I had heard that Vivaldi came to Vienna to seek the patronage of Emperor Charles. Things had gone sour for Vivaldi in Italy; in 1738, the Cardinal of Ferrara had denied him entrance to that city for the opera season for being a priest who traveled openly with his mistress. Only years of hiding my emotions had allowed me to remain composed when Giulietta had related that piece of gossip.

  However, the Emperor Charles had died not long after Vivaldi’s arrival. And I did not know Anna had come with him. What to say?

  In the name of God and the Holy Virgin, Antonio is dying. Can it possibly still matter what I tell her? I asked myself impatiently.

  “Donna Baldovino,” she said, surprised. I was stunned that she remembered me.

  It was plain she had been doing much weeping of late. She was dressed in a plain linen dress with her hair pulled back from her face, looking very different from the last time I saw her.

  Dear God, she is almost thirty years old.

  This reminded me that I was nearing the age of fifty; therefore I decided that it was high time to push such thoughts aside and deal with the matter at hand. “I do not mean to be rude,” Anna said, “but what are you doing here?”

  “He sent for me,” I said, holding up the letter. “I am an old friend of his.”

  I could see she wanted to question me further, but realized that now was not the time. “Then you have come just in time,” she said, letting me in. “I fear he has just hours left.” With that, she burst into renewed sobs, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve. “Oh, my poor maestro!”

  I was surprised to feel a prickle of irritation. Silly girl, at your age I had been married ten years, borne four children, had one of them taken from me, and lost my lover long since. Death is death; there are greater tragedies in life, and by the time you are my age you will not fear death in any case, but respect him so that he will treat you kindly when he comes for you. “There, there, all will be well,” I said. “Now please take me to him.”

  She led me into a darkened bedchamber at the rear of the small house. I entered, and she shut the door softly behind me.

  I stood, frozen, looking at the thin body stretched out beneath the coverlet.

  Yet then he stirred, slowly lifting his head. “Adriana?” he asked, his raspy voice no more than a whisper. “Is it you? Or do I but dream…”

  His words trailed off into a fit of coughing, and I moved swiftly to his side, sitting in a wooden chair beside the bed and taking his hand. It was all I could do to contain my cry of shock as I looked into his face.

  His skin had a deathly pallor, and he was skeletally thin. His famous red hair was now all white.

  “Tell me, caro,” I said, “what ails you?”

  He groaned. “I am not certain. Annina had a doctor in here, but he could not be sure … it may be my lungs, or my heart, or…” He broke off, beginning to cough again. “Or simply that I am old.”

  I squeezed his hand gently, painfully aware that his brittle fingers could no longer play the violin with the speed and dexterity that had once seemed like magic to me. “We are both old, I am afraid,” I said, fighting to keep my tone light.

  He looked at me, his gaze still clear. “You are as beautiful today, Adriana, as you were on that night when you first walked into my house.”

  “If you persist in this flattery, I shall be forced to tell you how old I really am,” I said, tears threatening to choke me. “Know you not that our daughter is nearly thirty years old?”

  “Our daughter,” he repeated, smiling faintly. “I told her, you know.”

  I froze. “Told her?”

  “That I am her father. She wept—I think she is upset with me for keeping it from her all
these years.” He shifted slightly, as though seeking some small scrap of comfort that eluded him. “I did not tell her who her mother is. That is for you to do. If you choose.”

  I remained silent, mind racing.

  “Adriana.” His voice, softer now, drew me back to him. “I was not sure that you would come.”

  “And how could I do otherwise, caro mio?” I asked, tears flowing freely now.

  He sighed. “I can die in peace now that I have seen you once more.” He let his eyes drift closed. “And I … I am sorry, Adriana. For all the wrong I have done you. For everything I did to hurt you.”

  “Shhh. No more talk of that. I told you years ago, Tonio, I have forgiven you all.”

  “I have always loved you,” he said, briefly tightening his grip on my hand. “I never stopped.”

  “I know, carissimo,” I said, unable to see him through my tears. “I know, amore mio. Go to sleep now. Go with my love.”

