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Updated: June 3, 2025
Nay, he realized that he was rather sorry for this man advanced in years and grown a trifle foolish, who sat facing him with a sparse white beard and red-rimmed eyes, and whose skinny hand trembled as he held his cup. The last time Casanova had seen him, Bragadino had probably been about as old as Casanova was to-day; but even then, to Casanova, Bragadino had seemed an old man.
He glided with her through mysterious, narrow canals, between palaces in whose shadows he was once more at home, under high-arched bridges which blurred figures were swiftly crossing. Many of the wayfarers glanced down for a moment over the parapet, and vanished ere their faces could be discerned. Now the gondola drew alongside. A marble stairway led up to the stately mansion of Senator Bragadino.
Bragadino, the defender of Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a passion of anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each individual of which it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his own life would be but a small thing if it only led to the destruction of such fiends as those against whom they were arrayed.
Spain, Venice, Naples, and Malta united their naval forces to succor Cyprus; but Famagosta had already surrendered, notwithstanding the heroic defense of Bragadino, who was perfidiously flayed alive by Mustapha's order, to avenge the death of forty thousand Turks that had perished in the space of two years spent on the island.
But the missive contained no more than a few lines from Bragadino, enclosing a draft for two hundred and fifty lire, in order that Casanova, should he have made up his mind to accept, might instantly set out for Venice. Turning to the hostess, Casanova explained with an air of well-simulated vexation that he was unfortunately compelled to continue his journey instantly.
He disembarked at the Rialto Bridge, for, before visiting Signor Bragadino, he wished to make sure of a room in a modest hostelry nearby he knew where it was, though he could not recall the name. The place seemed more decayed, or at least more neglected, than he remembered it of old.
During the whole of the sixteenth century, even up to the seventeenth and beyond, we see them in Dalmatia, in the Morea, over the entire Mediterranean, defending the soil inch by inch against the infidels. The garrison of Famagouste yields only to famine, and its governor, Bragadino, burned alive, is a hero of ancient days.
Most of them were young men, and many of their names were those which Bragadino had mentioned in the morning as belonging to persons of suspicious character. But the name of Casanova did not produce upon his new acquaintances the effect which he felt himself entitled to anticipate.
A young servingman with a rather impudent manner took in Casanova's name in a way which implied that its celebrity had no meaning for him. Returning from his master's apartments with a more civil demeanor, he bade the guest enter. Bragadino was seated at breakfast beside the open window, and made as if to rise; but Casanova begged him not to disturb himself.
Right in front of them lay, at the distance of not more than seventy miles, visible from Casius in clear weather, the large and important island, once known as Chittim, and afterwards as Cyprus, which played so important a part in the history of the East from the time of Sargon and Sennacherib to that of Bragadino and Mustapha Pasha.
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