Campo San Rocco
“He said there was not a nun in Venice whom one could not have for money if one knew how to go about it.” Casanova relates this story in Vol. 4 of his memoirs about how his friend, the doctor Giano Righelini, proclaimed this boast. Casanova was aghast–his lover M.M. (believed to be Marina Morosini) was a nun in a convent on Murano, and though she snuck out to be with him (and, um, her other lover the French ambassador de Bernis), Casanova knew her as a woman of integrity. His Marina couldn’t be the one Righelini described!
Hear the story here, in this episode of Quattro Minuti con Casanova. (Or get a fuller story, with quotations, in my book Seductive Venice: In Casanova’s Footsteps.) The “imposter nun” that Casanova later meets lived in this campo and claimed she often saw Casanova pass beneath her window. So where I am standing in the video is right in Casanova’s footsteps!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtpEKMhaYC4
The Campiello San Rocco is a lovely small campo near the Church of San Rocco, behind the imposing Frari. It’s also a common throughway for those heading to Campo Santa Margherita, so I’m sorry about the crowd that walked through in the middle of my videotaping. Hopefully my teacher voice was loud enough to be heard above them!
(Image of San Rocco church and campo is from: church of san rocco venice)
