Michel de Montaigne in Venice (1533-1592)

Michel de Montaigne Ten years after resigning his position as Councillor to the Parliament of Bordeaux to retire to his “library”, where he had already written the first two books of his Essays, Montaigne embarked on a journey to Italy that would last seventeen months.

Montaigne had an “extreme hunger to see Venice”

"He could not rest in Rome or anywhere else in Italy without having seen Venice."
Montaigne - Journal de Voyage

The Boat, the Only Means of Access

On 4 November 1580, he arrived in Fusine, a town on the mainland from where one embarks for Venice.

He gives us an idea of the techniques of the time:

La Chafousine, twenty miles away, where we had dinner.

It is just an inn where you get into the water to go to Venice.

All the boats dock along this river, with devices and pulleys turned by two horses in the manner of those who turn oil mills.

Michel de Montaigne These boats are carried away on wheels placed underneath them, over a wooden floor, and thrown into the canal that leads to the sea where Venice is situated.”
Michel de Montaigne

Diplomats and Suspects

He is received by the French Ambassador, who complains about the Venetians' distrust of foreign diplomats: any patrician who dares to associate with them on a regular basis is banished from the city...

He can only meet people and enter their homes during the Carnival period, when everyone is wearing masks.

The rest of the time, his contacts and information came only from servants and courtesans... who also informed the State Inquisitors of the Serenissima!

This is not surprising, given that at the time Venice was fighting hard to maintain its political independence and economic interests.

Female beauty is not on display

Edition of the Essays, annotated by Michel de Montaigne

Les Essais annotés “He did not find the famous beauty attributed to the ladies of Venice, and saw the most noble of those who traffic in it.

But it seemed to him as admirable as anything else to see such a number, about one hundred and fifty, spending money on furniture and clothes fit for princesses, having no other means of support than this trade; and many of the nobility there even had courtesans at their expense, with the knowledge and consent of the authorities.

Having no other means of supporting themselves than this trade; and many of the nobility there even have courtesans at their expense, in full view of everyone.”

Montaigne and Courtly Poetry

Similarly, Veronica Franco, the elegant courtesan and poetess praised for the languor with which she sang of love, at whose house he dined in Santa Maria Formosa, and of whom he merely notes that this “gentilfame Venetian, sent him a small book of letters she had composed; he gave two écus to the said home.”
Salvy - Un Carnet vénitien

Veronica Franco, who had retired from business at the time, was number 204 out of the 215 listed in the Catalogue of the Most Famous and Honoured Courtesans of Venice.

The average price charged by the lady was two écus.

Montaigne does not give any more...

Montaigne, 7 days in Venice

For the rest, he is a man in poor health (Montaigne has kidney problems and suffers from colic three days after his arrival) who complains about his accommodation, the smell of the canals and talks much more about his small expenses than about what there is to discover in Venice.

Montaigne, dictating to his secretary, dispenses with describing it: “Moreover, the rarities of this city are well known.”

Michel de Montaigne He found her “other than he had imagined and a little less admirable, he recognised her in all her particularities with extreme diligence.

The police, the situation, the arsenal, St. Mark's Square and the press of foreign peoples seemed to him the most remarkable things.”

…For an Unenthusiastic Assessment

On 12 November, Montaigne left Venice, where “food is as expensive as in Paris”.

But one can save money on service in “the city of the world where one lives best, especially since the retinue of servants is completely useless to us, each of us going about our business alone, and the expense of clothing is the same; and then, you don't need a horse.”
Montaigne - Travel Journal (Published in 1774)

Montaigne is very laconic about this Renaissance Venice, recognised and admired by the great minds of the time, this powerful republic chosen by printers and humanists, such as Erasmus.

Illness and the autumn climate may have prompted Le Seigneur de Montaigne to leave too soon...

Venice and Etienne de La Boétie

His best friend praised the Venetians for rejecting feudalism:
“Anyone who saw the Venetians, a handful of people living so freely that the most miserable among them would not want to be king, born and raised in such a way that they know no other ambition than to maintain their freedom, educated and trained from the cradle in such a way that they would not exchange a shred of their freedom for all the other pleasures of the earth...”

“He, I say, who would see these people, and then go to the estate of some "great lord", and found people there who were born only to serve him and who gave up their own lives to maintain his power, would he think that these two peoples were of the same nature, or would he not rather believe that, having left a city of men, he had entered a park of beasts?”
La Boétie - Discourse on Voluntary Servitude