While I was in Venice, I read Henry James’s novella, The Aspern Papers. Set in Venice and published in 1888, it is narrated by an unnamed American man who is devoted to the memory of a fictional American poet, Jeffrey Aspern. The narrator comes to Venice in search of Aspern’s long-lost papers, which are reportedly in the possession of the lover of Aspern’s youth, now an elderly woman living in Venice. By placing the home of the woman and her niece in a remote, run down palace on a side canal, James introduces readers to the quiet corners and hidden alleyways of Venice, far from the bustle and crowds of San Marco and the Grand Canal. The idea for The Aspern Papers came to James after he heard a story about an American who schemed to obtain letters of Byron and Shelley, and who became entangled in a marriage offer in exchange for the letters. James wrote The Aspern Papers while a guest at Palazzo Barbaro, a home on the Grand Canal just off the Accademia Bridge.
James was frequently hosted by the American couple Daniel and Ariana Curtis at Palazzo Barbaro, one of several sites where the American intellectual elite gathered in Venice. The social life that wealthy traveling Americans likely experienced while in Venice in the late nineteenth century would have contrasted starkly to the hermit-like existence James creates in the lives of Juliana Bordereau and her niece Miss Tina in The Aspern Papers.Here are some pictures I took outside Palazzo Barbaro - the main entrance, decorative grillwork over the door, and even the door knocker. The Palazzo is directly on the Grand Canal, but the rear side of the house, adjacent to the side canal, is a lovely, quiet alcove.
