One of the books about Venice, I use the most, is the Curiosità Veneziane by Giuseppe Tassini.
Venetian Stories
This post is an issue of our newsletter — Venetian Stories — which goes out every few weeks, to keep in touch and share stories and titbits from and about Venice and its history.
It is a small lexicon of placenames in Venice. Well, most printed copies are small, but the book contains over 1400 entries, and it is 700–800 pages in most editions.
The Curiosità Veneziane is, however, much more than a lexicon.
The entries explain why the place is called what it is, and often also who lived there, or the crafts which worked there, with the history and notes about the guild. If the place appears in ancient laws or in the raspi — the criminal records of the Republic of Venice — we’ll learn about murders, slaves, intrigues, fires, robberies, or about which courtesans and artists frequented which taverns.
Quite a few Venetian Stories newsletters have come from something I discovered by chance in the Curiosità Veneziane.
It is an unmatched treasure trove of titbits of Venetian history, and the result of decades spent in the archives and libraries of 1800s Venice, bent over parchments, manuscripts and ancient books.
The first edition is from 1863, when Venice was still under Austrian rule. Tassini himself edited another three editions (1872. 1882 and 1887) before his death in 1899, but the book has been constantly in print ever since. It is, to this day, one of the best-selling items in the editor’s catalogue.
The work is so useful that I took the time to convert it into a searchable website, so I can consult it quickly on my phone when I’m out and about in Venice.
Who was Giuseppe Tassini?
Tassini didn’t make a fuss about himself, and besides his writings, there simply isn’t a lot of material about the person Giuseppe Tassini.
The best source of information — and the one normally used, even if not always cited — is the preface by the historian and journalist Elio Zorzi (1892–1955) who edited the fifth edition, published in 1915 and the sixth, in 1933.
I have published the preface in its entirely on the Curiosità Veneziane website, and below are — in my translation — the parts related to the person Giuseppe Tassini.
Suffice it to say that Giuseppe Tassini wasn’t the stereotypical grey, dusty scholar.
Elio Zorzi on Tassini
Giuseppe Tassini belonged to an old family of the Venetian bourgeoisie. He himself, in his «Curiosità», under the heading San Felice (Parrocchia, Fondamenta, Rio, Ponte, etc.) recalls that, in the eighteenth century, at the Ponte di San Felice a relative of his owned a house, in which the academy of the Followers of Thalia used to meet, one of the many academies of amateur dramatics, which were plentiful at that time. And he cites a passage from the Gazzetta Urbana of 1787, which talks about the Academy and the house of Antonio Tassini.
Giuseppe’s grandfather had lived for several years in Constantinople, in the service of the Republic assigned to the offices of the Bailo, or Ambassador of the Serenissima to the Sublime Porte.1 And Carlo Tassini, Giuseppe’s father, was born in Constantinople in 1781.
After the fall of the Republic, the Tassini family returned to Venice, and Carlo began his career as a commissioner officer in the Imperial-Royal Austrian Venetian Navy, reaching the rank of Major Commissioner.2 With this rank in 1848, he rushed to lend his services to the Venetian Navy, and his son, Giuseppe, also enlisted in the defence of Venice, with the rank of lieutenant.3
Carlo Tassini married twice. From the first, Maria Furlani, he had a son, Giulio. After being widowed, he married a second time to the noblewoman Elisabetta de Wasserfall, daughter of a colonel in the imperial-royal army. From this second marriage, on November 12, 1827, Giuseppe Tassini was born.
Giuseppe Tassini had a rather disorderly youth. Initiated to study law at the University of Padua, he had ostentatiously neglected them, to give himself a good time, enjoying the little bit of good things that fate had granted him, and that his father did not skimp on. “Born by a Turkish father and a German mother, I cannot but be odd” the young idler liked to say of himself.
After the epic of 1848 he had also sacrificed to the muses, with two humorous poems in sestinas, inspired by the very famous Naso by Guadagnoli. These compositions — La Barba and Gli occhiali — were published in 1852, the first by the printer Milesi, the second, a few months later, by the typographer Grimaldo.
In 1858 Carlo Tassini died. At that time, Giuseppe had put his head in order. He had resumed his studies, and at almost thirty-three years of age — on January 26, 1860 — he had received the doctoral degree in utroque4 at the University of Padua. He had then devoted himself to the administration of his assets — since his father had left him several houses in Venice, and a fine estate in the Scorzè area — and to new studies, towards which, meanwhile, his spirit had been oriented: studies on Venice and its history.
[…]
Tassini was a man of serene and affable character, but of solitary habits.
He lived alone; a flat of his own in Corte delle Cariole, in San Zulian. The door of his house opened onto the dark and narrow Sottoportico delle Cariole, which opened about halfway along Calle degli Specchieri.
Although the house had few rooms, it contained a rich library, in which books on Venetian subjects, humorous and pornographic, predominated.
An Epicurean, in the Horatian sense of the word, Tassini had created his own system of comfortable life as an old egoistic bachelor.
He counted his friends among the erudite and the scholars of Venetian studies; he had had respectful relations with Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna, “a true mirror of erudition and courtesy”, as he said in the preface to the first edition of his “Curiosità“; he had known Samuele Romanin, Rinaldo Fulin, Girolamo Dandolo and had study relationships with them; and also with Girolamo Soranzo, Cicogna’s successor in the “Bibliografia Veneziana“, with Cecchetti, with Stefani, with Veludo. But outside the field of study, and outside of meetings at the café or the restaurant, he maintained no relationships with anyone. And he asked nothing of anyone. He had his income: it was enough for him, and he was satisfied with it. He studied for his pleasure, to satisfy his curiosity to know; and he wrote out of his natural inclination; he did not expect any gain from his work, nor fame, nor recognition.
