Casanova's Women by Judith Summers Page A

Francesco’s putative father, became King George II of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover.
    Sadly the royal connection was of little benefit to the Gherardi players, who were not proving the box-office draw that Heidegger had hoped for, so the following summer the entire company disbanded and the Casanovas undertook the long return journey to Italy. They arrived back in Venice between eighteen months and two years after they had left it, proudly toting Francesco, the brother whom Giacomo would resent all his life. Flush with the money they had earned on the London stage – and perhaps enriched by a secret pay-off from the new King George II – they rented a house in the parish of San Samuele from Zanetta’s patrician godfather, Count Tribu Savorgnan. 6 The three-storey building in the Calle della Commedia was just around the corner from the theatre where, from now on, Zanetta worked as an actress, while Gaetano plied a second trade, that of making optical instruments.
    His parents’ homecoming was a rude shock for three-year-oldGiacomo who, during their long absence, had been the sole object of his grandmother’s attention. Marcia Farussi was indulgent, warm-hearted and as motherly as her daughter was disinterested in her eldest son. Giacomo adored her, and although he was in many ways an unrewarding child to look after, out of all her grandchildren he remained her special pet. However, now that there was another infant in the house Marcia could no longer spend so much time with Giacomo, who suddenly found that he was of secondary importance compared to his new sibling and the three others that soon followed at yearly intervals. As for his parents, they were strangers to him, remote figures who appeared to pity rather than like him. Presuming, perhaps, that their sickly eldest son was an idiot who would not be long for this world, they ignored him most of the time.
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    Working in London had transformed Zanetta Casanova into a sophisticated actress as confident of her physical charms as of her acting talent, and after Gaetano’s death in December 1733 she resolved to remain independent rather than marry again. From now on she would be the family’s sole breadwinner. In the winter, autumn and spring there was plenty of work for actors in Venice, but in the hot summer months the tourists returned to their homes in the cooler climates of Northern Europe and the Venetian noble class took refuge in their country houses in the nearby region of Friuli and along the Brenta Canal. Suddenly Venice was empty of all but its poorest citizens. The Matter of Fact and Queen of the Sea cafés in the Piazza San Marco were virtually deserted, the streets and squares no longer echoed to the sounds of late-night revelry, and the theatres were forced to close. Desperate to make a living, Venetian actors packed their costumes and props into hampers and travelled to the mainland in search of new audiences, and during the first summer of her widowhood Zanetta had no choice but to go with them. Leaving her children with Marcia, she followed the San Samuele theatre company to Verona, where they were booked to perform at an annual theatre festival in the city.
    Given that he was a sickly child thought to be in danger of dying, it is a mark of her lack of feeling for nine-year-old Giacomo that Zanetta left for the summer without first visiting him in Padua, even though she had not seen him since the day in April when she had left him there. If she imagined that her son was happy living with his foster-mother Signora Mida she was mistaken. At home in Venice he had been mollycoddled by his grandmother, but in Padua he was forced to fend for himself with a vengeance. Signora Mida was as cruel, neglectful and sluttish as she was hideous. Under her roof Giacomo shared a filthy attic room with three other boys, bullies whose beds, like his own, were infested with fleas and lice. Rats ran riot in the darkness at night,