  I sat beside him, keeping my grip on his hand as his breathing slowed and grew ever shallower.

  It was early evening when he breathed his last.

  After, it was as if a light had been extinguished inside me, one that had always been there but that I only noticed now that it had vanished. I realized then how much comfort I had taken in simply knowing that he was out there, somewhere, in the world.

  But now he was gone, taking with him a part of me he had had all along, changing me forever one final time.

  I do not know how much time passed before I rose and left the room. Anna was sitting in the front room, and when I appeared, tears began to trickle down her face anew, realizing what my emergence meant.

  “He told me he was my father,” she said, her face grief-stricken. “He said that he had a love affair as a young man, and that I … I was his daughter.” She shook her head. “Sometimes even I wondered why he was so devoted to me. I knew what people said, of course, and I knew it was not true. But it never did fit together until now.”

  “He loved you,” I said. “That was plain to see.”

  “But you…” Her eyes brightened somewhat. “You said you are an old friend of his. Do you know who my mother is, madonna?”

  I had imagined this moment for thirty years: the moment when I could finally claim my lost daughter as my own. Never had I given up hope that it would come, one day. And here it was, and I was not ready.

  What, in truth, could I gain by telling her? She would never think of me as her mother, not a stranger whom she had only met twice.

  And, much as my heart broke to admit it, I had difficulty thinking of her as my daughter. Lucrezia was my daughter, Cecilia was my daughter; the daughters I had suckled and raised and watched grow, day by day. Anna, my lost child, my firstborn, was a stranger to me and always would be. Even if we were to begin now, we could never make up for what we had missed.

  Everything had happened as it had happened, and it was not for me to say that there was not a reason for it all.

  The girl had enough havoc wreaked in her life this day. Let it remain at that. No doubt she would draw her own conclusions, but I would let it be.

  “No,” I answered her finally. “No, he did not confide such in me. I am sorry.”

  She studied me for a moment, then bowed her head. “Very well. It may be that I am not meant to know.” She rose. “If you will excuse me, I must…”

  “Yes, you see to him, signorina,” I said. “It is for you to do, now.”

  “Will you stay the night, madonna?”

  I shook my head. “No. I must return to Venice. There are those who are waiting for me.”

  She nodded and turned to go into the bedchamber, leaving me.

  I saw myself out.

  As I stepped out of the house into the heat of summer, I thought that when Tommaso asked me to marry him, maybe I would say yes. And maybe … maybe I would let him show me the world, after all.

  Maybe the time had come.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Antonio Vivaldi was well-known in eighteenth-century Europe as a virtuoso violinist and composer. But he was in fact ruined later in his life by his relationship with the young opera singer Anna Girò. The common gossip, as portrayed in my novel, was that she was his mistress, an accusation which he always vehemently denied. In the end, he died impoverished in Vienna, and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.

  I came across the theory in several places (one of which being Barbara Quick’s phenomenal historical novel Vivaldi’s Virgins, about Anna Maria dal Violin of the Pietà) that Anna Girò was perhaps Vivaldi’s daughter, not his mistress. The idea fascinated me, and it also begged the question: if this were the case, who was Anna’s mother?

  We will likely never know the true nature of Vivaldi’s relationship with Anna, but it was this “what if” idea that led me to write The Violinist of Venice.

  Adriana d’Amato is a fictional character, as are her family and friends. While Adriana’s mother, Lucrezia, and best friend and sister-in-law, Vittoria, are not based on any real figures, they faced the same choice as many real wards of the Pietà did: to stay in cloistered seclusion and continue their (often celebrated) musical careers, or to leave for marriage and the outside world. Marriage indeed meant signing a contract stating that they would never again perform in public.

  The Foscari family was a real Venetian patrician family of considerable wealth and power, and Ca’ Foscari still stands on the Grand Canal in Venice to this day. Tommaso and his family specifically are my inventions.

