Why I love Venice

No city can boast such an array of anecdotal treats as Venice.  One I discovered today, courtesy of Lord Norwich in his 2003 work Paradise of Cities - Venice and its Nineteenth Century Visitors, concerns Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. Having been banished by Richard II in 1398, he stopped in Venice in search of a galley to take him in pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but died of the plague.  His instructions to have his body returned to England were ignored until 1532 when Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke (and uncle of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard), appealed to the Venetian Ambassador to return his ancestor.  The request was granted but the ornate tombstone was left behind, and set into the wall of the Doge's Palace amongst the various pieces of plunder that adorn the city.  There it remained until 1810, when the occupying French ordered the English coat of arms to be defaced.  The mason paid to do the work (Domenico Spiera was his name - how it survives astounds me) avoided the act of vandalism by simply placing the stone face down in the pavement.  It was recovered in 1839 by Rawdon Brown and returned to Mr Henry Howard of Corby Castle, near Carlisle, and the stone is still there.  

One reason for these remarkable stories is that the Republic of Venice kept more detailed and thorough records than any state in Europe.  Paradoxically, the same cannot be said for its artists, who remain (due to the scarcity of documentary evidence) some of the most illusive figures in Italian painting.