A Day in 18th-century Venice

Their nerves unstrung by disease and the consequence of early debaucheries, allow no natural flow of lively spirits...They pass their lives in one perpetual doze.William Beckford

It is already the sixth hour when Cecilia Contarini wakes to a new day in the family palazzo on the Grand Canal; her eyelids have scarcely fluttered when her cavalier servente, Rodrigo Sagredo, is at her side. ‘Good morning, bellissima,’ he murmurs, even though Cecilia’s face is covered with strips of milk-soaked veal.

As Cecilia steps into a steaming bath, Rodrigo entertains her with a recital of the morning’s gossip, much of it concerning her own husband. Giancarlo is a senator, but one whose slumming in the sestiere’s malvasie has more than once attracted the attention of the Ten and their spies.