The Unique Women of the Venetian Republic

By Connie Spenuzza

In The Unique Women of the Venetian Republic, international award-winning author Connie Spenuzza vibrantly chronicles women's contributions to Venice from the 1400s to the end of the Republic in 1797. Despite societal norms that prohibited these Venetian women to advance as artists, authors, craftswomen, musicians, publishers, scholars—and even divas and courtesans par excellence—their dauntless search for knowledge transformed La Serenissima. Since Spenuzza's first sojourn to a decaying Venice in 1973, she has returned to La Serenissima biennially (for over fifty years) to study what is at the heart of these trailblazing women. In this book, Spenuzza takes you for a stroll along the narrow calli of Venice, shining a light into the watery depths of a history that has submerged the accomplishments of its own Venetian female stars. Witness the brilliant trajectory of scholarly prodigy Cassandra Felede in 1499 and her abject poverty by 1547. Vicariously attend the lively discussions held at the Venetian ghetto home of multilingual salonnière Sarra Copia Sulam (1592–1641), only to see her withdraw with fear once the Venetian government imposed even more severe measures on its Jewish population. Listen to the dulcet sounds of Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677), the successful composer, musician, and singer, as she rises to fame while maintaining a complex financial control over her wealth. Admire Julia Lama's artistic commitment and success despite facing society's ridicule for her facial difference. Spenuzza's lavishly illustrated work celebrates the vitality of the many incomparable Venetian women whose talents uplifted La Serenissima.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Libros Publishing Llc
• Release date: Sep 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9780998703190

Book preview

coverimage

Copyright 2023 Libros Publishing

Project Photographer: Lisa Renee Baker

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023940298

ISBN: 978-0-9987031-8-3

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior consent from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

With love for my sons Jay-Paul and Peter

And for my grandchildren

Peter, Siena, Lana, and Roman

With admiration for the work of Save Venice,

founded in 1971, and their Women Artists

of Venice Program, established in 2021.

OTHER BOOKS BY CONNIE SPENUZZA

CHOCOLATE RUNS THROUGH MY VEINS: The Insightful History of the Women of Chocolate

SPANISH COLONIAL PAINTINGS PAIRED with ENGRAVED SOURCES

JUBILANT JOURNEYS

NOVELS BY THIS AUTHOR UNDER THE PEN NAME

CECILIA VELASTEGUI

LUCIA ZARATE

PARISIAN PROMISES

MISSING IN MACHU PICCHU

TRACES OF BLISS

GATHERING THE INDIGO MAIDENS

VESTIGIOS DE DICHA

CONVOCANDO A LAS DONCELLAS DEL INDIGO

OLINGUITO SPEAKS UP

Olinguito also la voz

LALO LOVES TO HELP

A Lalo le encanta ayudar

THE HOWL OF THE MISSION OWL

El ulular de la lechuza

CONTENTS

Chapter One: Somber Omen

Chapter Two: Anna Notaras: The Intellectual Link Between the Byzantine Empire and the Venetian Republic

Chapter Three: Venetian Curses

Chapter Four: Venetian Intellectuals

Chapter Five: A Jewish Salonnière

Chapter Six: The Most Powerful Woman

Chapter Seven: The Sublime Musicians

Chapter Eight: The Divas

Chapter Nine: Crazy Like a Painter

Chapter Ten: Pioneering Artists

Chapter Eleven: The Courtesans

Chapter Twelve: The Artisans

Chapter Thirteen: My Own Unique Women of Venice

Bibliography

Endnotes

Acknowledgments

Fig. 1. Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal 1697–1768). Piazza San Marco, 1720. Oil on Canvas. Courtesy of The Met Museum. New York.

The most celebrated view painter of eighteenth-century Venice, Canaletto was particularly popular with British visitors to the city. This wonderfully fresh and well-preserved canvas shows one of the city’s most emblem-atic locations, the Piazza San Marco. Canaletto reduced the number of windows in the bell tower and extended the height of the flagstaffs, but otherwise he took few liberties with the cityscape. In fact, this painting can be situated among the artist’s other views of the square because of his meticulous documentation of various stages in the laying of its pavement between 1725 and 1728.

