After his father-in-law’s death, Gaetano had promised Marcia Farussi that he would never force her daughter to appear on stage, but Zanetta needed little encouragement. Although she had had no musical training, she a fine actress with good taste, a true ear and perfect execution. When the Gherardi troupe opened at the King’s Theatre on 28 September with a performance of The Faithful Wife, or Arlequin Strip’d, the young ‘Mrs Casanova’ was among the cast. The first night’s performance was a grand society event attended by King George I and the Prince of Wales, and despite the presence of his formidable wife, Caroline of Ansbach, forty-two-year-old Prince George Augustus took an immediate fancy to the ravishing fledgling actress.
‘Repetitive’ and ‘foolish’ was how Nathaniel Mist, the publisher of Mist’s Weekly Journal, described the Commedia dell’ Arte season at the King’s Theatre that autumn. The Prince of Wales, however, was sufficiently impressed to attend at least five more performances, though it appears he was more interested in one of the players than in the plays. For by early October, Zanetta Casanova, the twenty-year-old romantic heronie of The Faithful Wife, was with child. And ironically, far from her being faithful to her real-life husband, rumour had it that the Hanoverian prince was responsible for her condition.
By 26 April 1727, when she took one of the leading roles in a harlequinade called La Parodia del Pastor Fido, Zanetta was seven months pregnant. Six weeks later, on 1 June, she gave birth to her second child, a baby boy who was baptised Francesco. Ten days after that, King George I died in Osnabruck, Germany, and George Augustus, Francesco’s putative father, became King George II of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover.
Sadly the royal connection was of little benefit to the Gherardi players, who were not proving the box-office draw that Heidegger had hoped for, so the following summer the entire company disbanded and the Casanovas undertook the long return journey to Italy. They arrived back in Venice between eighteen months and two years after they had left it, proudly toting Francesco, the brother whom Giacomo would resent all his life. Flush with the money they had earned on the London stage – and perhaps enriched by a secret pay-off from the new King George II – they rented a house in the parish of San Samuele from Zanetta’s patrician godfather, Count Tribu Savorgnan.6 The three-storey building in the Calle della Commedia was just around the corner from the theatre where, from now on, Zanetta worked as an actress, while Gaetano plied a second trade, that of making optical instruments.
His parents’ homecoming was a rude shock for three-year-old Giacomo who, during their long absence, had been the sole object of his grandmother’s attention. Marcia Farussi was indulgent, warm-hearted and as motherly as her daughter was disinterested in her eldest son. Giacomo adored her, and although he was in many ways an unrewarding child to look after, out of all her grandchildren he remained her special pet. However, now that there was another infant in the house Marcia could no longer spend so much time with Giacomo, who suddenly found that he was of secondary importance compared to his new sibling and the three others that soon followed at yearly intervals. As for his parents, they were strangers to him, remote figures who appeared to pity rather than like him. Presuming, perhaps, that their sickly eldest son was an idiot who would not be long for this world, they ignored him most of the time.
Working in London had transformed Zanetta Casanova into a sophisticated actress as confident of her physical charms as of her acting talent, and after Gaetano’s death in December 1733 she resolved to remain independent rather than marry again. From now on she would be the family’s sole breadwinner. In the winter, autumn and spring there was plenty of work for actors in Venice, but in the hot summer months the tourists returned to their homes in the cooler climates of Northern Europe and the Venetian noble class took refuge in their country houses in the nearby region of Friuli and along the Brenta Canal. Suddenly Venice was empty of all but its poorest citizens. The Matter of Fact and Queen of the Sea cafés in the Piazza San Marco were virtually deserted, the streets and squares no longer echoed to the sounds of late-night revelry, and the theatres were forced to close. Desperate to make a living, Venetian actors packed their costumes and props into hampers and travelled to the mainland in search of new audiences, and during the first summer of her widowhood Zanetta had no choice but to go with them. Leaving her children with Marcia, she followed the San Samuele theatre company to Verona, where they were booked to perform at an annual theatre festival in the city.