  Each piece of Vivaldi’s music I describe here is real; each concerto that he and Adriana play together is one that I chose carefully to fit the mood and needs (and the era) of a particular scene. I hope that, after reading this book, you will seek out some of Vivaldi’s music if you are not already familiar with it, whether it is the music described here or other works.

  I tried to bring the backdrop of sensual eighteenth-century Venice alive as much and as accurately as possible. Baroque Venice was a city long past the economic and military glory of the Renaissance; the discovery of the New World had made Venice’s formerly prime position as a trading empire between East and West irrelevant. As such, by Vivaldi’s lifetime what was once the richest and most powerful state in Europe had been slowly crumbling for years. The wealth of the great patrician families, originally amassed from trade, was quickly dwindling. Yet almost in defiance of this fact, eighteenth-century Venice was more decadent and hedonistic than ever. What money the wealthy had left they spent quickly, on lavish parties and costumes and clothing, on food and wine. Carnival (or Carnevale) went on for months at a time, and with the whole city going around masked for so long, the results were just as scandalous as you would expect.

  Eighteenth-century Venice was, as modern Venice is today, a major tourist destination. Young aristocrats from around Europe would visit on the grand tour, and notable figures such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lord Byron also spent time in Venice. Tourists would partake of the city’s many delights: the architecture; the artwork; musical performances both at the many opera houses and at the Pietà and other institutions like it; traveling by gondola; and, of course, the famed Venetian courtesans.

  Venice is a wonderful place to visit, to read about, and to imagine. I hope I have accomplished my goal of bringing it to life for you, and giving you an entertaining and meaningful story at the same time.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  They say writing is a solitary endeavor, and yet I count myself fortunate in that I do not always find it so. I have been so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life who have inspired me, championed me, and believed in me and this book all along the way.

  Bear with me, because it’s a long list.

  I would be remiss if I did not thank, first and foremost, Lindsay Fowler, my critique partner, one of my closest friends, and a mind-blowingly talented writer herself. She read each draft of this book (and is to this day the only person besides myself to have seen the messy first draft, a dubious honor)
and gave me excellent notes, suggestions, and criticism at every step of the way. Thank you times infinity for your patience, your support, for endless conversations talking through plot points and characterization and themes, and for putting up with all my two A.M. freak-out texts.

  Thank you to my fabulous Canisius Alumni Writers (aka CAW), without whose enthusiasm this book might still be languishing on my hard drive: Joe Bieron, Cara Cotter, Brittany Gray, Caitie McAneney, Ryan Nagelhout, and Ryan Wolf.

  Showers of gratitude upon my amazing, fabulous agent, Brianne Johnson: for taking a chance on a cold query by a first-time author with a crazy-long manuscript, for helping me improve said manuscript exponentially, and for finding it a wonderful home and making my dreams come true.

  Millions of thanks (and brisket tots!) to my gem of an editor, Vicki Lame, for giving me this chance, for your love and enthusiasm for this story, and for making this book so much better than I thought it could be. I’ve already learned so much from working with you—can’t wait for round two!

  Thanks to the wonderful team at St. Martin’s Press for their work on this project, and for the absolutely gorgeous cover that I am so in love with.

  Thank you to all my wonderful English and creative writing teachers at Canisius College, especially Janet McNally, Jennifer Desiderio, and Eric Gansworth. And, above all, thanks to Mick Cochrane: mentor, fellow writer, and friend, for making me the writer I am today. I’ll never forget the day, a few years after I’d graduated, when he took the time to meet with me at a point when I was feeling particularly lost and talked through my writing-career options with me. Thanks to his advice and wise counsel, I decided to really give this book a shot, and it worked out.

  Thank you to Karla Manzella, my ninth-grade English teacher, who knew I was writing my own stories during her class and let me keep doing it.

  Thank you to piano teacher extraordinaire Karen Schmid, for all those wonderful and inspiring conversations about music. Thanks to my voice teacher, Melissa Thorburn, for not batting an eye when I showed up with obscure Vivaldi arias to learn. Thank you to the wonderful and wise Maestro Frank Scinta, who taught me more about music than I can possibly say.