1

SOMBER OMEN

THE GLOOMY CLOUDS SWIRLING ABOVE THE CHOPPY AND MURKY WATERS OF THE Grand Canal in Venice felt like yet another sinister omen. It was Spring 1973. I gripped the handrails of the vaporetto (water taxi) with trepidation as it made several stops before my destination—the family palazzo of a Venetian college friend. Instead of focusing on the foggy outlines of the majestic window arches and crenellations of the famed palazzi along the canal, I honed in on the barely visible flight patterns of the flocks of pigeons. Like a confused ancient Roman augur, I attempted to decipher the pigeon’s flight patterns by employing the prophetic, age-old art of predicting the future. I had no business allowing myself to tread so ignorantly on this ancient form of divinity, but I was an overconfident, twenty-year-old college student living and studying in Europe.

Overwhelmed by the weight of Venetian history, I arrived chock-full of research ideas that might have evolved into further graduate work. But instead of leading the life of a scholar, I’ve dedicated fifty years to independent research, albeit sporadically accomplished through my biennial sojourns in Venice. All of this work has led me to write this book on the cultural history of the unique women of La Serenissima.

That day in 1973, thoughts of gloom and doom flitted through my mind with the alarming whistling sound of a pigeon’s warning wing flaps. In the pigeon’s nosedives, I saw a tornado lifting my vaporetto and pitching all us passengers into the oily lagoon. Just over two years earlier, in September 1970, a rogue tornado tossed a 25-ton ferryboat crossing the Laguna. The tornado twirled the ferry three times in the air and then plunged it to the bottom of the Laguna, killing eleven passengers. The body of one passenger was later found hundreds of yards away on a hillside. When the pigeons I observed flew up high, I rejoiced knowing that my sad predictions were incorrect, but when a flock of fierce pigeons flew as low as my downcast mood, I recalled more tragic Venetian tales.

I interpreted the theft of valuable oil paintings, perpetrated just days before my arrival in Venice, as one more cautionary tale warning me to be on guard in this most famous of cities. If thieves could easily steal two paintings by Paolo Veronese (ca. 1528–1588) from the walls of the sixteenth-century San Sebastiano Church in the Dorsoduro sestiere—one of the six districts of Venice—then anything or anyone could be whisked away. Paolo Caliari from Verona, better known as Veronese, was hailed for his vibrant brushwork, vivid colors, and the scale of his allegorical, historical and Biblical paintings. Veronese’s three large canvases on the coffered ceiling of the San Sebastiano Church, depicting the Book of Esther from the Old Testament, are considered his crowning glory.¹ The two paintings stolen in 1973 were small allegorical scenes and were part of a nativity scene.²

Fig. 2. Veronese (1528–1588). Esther Crowned by Ahasuerus, 1556. Oil on canvas. Church of San Sebastiano, Venice. Alamy Images.

I’ve anticipated their return for fifty years, but it seems that these two Venetian treasures have been totally forgotten. However, one can still pay respects to Paolo Veronese himself at San Sebastiano: he is buried there, a marble bust marking his grave beneath the organ.

At that time, art theft and art forgery were prevalent in Italy. In 1971, a whopping 13,000 art objects were plundered.³ In fact, in December 1971, art collector Peggy Guggenheim—then aged seventy-two, with an art collection valued at $13 million—announced that one of her Picasso paintings, A Boy with a Striped Shirt, and a number of other art works had been stolen from her house on the Grand Canal. The thieves traveled on gondolas and ripped iron bar from a window to gain access.⁴ The stolen paintings included three by Jackson Pollock and two by surrealist Max Ernst, Guggenheim’s second husband.

A year after her death in 1979, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection opened to the public in her former home, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal.

In my naïve perception of the world back in 1973, the downpour that pelted the vaporetto conflated with the recent brazen art thefts, and these two events whirled in my mind with a vision of the recent tornado that killed eleven in Venice and another thirty-three on the mainland. Once off the vaporetto, I walked through the calli, the narrow streets of Venice, filled with a sense of shock and disappointment. The city, once a shiny beacon of civilization and beauty, was now marred by the ravages of seawater damage. The magnificent palazzi were now in a state of decay, their famous facades stained and crumbling, reflecting the decline of the city. The beauty of Venice’s past seemed to be fading away.

