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as opposed as they were in character and inclination, was Andrea’s mother. Lucia saw, perhaps more clearly than the rest of the Memmos, the material disadvantages that a union with Giustiniana would bring to an old house which needed to reinvigorate its weak finances. And she feared the political damage the Memmos would suffer if her eldest and most promising son ever betrayed the family and crossed the inquisitors by marrying a woman beneath his rank.
    The difference between the two mothers was that Lucia simply wanted to make sure Andrea did not get it into his head to marry Giustiniana. If in the meantime he dallied with her, as young men often did before settling down, it was no great worry to her and would not damage his future prospects. Mrs. Anna, on the other hand, was fighting a daily battle to prevent any contact between the lovers that might taint the family’s reputation and jeopardize her daughter’s chances of a respectable marriage.
    Mrs. Anna was losing the battle. Andrea’s courtship was assiduous, visible to everyone, and highly compromising. He saw Giustiniana every day at the Listone in Piazza San Marco, where Venetians gathered for their evening stroll, and often later on as well, at one of the theaters. He frequently moored his gondola to the narrow dock below the Wynnes’ house and called on Giustiniana in full view of the family. In the winter of 1754 Mrs. Anna finally confronted him. She caused a terrible scene, declaring Andrea persona non grata in their house and making it clear she never wanted to see them together again. All communication was forbidden: letters, messages, the merest glance. It had to finish, she yelled—and sent him on his way.
    News of Mrs. Anna’s dramatic stand traveled quickly around town. Andrea referred to the scene as his cacciata funesta 22 —his fateful banishment, and the starting point of all their misery.
    Mrs. Anna was a fierce watchdog, always on the alert and obsessively suspicious. She kept a close eye on her eldest daughter and did not let her go out without a chaperon—usually herself. Her spies were planted wherever the lovers might seek to escape her gaze, both within the English set and among Venetian families, and she kept her ears constantly pricked for gossip about the lovers. Venice was a small world. Everyone knew who was losing his fortune at the Ridotto on a particular night and who was having an affair with whom. Andrea and Giustiniana were aware of the risk they were taking in defying Mrs. Anna’s ban; they had to be extremely careful about whom they spoke to and what they said. At a deeper level, they knew the future offered little promise of an end to their difficulties. But it was too soon, and they were too young, to worry about the future. For all the trouble their love had already caused, only one thing mattered to them in the winter and spring of that year: exploiting every opportunity to be together.
    Just as Mrs. Anna resorted to the Venetian arts of intelligence, Andrea set up a small network of informers to obtain daily information about Giustiniana’s movements. His chief spy was Alvisetto, a young servant in the Wynne household, who was not always dependable because his fear of Mrs. Anna was sometimes stronger than his loyalty to his secret paymaster. He had the unfortunate habit of disappearing during his missions, leaving Andrea flustered and clueless on a street corner or at the side of a bridge. “Alvisetto did not make it to our appointment and I went looking for him all morning in vain,” he complained. “Poor us, Giustiniana. Sometimes I lose all hope when I think in whose hands we have put ourselves.”
    Alvisetto was also the chief messenger, and he shuttled back and forth between Andrea and Giustiniana with letters and love notes. Occasionally, the gondoliers of Ca’ Memmo would moor at a dock near the Wynnes’ to drop off or pick up an envelope. If Mrs. Anna was at home, the two lovers would fall back on “the