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HelenJB
Registered User
(10/3/01 7:01:22 am)
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Venetian fairy tale
I'm looking for an English version of a Venetian fairy tale about the Doge, Messere Valeriano, a builder called Bindo who repairs the campanilo and a treasure chamber with a secret entrance. It's called the "thieves who got into the treasure chamber of the Doge of Venice" in the German version I have. I'Ve no idea whether this is the right place to look but who knows.... I'd appreciate any information!
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Heidi
Unregistered User
(10/4/01 1:54:49 pm)
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No clue, unfortunately
Helen,
Please don't feel ignored. I am afraid I do not know of an English version of the tale you mentioned.
I'll keep my ears and eyes open!
Heidi
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Helen
Registered User
(10/5/01 3:05:31 am)
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Tanith Lee ...
I don't know if this is due to synchronicity, or to the fact that I have a one-track mind, or what ... but, once again, I find myself recommending a work by Tanith Lee; I don't know if her work is necessarily based on the work in question, but her _Faces Under Water_ does possess many of the same elements that you've described (Venice, secret rooms, etc.). This could be attributed to Venice being one of those settings which inspires, nay, *deserves* a secret room (as London requires fog, and Paris a room with dainty gilt furniture, and possibly a modiste for atmosphere), but perhaps she, too, has read your tale. Perhaps she might make note of it (or a collection of Italien fairy tales which might contain it) in her bibliography? I'd check, but it's one of the books that I've left in storage. Would you happen to know who authored - or translated - the German version?
Hope this helps,
Helen
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Midori
Unregistered User
(10/5/01 4:34:41 am)
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searching
Helen,
I too am a bit stumped. I have been looking through the collections I have and am not coming up with anything. Because the Valeriano name is a very old and revered one in Venetian history, my hunch is that the tale is one of those literate sort of stories included in some Renaissance collection by Straparola or Matteo Bandello, a 15th century writer who liked to include a lot of "historical" tales in his wiritings (which isn't to say that weren't liberally spiced with imagination and fun). There a few translations in English: T.G. Griffith: "Bandello's Fictions" (1955) K. Hartley, "Bandello and the Heptameron" (1960) and R. Pruvost, "Matteo Brundell and Elizabethan fiction"(1937). But of course, these are just wild guesses that it is from Bandello...for although he came from Milan, he traveled quite a bit and served as a secretary to the Venetian general Cesare Fregoso....
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