The Venetian Contract (50 page)

A
T
L
A
C
HIESA DEL
S
ANTISSIMI DEL
R
EDENTORE
, every year on the third Sunday in July, the people of Venice cross on a raft from Zattere to Giudecca, and give thanks to God at Palladio’s church for saving the city from the Plague.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book began with a breakfast; not at Tiffany’s, but at Claridges.

I was there with film producer Ileen Maisel, who asked me if I’d ever thought of writing about Palladio. I’d like to thank Ileen, first of all, for asking that question. This was back in 2008, the quincentenary of the architect’s death, and there happened to be an exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy that very day. I finished my breakfast and walked round the corner to the RA and spent the morning looking at every plan, picture and model. I was hooked. I bought the biggest book I could find in the museum shop and went home to devour it. This comprehensive volume,
Palladio
(2008) edited by Guido Beltramini and Howard Burns, and published in association with the Royal Academy of Arts, was invaluable to me in the writing of this book. Palladio lived in interesting times; in Venice – as in London – plague and fire visited the city close together, and the opportunity to write about this period, with the building of the church of the Redentore as the spine of the story, seemed too good to miss.

Two other volumes, among the many excellent books that I read in the course of research for this book, deserve a full citation. Miri Shefer-Mossensohn’s
Ottoman Medicine: Healing and Medical Institutions 1500–1700
(2009) provides an excellent overview of the development of Turkish medical practice. And Philip Ziegler’s
The Black Death
(2010) gave me
a detailed insight into the more old-fashioned plague cures of earlier outbreaks of the pestilence.

Some of the locations in this book, such as the magnificent Redentore on the island of Giudecca, are easily visited. But the most interesting trip I took in the name of research was to the Lazzaretto Novo itself – the mysterious plague island far out in the Venetian lagoon. Trips are infrequent and access limited, so I would like to thank Giorgia Fazzini for permission to visit such a fascinating place, and for the opportunity to peruse the small but incredibly valuable museum there. I must also acknowledge the voluntary organization Ekos Club, who so carefully maintain the archaeology and ecology of the island.

Thank you also to two fantastic research assistants: Richard Brown who covered the Western aspects of the novel, and Yasemin U
ğ
ur who checked the Eastern sphere by verifying Turkish terms and spellings for me. Thanks also to my sister, archaeologist Veronica Fiorato, who gave me the benefit of her expertise on plague graves and skeletal remains.

Thank you to my father Adelin Fiorato who, quite apart from being a fount of Renaissance knowledge, lent a great deal of his character to my portrait of Palladio.

I’m grateful, once again, to costume designer Hayley Nebauer, who tirelessly perused her own archives and Renaissance paintings to check details of Venetian costume.

Thanks to Caroline Westmore and the fantastic team at John Murray for all their dedicated work in the production of this book.

And above all, thanks to my editor Kate Parkin and my agent Teresa Chris, who not only fulfilled their usual roles with their customary excellence, but were also there for me
this time in the crucial planning stages of the story; fittingly, over a
very
long lunch at the Royal Institute of British Architects!

Last, but by no means least, I have to thank the central characters in my own story: Sacha, Conrad and Ruby.