The newly risen sun traces golden blades on the waters of the Grand Canal, while the gondola carrying Lorenzo glides toward the Morosini residence, austere as a sentence. Behind the marble and tapestry façade, the palace hosts meetings that speak not only of trade, but of hidden strategies and fragile alliances. Eastern merchants move through the halls, bearing stones that shine like coins of power, while Morosini observes them with the coldness of one who knows that each gem is worth far more than its weight.
Lorenzo is ushered into the private study, amidst maps, locked ledgers, and a meticulously laid table. Breakfast becomes a pretext and a ritual, an opportunity to ask questions and insinuate answers, with words that carry more weight than bread or wine. In that exchange, glimpses of truth and suspicion emerge: untold names, unwritten debts, marks someone has left like wounds on the body of a poor man.
But Venice is never innocent. Every sentence becomes a clue, every glance a warning, and Lorenzo understands that what lies before him is not simply a crime to be solved: it is a larger game, where records matter as much as swords and silence can kill as much as a dagger.
In the Morosini residence, amid dealings with Eastern merchants and a flawless breakfast table, the enigma emerges of a glassblower disguised as a doge and an account book capable of toppling noble houses
Stories. 1572 Carnival of Blood. Chapter 6: Breakfast with Power
The Grand Canal was a blade of water over which the sun was just beginning to pass its edge. The palaces, motionless and severe, seemed to watch the morning boats with the weary air of those who have seen too many nights and too many dawns. The gondola carrying Lorenzo cut through the slow surface, leaving wakes that closed quickly behind it, as if the city did not wish to keep any trace of his passage.
When the boat veered before the Morosini façade, Lorenzo felt a shiver that did not come from the wind. That palazzo was not merely a patrician’s home: it was the physical embodiment of a power that never apologized. The Gothic mullioned windows opened like marble eyes, the balconies displayed Oriental tapestries that the sea salt could not fade, and the white stone, carved into arches, told of centuries of money and strategy. Every block seemed to say: here no one is safe, unless he belongs to us.
A servant in crimson-and-gold livery extended his hand to help him disembark.
No smile, no words. Only a swift gesture—learned and repeated a thousand times—that meant more than a speech: you are expected, you are welcome, you are useful.The inner hall was a place of contrasts: cool and solemn, with columns rising like the trunks of a petrified forest. On carved chests lay caskets and textiles from distant ports: damasks from Bursa, silks from Smyrna, spices sealed in majolica jars. The air smelled of incense and damp wood, with a subtle note of burned beeswax.....