Given that he was a sickly child thought to be in danger of dying, it is a mark of her lack of feeling for nine-year-old Giacomo that Zanetta left for the summer without first visiting him in Padua, even though she had not seen him since the day in April when she had left him there. If she imagined that her son was happy living with his foster-mother Signora Mida she was mistaken. At home in Venice he had been mollycoddled by his grandmother, but in Padua he was forced to fend for himself with a vengeance. Signora Mida was as cruel, neglectful and sluttish as she was hideous. Under her roof Giacomo shared a filthy attic room with three other boys, bullies whose beds, like his own, were infested with fleas and lice. Rats ran riot in the darkness at night, scurrying across the floor and even leaping terrifyingly on to the beds. No one ever changed the blood-flecked sheets or washed the children’s filthy clothes, and no one ever saw to it that they washed themselves or even brushed their hair. If he did not die from the squalor in the house, Giacomo feared that he would die of starvation. Although he had never had much of an appetite before, at Signora Mida’s he was always ravenous, for there was never enough to eat, and what little there was tasted disgusting. Since there were no separate plates or glasses to drink from, he was forced to fight his room-mates for spoonfuls of the foul-smelling soup which was dished up in a single, communal tureen. The lovely silver cutlery which his grandmother had given him had been locked away, and the only utensils available were a few old wooden implements. Whenever Giacomo complained to Signora Mida that things were not as they should be in the house, she scolded him violently and beat the maid.
After six months of torment, in which the only saving grace of his life proved to be Dr Antonio Gozzi, the young, dedicated schoolteacher whom Signora Mida had found for him, Giacomo wrote three desperate letters home: one to Giorgio Baffo, another to the priest Grimani, and a third to his grandmother. Since she was illiterate, Marcia Farussi asked Baffo to read the letter to her. She was appalled by what it said. Although she was far from wealthy herself she had always been house-proud and kept a decent table. In her home, as in most houses belonging to the labouring classes in Venice, ‘cleanliness and honest sufficiency reigned’.7 Never before in his life had her sickly grandson gone hungry, or been treated unkindly. Now the little weakling was living in squalor with strangers, and being treated worse than an animal! And this was supposed to be good for his health? Since Zanetta was in Verona, Marcia took matters into her own hands and boarded the next burchiello down the Brenta Canal, determined to see for herself exactly what was going on in Padua.
The following noon she arrived unannounced at Signora Mida’s house, took one look at the hideous hag and demanded to see her grandson. So changed and filthy was Giacomo that for a moment Marcia did not recognise him among the scruffy urchins fighting for food around the kitchen table. However, the moment he saw her he flung himself at her neck and burst into tears. Weeping herself, Marcia sat down and drew the boy on to her lap, where he sobbed out a woeful tale of starvation and abuse. Controlling her fury, she inspected the house. There in the attic were the unwashed sheets Giacomo had complained of, crawling with the vermin which had bitten him.
Marcia took the boy away from Signora Mida’s immediately. Back at the inn where she was lodging she watched in astonishment as Giacomo devoured plate after plate of food. In the past few months he had grown taller and skeletally thin, and the curls she had once tended with care were so matted that they were beyond saving and had to be cut off. Yet, undernourished as he was, he glowed with good health. For th
e first time ever he appeared lively and talkative, as if his brain had at last woken up from its long sleep. Marcia summoned his schoolteacher, Antonio Gozzi, who had suggested that his pupil lodge at his parents’ house in future. The handsome twenty-six-year-old priest and teacher immediately impressed Marcia with his good sense, his modest, respectful manners and his literal interpretation of the Bible, which was so similar to her own: in his opinion ‘the Flood had been universal, before the disaster men had lived for a thousand years, God conversed with them, Noah had taken one hundred years to build the ark, and the earth, suspended in the air, remained fixed at the centre of the universe, which God had created out of nothing.’8 Equally impressive was the fact that Gozzi was plump and cleanly dressed, indicating that in his parents’ home her grandson would be well-looked-after and properly fed. When Gozzi told Marcia that he had a younger sister who could help care for Giacomo, and that his father was a cobbler, the same trade as her own dear Girolamo had plied, Marcia agreed to pay the Gozzis double the boarding fees that her daughter had paid Signora Mida, and she immediately handed over a year’s money in advance.
