Unmasking Venice
Research for A Venetian Masquerade
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Happy 2025, lovely subscribers, and I hope the midwinter break left you feeling rested and revived. I also hope you enjoyed my Christmas short story, A Venetian Masquerade, featuring the early life of my fictional sleuth Mrs Iris Jameson. If you missed it, you can download it from the Readers Club page on my website to read on your e-reader or other device.
The story was prompted by my favourite trip of 2024, a visit to the magical floating city of Venice. As the city shimmered from the waters of the lagoon and the vaporetto ferried us to the city, I fell under enchantment. I already knew I’d want to write about Venice one day.
Lots of details from that trip stayed with me and made it into the story. We ate chichetti and drank Campari spritz at a bar on the corner of Campo S. Toma, right next to a mask and carnival costume shop (pictured below). I marvelled at the ornate costumes and masks, so beautiful and colourful. The idea of donning a mask and gliding through the city incognito immediately lodged in my mind.
We visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, once the home of a rich and cultured American woman who embraced art and made her house into a haven for artists. She was an inspiration for Mrs Jameson’s hostess, Evangeline Baumgarten, in the story. Another unforgettable moment was visiting the exquisite Palazzo Fortuny, formerly the home and workshop of artist and designer Mariano Fortuny. The museum is filled with exquisite fabrics and paintings, and on the ground floor the canal laps under the green weed of the water gate, in a juxtaposition of decay and riches that felt very Venetian.
The back canals of Venice were also full of charm, with glimpses of more dilapidated residences, perhaps once very grand. I decided to borrow one for the ruined palazzo of my fictional Venetian nobleman. Back home, I fell down a research rabbit hole to try to get the correct title for Conte Baldarosso - Venetian nobility is very complicated!
I didn’t fix on the story I wanted to tell until quite recently, when I was browsing Francesco da Mosto’s illustrated history of Venice and discovered that carnival season starts right after Christmas, on December 26, or St Stephen’s Day. Online research then told me that masks and gambling were associated with carnival, and masked gambling in ‘ridotto’ entertainments were only allowed during the carnival season.
I immediately wanted to see my redoubtable sleuth Mrs Jameson, newly married, unmask a card cheat. I knew she would learn something about her husband, perhaps something she didn’t want to know. And I liked the idea that masks came into it somehow, so decided to learn more about Venetian masks. I sought out information online - among the useful sites I found was one from historical novelist Laura Morelli.
I remembered the close-fitting Volto masks, the classic full-faced masks, at the little shop in Campo San Toma, and the white Bauta masks, flared at the bottom to allow the wearer to eat and drink. The pretty Columbina masks are familiar from the Commedia dell’Arte , and I’d seen the sinister Medico della Peste, or plague doctor masks, with their long beaked nose.
But there was one mask I’d only seen in paintings of carnival - the Moretta. I found it shocking and rather horrible. It’s an oval mask, made of black velvet, with holes for eyes but no mouth. It has no ribbon, but it held in place by the woman (they are only worn by women) holding a button on the back in their teeth. Speak, and the mask falls.
Supposedly, this mask was worn to seduce. But I hated the idea of a mask that kept women silent - and I knew Mrs Jameson would, too. As soon as I’d decided to write a scene with her and her husband shopping for carnival masks, I knew they would clash over the Moretta.
The different types of mask were, I thought, ironically revealing of the characters who wore them. How better to conceal a fake ‘countess’ than behind a Volto mask? And I decided my fake countess should claim to be from Romania, where Queen Victoria’s grand-daughter Marie was Queen. A quick investigation, and I discovered that Marie of Romania had visited the south of France in 1897 - meaning that Mrs Jameson might have met her the year before my story was set. All the pieces were coming together. It was time to set the research aside and let the characters tell the story.
Sadly, I didn’t have hot chocolate at the Caffe Florian in St Mark’s Square (mainly because you can eat for a week on the bill for two at Florian’s) so I had to imagine it from photographs and descriptions online for the final scene of the story. One day, perhaps, when I return to Venice.
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Love this back story to the story, Anna. Makes me want to go Venice - in style!