He loved women. And since he was sceptical, cynical perhaps, he did not ask more of them than he himself gave them of himself; a few hours of oblivion, in the satisfaction of the senses. He had banished from his life every sentimental encumbrance: he believed neither in love nor in friendship, nor in any other abstraction of human feeling. And he tried to have as few masters as possible of his destiny.
Is there not an absolute, implacable master, who acts according to his own inscrutable plan, and disposes of mortals, their bodies, their souls, and all their goods at his pleasure? Well, that master is sufficient. There is no need for man, in his brief passage on earth, to create other lesser ones. And therefore no family, no political parties, no jobs, no public offices.
He lived, as we have said, perfectly alone. Every morning, at eight, one of the “nonzoli” of the Basilica of San Marco5 would come to his house, a small, skinny, hairless man, who would bring him black coffee from the nearby Caffè Vittoria, and who would tidy up his house.
Then Dr. Tassini — a big, fat man, with a red face adorned with a thick beard with a handlebar moustache, and a pair of round spectacles — would leave the house to go to the State Archives or the Biblioteca Marciana, or the Correr Museum, as the course of his studies required. He would usually have breakfast at the Osteria dell’Orsetta, in Campo dei Frari, or at some other inn. He favoured, among others, the old “Malvasia” at Ponte dei Greci, for the excellent “vin turco” — a very generous, dense and aromatic wine from the Greek islands subject to Ottoman domination — to which he would usually mix a little “fernet,” to increase its strength and correct its aroma. Even the tavern at the “Antico Pignolo“, in Calle del Forno a San Zulian — an alley that opens onto Calle degli Specchieri, almost opposite the Sottoportico delle Cariole, where Tassini lived — was constantly frequented by our erudite pleasure-seeker.
A great drinker, a formidable eater, in the last years of his life he had become extraordinarily fat, so that walking was quite tiring for him, and he had ended up confining his life to the short stretch that runs between Piazza San Marco and the Ponte della Guerra. After having lunch at the “Pignolo” he would linger in the tavern to play a game of “gilè a la grega” with some of the other patrons of the tavern, modest and simple people, for the most part, with whom he did not disdain at all to converse. Then he would raise his monumental belly, take a walk, go to the Caffè dei Segretari, and then sit in front of the Caffè Vittoria, or the Caffè della Nave in Calle Larga San Marco: In that area there had also been for a long time the Tipografia Fontana, which had printed more than one of Tassini’s works. And so he would often go there to correct his proofs, to have a chat with the printer. When his publication was ready, he would himself take the copies to sell to the tobacconists of the city.
Late in the evening, the erudite good-time fellow would return home alone, or in tow of some nymph, approached while passing by, a place frequented by the vendors of love.
Usually, when he saw a girl, who seemed to suit his taste, he would give her, in passing, a little note, on which he had written his address, and the time of the appointment. He always kept some of these notes ready in his pocket.
One morning, December 22, 1899, the “nonzolo” of San Marco, having arrived with coffee at the old scholar’s house, rang the bell repeatedly without receiving an answer. Since he was well acquainted with the habits of his solitary master, the “nonzolo” sensed a misfortune, ran to call a locksmith, who forced the door. Going up to the flat, he found Tassini stretched out on the floor. He had died of a stroke.
The neighbours, the doctor, the guards, the authorities rushed to check the situation. And a few hours later, a little woman arrived, showing the appointment card.
Thus ended, at the age of seventy-two, the author of “Curiosità Veneziane“.
At that time, Tassini’s sister-in-law, the widow of his brother Giulio, was still living in Teolo, in the province of Padua. But her brother-in-law’s inheritance did not go to her. Several months later, a cousin arrived from America, who liquidated the inheritance, sold houses, fields, books and manuscripts. The books and manuscripts on Venetian subjects were mostly purchased by the Correr Museum; everything else was dispersed among dealers in old books.
Giuseppe Tassini’s bones ended up in the common grave. And Venice has too quickly forgotten the characteristic figure of the old scholar. Not a plaque,6 not a memento, not the name of a street recalls him to the grateful sympathy of his fellow citizens. But his work is worth more than any monument, and especially his delicious, amusing, lively “Curiosità Veneziane” is worth keeping the memory alive and dear.
Footnotes
- Tassini’s grandfather was therefore an original citizen. So was his father, but not Giuseppe Tassini. Disregarding the fact that the Venetian system of citizen classes was no more when he was born, his mother was a foreigner. ↩︎
- Commissioner officers were responsible for logistics, accounting and administration. ↩︎
- This paragraph is rather ambiguous. If both Carlo and Giuseppe Tassini served in the Austrian navy in 1848, but fought “in defence of Venice” during the insurrection of 1848–1849, which side were they on? If they fought against the Austrians, why didn’t they suffer any repercussions after the defeat of the Venetian Democratic Republic? ↩︎
- A law degree in both civil and church law. ↩︎
- A nonzolo was a kind of deacon, who in particular handled the practicalities of funerals. In the Venetian dictionary by Boerio, it is explained as “undertaker.” ↩︎
- A commemorative plaque was placed over the entrance to the sottoportico where Tassini lived, in 1988. ↩︎
Related articles
- Curiosità Veneziane – online, searchable version
- Giuseppe Tassini e la sua opera by Elio Zorzi
- Curiosità Veneziane by Giuseppe Tassini on this site, which includes a list of translated entries.
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