I embarked from St:  Mark’s landing.  M. Grimani had given me ten sequins, which he thought would keep me during my stay in the lazzaretto of Ancona for the necessary quarantine, after which it was not to be supposed that I could want any money.  I shared Grimani’s certainty on the subject, and with my natural thoughtlessness I cared nothing about it.  Yet I must say that, unknown to everybody, I had in my purse forty bright sequins, which powerfully contributed to increase my cheerfulness, and I left Venice full of joy and without one regret.

MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

Venetian years, Volume 1b—­A cleric in Naples

The rare unabridged London edition of 1894 translated by Arthur Machen to which has been added the chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.

A CLERIC IN NAPLES

CHAPTER VIII

My Misfortunes in Chiozza—­Father Stephano—­The Lazzaretto at Ancona—­The Greek Slave—­My Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loretto—­I Go to Rome on Foot, and From Rome to Naples to Meet the Bishop—­I Cannot Join Him—­Good Luck Offers Me the Means of Reaching Martorano, Which Place I Very Quickly Leave to Return to Naples

The retinue of the ambassador, which was styled “grand,” appeared to me very small.  It was composed of a Milanese steward, named Carcinelli, of a priest who fulfilled the duties of secretary because he could not write, of an old woman acting as housekeeper, of a man cook with his ugly wife, and eight or ten servants.

We reached Chiozza about noon.  Immediately after landing, I politely asked the steward where I should put up, and his answer was: 

“Wherever you please, provided you let this man know where it is, so that he can give you notice when the peotta is ready to sail.  My duty,” he added, “is to leave you at the lazzaretto of Ancona free of expense from the moment we leave this place.  Until then enjoy yourself as well as you can.”

The man to whom I was to give my address was the captain of the peotta.  I asked him to recommend me a lodging.

“You can come to my house,” he said, “if you have no objection to share a large bed with the cook, whose wife remains on board.”

Unable to devise any better plan, I accepted the offer, and a sailor, carrying my trunk, accompanied me to the dwelling of the honest captain.  My trunk had to be placed under the bed which filled up the room.  I was amused at this, for I was not in a position to be over-fastidious, and, after partaking of some dinner at the inn, I went about the town.  Chiozza is a peninsula, a sea-port belonging to Venice, with a population of ten thousand inhabitants, seamen, fishermen, merchants, lawyers, and government clerks.