The Two Francescos

The Bridge of Sighs was built in sixteenth-century Venice, Italy, and completed in 1600. It connected the Doge's Palace to the prison. In those days, after prisoners were tried and sentenced at the Doge's Palace, they crossed the Bridge of Sighs on their way to the death cells. What awaited them was a final farewell to the mortal world. The bridge seemed to divide the worlds of life and death, so as they passed through its airtight passage and caught one last glimpse of beautiful Venice through its windows, they could not help but heave a deep sigh.

The Bridge of Sighs originally had no name. Between 1812 and 1818, the British poet Byron wrote Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which included the line: "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; a palace and a prison on each hand."

The term "Bridge of Sighs" soon spread through Britain and several other countries, but Byron never wrote that kissing beneath the bridge could bring eternal love. Only heaven knew how that rumor became common knowledge.

Byron's writing was deeply depressing, much like the gloom rooted in the British character, which not even the Mediterranean sun could dispel. He had once written The Two Foscari, telling the story of Doge Foscari, who could not stand against the Senate and could only watch as his son was tortured to death. He himself was deposed and collapsed dead to the bells welcoming his successor. Verdi later adapted the tale into the opera The Two Foscari. The Gothic Ca' Foscari Palace left behind by Doge Foscari had also become the present-day Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

Alessandro was not cut out for studying, but his father was a gondolier. If he took up the same trade in the future, he might earn more than tourists