Fig. 3. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. iStock Images.

With dismay I realized the lasting damage that had been inflicted on Venetian buildings by the killer acqua alta of 1966. This historic high-tide reached six feet, four inches and inundated the city. For more than a day, Venice was isolated, with three-quarters of its businesses seriously damaged or completely destroyed. I am petite, just five feet, two inches tall, and could not imagine myself maneuvering another acqua alta incident. I just wanted to reach the warmth of my friend’s family palazzo.

The countess who greeted me at her crumbling palazzo was reed thin, her spinal column already bending forward into old age, but she had enough backbone to carry herself regally. Her hazel eyes had faded into an opaque beige and her hands vibrated to their own internal tune—a musical compilation of the classical music that had floated in the atmosphere of Venice throughout her entire life.

Our initial greeting followed formal protocol, yet the countess insisted that I address her as Nonna, or grandmother. Decades later, I realize that this request revealed her deep desire to be visiting with her only granddaughter, Gabriella, instead of me. But my friend Gabriella had impulsively deserted me at the train station on the way to Venice, skipping the visit to her grandmother. Instead of feeling guilty about this, Gabriela followed her own desire to spend our winter break with her new Austrian boyfriend at a ski chalet. Gabriella’s pattern of broken promises continued with abandon for decades. She even missed her Nonna’s funeral, and soon after sold the family’s palazzo without shedding a tear.

During my various visits to Venice when I stayed with Nonna, she flooded my brain with her own intellectual acqua alta. Nonna’s knowledge of and pride for her Venetian culture made a lifelong impact on me. Her constant theme was the lack of respect and acknowledgment of the cultural contributions made by Venetian women throughout the ages. I’m ashamed that it’s taken me fifty years to finally pay my respects to Nonna’s generous spirit. I hope this book gives visibility and voice to the invaluable contributions made by the women of the Venetian Republic.

Fig. 4. Canaletto (1697–1768). Entrance to the Grand Canal from the Molo, Venice, 1742–1744. Oil on Canvas. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

2

ANNA NOTARAS: THE INTELLECTUAL LINK BETWEEN THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE AND VENICE

ULTIMATELY, I BECAME A DISAPPOINTMENT TO NONNA YEARS BEFORE SHE PASSED. Throughout the decades my interest in the accomplishments of Venetian women peaked and waned, as did Nonna’s interest in my postponed scholarly investigations. Instead, back in California, I pursued a graduate degree in psychology and became a writer of historical fiction, though I continued my biennial trips to Venice. I researched and finished a manuscript on the Venetian traders of the sixteenth century who trafficked in young and beautiful Circassian women from the Sea of Azov. The traders brought the young women to sell to the harems of the Ottoman world. I even traveled to this far-flung part of the world in the Caucus Mountains only to discover that records of this past were virtually nonexistent.

What I learned about these enslaved women living in a golden cage of luxury and abuse, alongside other beautiful women who fought each other, like cats and dogs, for the attention of the sultan, was as chilling as Nonna’s ghost stories. As Frederick Millingen wrote on the tragic destiny of the Circassian enslaved women:

In the generality of cases the lot awaiting the Circassian slaves is not as happy as might perhaps be expected. And yet how could it be otherwise, when seclusion, jealousy, and profligacy render domestic happiness an impossibility? Besides this, the Circassian woman, whether wife or concubine, is always awkwardly situated in the midst of Turkish society. Exposed as she is to the hostile feelings of the native women, she cannot well rely on the capricious and fickle disposition of her husband or master. As for the concubines, they are the natural antagonists of the wives; the war waged between them frequently is attended with serious results; many of them, worn out and emaciated, die of consumption, and cases of violent death put an end to the life of others.¹

My manuscript on the Circassian enslaved women did not sell, and so I wrote the manuscript for a historical novel about the young Venetian language interpreters, known as the giovani di lingua,² who trained and worked for the Venetian traders in Istanbul. Their rigorous