A Blessed Wedding

After Ca' Rezzonico became a museum, it was difficult to find paintings of completely nude women like Sleeping Venus.

Even the unclothed women were subjects such as the Virgin and Child. Paintings like Titian's Venus of Urbino were nowhere to be found.

Yet the promotional materials claimed that Ca' Rezzonico had once been Titian's studio. Perhaps that was true, perhaps it was not. After all, no one knew what the land beneath their own home had been used for five hundred years ago.

There was a painting in this palace that looked from St. Mark toward Ca' Foscari Palace, depicting Venice several centuries ago. It looked as though it had been painted just yesterday. The city had not changed much; only people's clothing had changed.

The greatest difference between the rich and the poor was also their clothing. On April 12, 1355, when Giovanni Dandolo stood before the boatswain Isanero, the scene must have been much the same: one dressed in finery, the other in rags.

After the Black Death struck Venice, chaos was everywhere, and the demon in the boatswain's heart began to stir.

Although the Querini–Tiepolo Revolt of 1310 had burned the Rialto Bridge, it had ended quickly because of a woman's flowerpot and had not caused much unrest. This time, however, was different.

Fewer people had died in Venice than in cities in other countries. Those once-prosperous cities had all become empty shells, with corpses piled up everywhere like mountains.

Who wanted to row oars for a lifetime? Who did not want to live in a palace and wear beautiful clothes like those nobles? Noblewomen carried themselves differently from women of the common class. Before, he could only imagine it in his dreams. Now the opportunity stood before him. Together with sailors who, like him, could not