in the waning days of venices glory in the mid1700s andrea memmo was scion to one the citys oldest patrician families at the age of twentyfour he fell passionately in love with sixteenyearold giustiniana wynne the beautiful illegitimate daughter of a venetian mother and british father because of their dramatically different positions in society they could not marry and giustinianas mother afraid that an affair would ruin her daughters chances to form a more suitable union forbade them to see each other her prohibition only fueled their desire and so began their torrid secret sevenyearaffair enlisting the aid of a few intimates and servants willing to risk their own positions to shuttle love letters back and forth and to help facilitate their clandestine meetings eventually giustiniana found herself pregnant and she turned for help to the infamous casanovahimself infatuated with her two and half centuries later the unbelievable story of this starcrossed couple is told in a breathtaking narrative recreated in part from the passionate clandestine letters andrea and giustiniana wrote to each other