Daughter of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli Page A

with a head on her shoulders.” Piero looks at Laura with a teasing grin. “No offense, Laura.”
    My knees go weak with relief. They’re here merely to finish the conversation I started at the midday meal.
    Laura smiles and I know she’s feeling the same relief. “How can I take offense from someone incapable of accurately representing Father’s ideas, my poor half-wit brother?” she quips back.
    Piero laughs.
    “Jews are bankers, little sister,” says Francesco. “And they’re bankers who take chances. They lend money to the poor. If they didn’t, there would be even more poor in Venice than there presently are. And we already have way too many beggars. So it’s in Venice’s best interests to let the Jews do what they want, including live where they want.”
    “And it’s not right to force people to live in a given place,” says Piero. “If we want a serene republic, we cannot behave like brutes.”
    “But if that’s the case,” I say, “why was the law passed in the first place?”
    “To appease the Vatican.” Francesco slaps his hands on his knees to accent his words. “We pass a law, the Inquisition is satisfied. Whether we enforce it or not is no one’s business but ours.” He looks at me thoughtfully. “The Holy Office of the Roman Inquisition has an agenda against Protestantism as well. Do you want to know about the Lutherans, too?”
    Lutherans? That’s what the little girl Sara accused me of being. “What have the Lutherans to do with the Jews?”
    “Because of the Pope’s grumblings, the Lutherans haven’t been welcomed into most Venetian neighborhoods,” says Piero. “But the Jews have sheltered them in the Ghetto.”
    “How strange, Jews and Protestants together,” I say.
    “That’s not all,” says Piero. “The Ghetto is a hodgepodge of everyone who doesn’t have Venetian heritage. Jews from Spain and Portugal, Protestants from Holland, Muslims from Constantinople and Salonika and Cairo. Somehow they all manage.”
    “It’s no mystery how,” says Francesco. “They tolerate each other well because they rely on each other for survival. And the Republic of Venice tolerates all of them for the same reason. It’s a question of money, little sister. Tolerance is good business.”
    “But immigrants rarely have money, I thought.”
    “It’s not the immigrants themselves,” says Francesco. “It’s the countries they come from. We trade with Amsterdam and Barcelona and Alexandria. We trade with almost everyone. If Venice mistreats the immigrants, the countries they come from will curtail trade.”
    “We are a tolerant republic,” says Piero. “When a complaint is lodged against a Lutheran, the Tribunal and the Committee on Heresy—as well as the locally chosen Inquisitor—listen carefully and decide whether to investigate, or simply to take measures toward absolution, or, even more simply, to drop the whole matter on the grounds of insufficient evidence.”
    “And the evidence is rarely sufficient,” Francesco says. “Yes, tolerance is good business. As I told you girls the other morning, Venice is practical.” He winks at me, like Father.
    I know Francesco expects me to feel privileged to be part of a discussion that’s supposed to be among men only—and I do, and yet . . . The world that’s been presented to me by Mother, the world that I hear about at church, that world operates on principles that have to do with goodness and godliness. But despite Piero’s talk of not acting like brutes, both brothers spoke mainly of money.
    “Any other questions?” asks Piero. “The tutor is waiting for me.”
    “And for me,” says Francesco. “I’ve returned to my studies. I can’t let Piero outshine me too much at the university next fall.”
    “I have a question,” says Laura. “Can we come listen to your tutor with you?”
    My lips part involuntarily. Never has Laura asked anything so bold.
    Piero looks at Francesco.
    “Why not?” Francesco gives a wry