Giustina Renier Michiel

[1] She learned English, French, Music, Art, Math and Natural History when she was sent to a convent of Capuchin nuns at Treviso at the age of three.

[3] Though she only stayed one year she made a profound impression on the Roman society and was given the nickname Venerina Veneziana, Venetian Venus.

Because the people refused to accept his wife Margherita Delmaz, a dancer, as a dogaressa, Giustina Renier Michiel had to step in.

[4] There was a particularly Venetian character to her salon and it was frequented by well-known literary figures such as Ippolito Pindemonte, Marina Querini Benzon, Ugo Foscolo, Giustiniana Wynne (Countess Rosenberg), the French Madame de Staël and the English Lord Byron.

Vittorio Malamani had said that her guests often arrived after midnight once the theater finished in order to discuss the works that they had just seen and to play "society games.

"[3] When Napoleon invaded Venice, she closed her salon and pursued the study of botany and the publishing of her Shakespeare translations for the next ten years.