The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the First

The first volume of Carlo Gozzi's memoirs transports us into the glittering, rotting world of Venice in its final decades. Gozzi, a nobleman without true patrician standing, was also a playwright who fiercely defended the Commedia dell'Arte against the reforms of Carlo Goldoni and the philosophical dramas of Chiari. This memoir is his weapon and confession both. Here he introduces his family, his precarious social position, and immediately plunges into conflict: a dispute with government secretary Pier Antonio Gratarol that becomes a lens for examining Venice's corrupt, theatrical society. Written with sharp wit and wounded pride, these memoirs offer an unapologetic portrait of a city and a culture in decline, seen through the eyes of a man who fought every slight and counted every enemy. For readers drawn to the Venice of Casanova and the last days of the Republic, Gozzi provides something rare: not a tourist's gondola view, but the view from inside the palazzo, resentful and vivid.