Nicoleta Nicolotti

This is Nicoleta Nicolotti (23) as I met her at the ancient church of San Trovaso in Dorsoduro, Venice sitting in front of the West facade. San Trovaso is strange (even by Venetian standards) having two almost identical facades to accommodate equal access to the church by the famously violent factions of the Nicoletti and the Castellani (feud documented all the way back to the first Dodge Ziani's time, in the twelfth century). Each of the groups was ready and willing to start a fight with at any, even so slight excuse, but there would be no fighting in the church, so two separate entrances were built. Nicoleta told me that there is really no saint called San Trovaso, Venetians made it up by squishing two or three saint's names (like they did with Zanipolo), but this is where she was baptised, had her first communion and this is where she planned to marry Ciccio Grassetti and, in time, have their kids baptised too. Nicoleta told me that Ciccio's family was from Cannaregio, parish of Madonna dell'Orto, and thus, theoretically, a Castellano, and she had not yet brought up the subject of which church they'll have the ceremony at, was actually afraid to do so. "What if he doesn't want San Trovaso?" she asked me. I said: "C'mon girl, this is 2016, are you kidding me? You love each other and will find a way".  She sighed a desperate, deep heartbreaking sigh and said: "How little you know of Venice". I took her for coffee and a pastry at Tonolo's, by San Pantalon.