Marcia stayed on in Padua for another three days. She fed Giacomo all that he could eat, bathed him, and bought him a wig and new clothes. Only when she was satisfied that she had done everything she could for him did she return to Venice. Her heart was at peace. Her daughter had acted irresponsibly by abandoning Giacomo to an unspeakable monster, but she, his grandmother, was leaving him in trustworthy hands.
Unaware of the drama that was taking place nearer to home, Zanetta was still in Verona. Just over sixty miles west of Venice, the ancient city was a lively cultural centre dominated by its ancient Roman arena, a well-preserved oval amphitheatre surrounded by forty-five rows of marble steps capable of seating 25,000 spectators at their ease. For most of the year, this vast edifice was used for jousting, races and bull-baiting. During the summer months, however, a temporary wooden stage was erected in the centre of the arena, simple plank benches were constructed around it, and the best theatre companies in Italy took turns in displaying their talents there. That year it was the turn of the San Samuele actors to perform at this prestigious open-air venue, and the company’s highly talented actor/manager, Giuseppe Imer, was delighted to have Zanetta Casanova with him. With her ravishing looks and skilful acting she had become a favourite with his audiences who flocked to see her play the romantic leads in the innovative musical interludes that he had introduced into his plays.
There was a more personal reason, too, why the stout, charismatic and scrupulously polite Imer was glad that Zanetta had accompanied the players to Verona: he was in love with her. He had known her at least since her marriage, and neither maturity nor motherhood nor her recent sorrows had dimmed her attractions in his eyes. That summer, with his own wife Paolina and his daughters Teresa and Marianna far away in Venice, he was finally free to become her lover. Only months had passed since Zanetta had lost Gaetano, but no matter what her feelings were towards Imer it was almost taken for granted at the time that an actress should favour her impresario with her charms. Zanetta dutifully played the part of mistress, though with little enthusiasm.
Their affair was closely observed by a young stage-struck lawyer who would one day become Italy’s most revered playwright. Born in Venice six months before Zanetta, although in more prosperous and enlightened circumstances, Carlo Goldoni had been obsessed with the theatre ever since he was a child; in contrast to the Farussis who had forbidden their daughter to have anything to do with it, his father had encouraged his son’s interest by building a puppet theatre for him and asking his own friends to write plays for it. After dropping out of medical school, Goldoni had qualified as a lawyer, but his heart had not been in the work, for he lived only to write. Success did not come immediately to him: his first carefully-composed lyrical tragedy, Amalasunta, had been derided by a group of actors in Milan; and in despair Goldoni had set fire to the manuscript that he had formerly regarded as his ‘treasure’. Soon afterwards Casali, a leading romantic actor at Venice’s San Samuele, had asked Goldoni to write a drama on the subject of the sixth-century Byzantine count, Belisarius. The play was to change both Goldoni’s life and the future of Imer’s theatre company.
