A Venetian Affair: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in the 18th Century

About half way through it became clear that this affair was increasingly degrading to the young lovers and was not ever going to have a happy ending. They truly did love each other and desperately wanted to marry and should not have had to suffer through the humiliations of being thwarted and having to try and hide their love affair (despite taking great pains with this they were never successful, Venice is and was a very small town.) Given the strength of their feelings (which come across beautifully from their letters and the author's writing) I could never fully wrap my head around why they didn't secretly elope- I mean, I could never truly understand the strength of the social prohibitions agains them. The best I can make out is that for her this would be an advantageous marriage- for him, not so much and his family expected him to make an advantageous match. But it's not like marrying each other involved reinventing the wheel, her own mother had married FAR above her social class, and honestly, it wasn't the norm, but it happened all the time. Still, he was the golden son and he never made any marriage plans until it was too late, and delusionally he went about trying to marry the conventional way (not elope)- so the reader can see the rocky shoals ahead. By too late I mean that our young lovers had already passed the point where the affair had become desperate- and we're not talking about teenage desperation- but rather adult despondency/ depression/ frustration and it had a terrible toll on both involved, but especially the girl. It almost felt too intimate reading their letters- and frankly I didn't want to be in their awful situation a moment longer so I switched to wikipedia got the rest of the story in one gulp (it's as sad and grubby as I feared) and moved on to something much lighter. The lesson I learned- sometimes being stuck in someone else's life can be no fun, no fun at all.

I wholeheartedly agree with all the readers who have praised Andrea di Robilant's elegant and stylish writing (since he is Italian, and thus English is not his first language, his merit is double). I also wish to praise his genuine involvement with his subjects, Andrea and Giustiniana, the warmth and respect with which he treats them, and the way he honours the love his late father felt for them.Enough has been said about the book's gripping development and the way in which it brings to life the colourful and (alas) terribly gossipy and poisoned Venetian society of the time. I will add that, in spite of its liveliness, I found the book tremendously sad and moving. You can actually feel the two lovers drifting apart, separated first by their different social circumstances, then by geographical distance. You suffer at the way they try to keep their relationship alive under a different form (as friends and "brothers") while silently mourning the imposed loss of their love. You wonder at the way in which they describe their other love affairs to each other, trying perhaps to make their unnatural estrangement (and subsequent need to go on with their lives) seem normal. And you marvel at the irony of a world which would not allow them to be together while both were single, but which would permit their being lovers while Giustiniana was married, or after she had been widowed.Of course, many questions arise. One such, that kept surfacing in my mind, was whether they did strive hard enough. It was surprising to me that the alternative of elopement, or of getting married in spite of the consequences, was never seriously considered. If my assumptions are right, it would perhaps add another issue to this touching story of human feelings: whether their love was really that deep, or there was an element of obsession, and perhaps social defiance, that did not want to go that far.In any case, the story is wonderful and lends itself to varied readings, which Mr. di Robilant never imposes on the reader, presenting the naked facts (as far as they can be reconstructed) for each of us to make his or her very personal interpretation.

Excellent service and product. Would use again.

Wonderful true story - totally absorbing. Would highly recommend