First installment of a project that I anticipate will be lengthy and, I hope, fruitful: Fantastic Guide to Ca'a Querini Stampalia (Querini StampaliaFoundation.)

Characterization test of the protagonist of Antonio Vivaldi's melodrama entitled “Il mercante del quartiere di Pera” (1730), recently discovered and acquired by the Querini Stampalia Foundation. The libretto focuses on the vicissitudes of Alvise Candioto, a Venetian navigator and merchant of Cretan origin with a shop in ancient Constantinople. The plot unfolds in the years before and after the conquest of the city by Sultan Mehmet II Fede in 1453.