During the summer of 1734, Goldoni was passing through Verona with his new manuscript rolled up in his luggage when he noticed a play-bill for Harlequin struck mute through fear, to be performed by the San Samuele players in the Roman arena. To his astonishment the first actor to come out on stage was Casali, the very man who had commissioned his new play. The actor introduced Goldoni to Imer, who invited the young lawyer to dine with them the following night. Goldoni found the entire theatrical company, including Zanetta Casanova, assembled at Imer’s lodgings. ‘The dinner was splendid,’ he later wrote, ‘the gaiety of the comedians charming. They made up couplets, and sang drinking songs. They anticipated my every wish, as if they were whores who wanted to seduce me.’ After they had eaten, Goldoni nervously read out Belisario in front of a rapt audience, and to his relief their applause at the end was genuinely enthusiastic. ‘Imer took me by the hand, and in a magisterial tone said to me: Bravo,’ he reminisced later in his Memoirs. ‘Everyone complimented me; Casali wept with joy.’9
Goldoni ended up spending the remainder of the season with the company. Imer’s talent as an impresario inspired the deepest respect in him. ‘He contrived the introduction into comedy of musical interludes which had long been inseparable from grand Opera, and had at last been suppressed to make way for Ballets. Comic opera had had its origins in Naples and Rome, but it was unknown in Lombardy and in the State of Venice, so Imer’s project succeeded, and the novelty produced much pleasure, and was highly profitable to the Comedians.’ Imer’s personal qualities also impressed him: ‘Without having had much of an education, [he] possessed wit and intelligence; he loved Comedy with a passion; he was naturally eloquent, and would have been very well-suited to play the extempore lover, following the Italian fashion, if his height and his face had matched his talent. Short, thick-set, without a neck, with small eyes, and a flat nose, he appeared ridiculous in serious roles, and exaggerated characters were not in fashion.’10
There was one part, Goldoni noted, which Imer played to perfection: that of Zanetta’s admirer. ‘I perceived that he had a decided inclination for his friend the widow; I also saw that he was jealous of her.’11 When Imer commissioned him to create a short three-act musical interlude for the troupe, Goldoni wrote La Pupilla, basing the plot on the couple’s relationship. It was a daring move, and one which Imer instantly noticed. However, Goldoni’s interlude ‘seemed so well crafted to him, and the attack so honest and delicately put, that he forgave me for the pleasantry. He thanked me, he praised me, and immediately sent off the piece to Venice, to the composer whom he had already commissioned.’12
When the players returned to Venice that September Goldoni accompanied them, and on 24 November, the Feast of St Catherine, Belisario was premiered at the San Samuele. Venetian audiences, like those throughout most of Europe, were accustomed to talking, gambling and flirting their way through every performance, but Goldoni’s naturalistic characters and dialogue reduced them to an unprecedented silence broken only by applause between the acts and the occasional cry of pleasure. At the close of the play the actors took so many curtain calls that they broke down with laughter and tears of joy. And when the principal actor came back out on stage to announce the next day’s play, the audience drowned him out with cries of Questa, questa, questal – This, this, this!. – signifying that they wanted to see Belisario again. In the end, the play was performed every night for three weeks. On the sixth night, Imer inserted La Pupilla into the intermezzo, with Zanetta playing the romantic role which had been written for her. This became even more popular than Belisario.
Thanks partly to Goldoni, Zanetta had become a star within Venice’s close-knit theatrical world. And like many of the Republic’s star turns, it was not long before she
was talent-spotted. The Republic’s exuberant actors and singers were among its most important exports, lured as far afield as the courts of Russia, France and Sweden. One such actor was Pietro Mira, a Venetian clown who had become the favourite of Empress Anna Ivanova in St Petersburg. In 1734 the empress commissioned Mira to assemble a company of Italian players to amuse her, and on a trip back to Italy that year, he recruited Zanetta. Accepting an open-ended position in Russia would mean leaving her six children in Marcia’s care for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, either out of financial necessity or ambition, Zanetta decided to go.
Before she left for Russia, she asked Dr Gozzi to bring Giacomo to Venice for a few days. Incredibly, it was the first time she had seen her eldest son since his ninth birthday, and she could scarcely believe the change in him. He was almost unrecognisable as the sickly imbecile who had seemed destined to die an early death, for in the care of his Paduan schoolteacher he had metamorphosed into a robust, beautiful eleven-year-old with a pin-sharp brain. Among other subjects Gozzi had taught Giacomo Latin, pure Italian, Geography, History, and even how to play the violin. Zanetta watched in amazement as her son impressed her sophisticated dinner guests with his precocious intelligence, reasoning with them in the Italian language rather than in Venetian dialect, and even making risque puns in Latin. When asked by an English poet who was at the table to read the ancient couplet Discite grammatici cur mascula nomina cunnus/Et cur femineum mentula nomen habet - Teach us, grammarians, why vagina (cunnus) is a masculine noun/And why penis (mentula) is feminine – Giacomo answered it with a witty pentameter of his own invention: Disce quod a domino nomina servus habet - It is because the slave always takes the name of his master. Zanetta, who was ashamed that she spoke no Latin herself, had to get her friend Signor Baffo to whisper a translation to her.
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