As his business flourished, Smith purchased Palazzo Balbi, which he had rented ever since his arrival in Venice, and commissioned the architect Antonio Visentini, a friend and protégé, to renovate the façade. After some plotting within the English community in Venice and a great deal of pleading with the government in London, he eventually obtained the consular title in 1740. Much to his chagrin, he never became the British Resident (ambassador).
Consul Smith would probably have long faded into history had he not branched out into art and become one of the greatest dealers of his time. He made a habit of visiting artists, many of whom had studios a short walk away from his home. Smith had a good eye, and he delighted in friendly haggling. His collection included beautiful allegorical paintings from Sebastiano Ricci and Giovan Battista Tiepolo, grand vistas by Francesco Guardi, intimate scenes of Venetian life by Pietro Longhi, and several exquisite portraits by Rosalba Carriera. But his special admiration was reserved for Canaletto’s clean and detailed views of the city, and over the years he developed a close professional relationship with the great Venetian vedutista.
Smith combined the eye of an art lover with the mind of a merchant. He realized he was living at the heart of an extraordinary artistic flowering and was in a unique position to turn his patronage into a profitable business. He commissioned works from his favorite artists and sold them to wealthy English aristocrats just as the fashion of collecting art was spreading. (He was so successful in marketing his beloved Canaletto that the artist eventually moved to London to paint views of the Thames for his growing clientèle.) In the process, Smith built up his own collection, enriching it with important paintings by old masters. Works by Bellini, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Rubens adorned the walls of his palazzo. Books, perhaps even more than paintings, were his true passion. He purchased valuable editions of the great classics as well as original manuscripts and drawings, and he participated directly in the publishing boom that was taking place in Venice. Smith invested in Giovan Battista Pasquali’s printing shop and bookstore, and together they published the works of Locke, Montesquieu, Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot and his fellow Encyclopédistes (the first volumes of the revolutionary Encyclopédie appeared in 1751). Pasquali’s shop soon became a favorite gathering place for the growing Venetian book crowd. “After having enjoyed the fresh air and shared the pleasures of Saint Mark’s Square,” wrote the French traveler Pierre Jean Grosley, “we would go to Pasquali’s shop or to some other bookseller. These shops serve as the usual meeting point for foreigners and noblemen. Conversations are often seasoned with that Venetian salt which borrows a great deal from Greek atticism and French gaiety without being either.”5
Smith’s drawing room was, in a way, an extension of Pasquali’s shop in more elegant surroundings. It was the center of the small English community (and it somehow never lost its touch of English quaintness). But more important, it was a place where artists, intellectuals, and Venetian patricians could congregate in an atmosphere of enlightened conviviality. Carlo Goldoni dedicated one of his plays—Il filosofo inglese—to Smith. In his flattering introduction, he wrote: “All those who enter your house find the most perfect union of all the sciences and all the arts. You are not a lover who merely gazes with admiration but a true connoisseur who is keen to share the meaning and beauty of the art around him. Your good taste, your perfect knowledge have inspired you to choose the most beautiful things, and the courage of your generous spirit has moved you to purchase them.”6 Andrea spent many happy days at Palazzo Balbi. It was in the consul’s library that he learned his Vitruvius, studied Palladian drawings, and pored over the latest volume of the Encyclopédie (he got into the habit of copying out long passages to better absorb the spirit of French Enlightenment). Smith, his only child having died so many years earlier, developed a genuine affection for Andrea and as he grew older came to depend on him as a confidant and assistant. By 1750 he was already in his seventies. He had lost his sure touch in business transactions, and his weakened finances would only get worse. Having no heir and less and less money, he conjured up the deal of his lifetime—an ambitious plan to sell his huge art collection and his library to the British Crown.7 He enlisted Andrea to help him catalogue all his paintings and books.
Under the influence of Goldoni, Andrea also developed a strong interest in the theater. During the season, which ran from October through May, he went to the theater practically every night. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the raucous debate that was raging between conservative and progressive critics. Though Goldoni was twenty years older than Andrea, he enjoyed the young man’s company, regarding him not just as a promising member of the ruling class but also as a possible ally in his crusade in favor of plays that were closer to the everyday life of Venetians. In 1750 he dedicated his Momolo cortesan to Andrea, telling him he hoped that together they would “rid the stage of the obscene and ill-conceived plays”8 produced by his conservative rivals. With Goldoni’s encouragement, Andrea started to work in earnest on the idea of opening a new theater entirely dedicated to French plays, from Molière’s classics to the light comedies of Marivaux. The goal, he said, was “to improve our own theater … and lift the common spirit in an honest way.”9
While Andrea waited patiently for his turn to serve as a junior official in the Venetian government, his days were filled with his work for Smith, his new theater project, and the increasing load of family responsibilities being thrust upon his shoulders by his aging uncle. There was still plenty of time for evening strolls and gallantries in Campo Santo Stefano and Piazza San Marco, late-night discussions in the coffeehouses and malvasìe (wine shops that specialized in the sale of malmsey) and even the occasional trip to the Ridotto—though Andrea was never much of a gambler and went there mostly to meet friends and survey the scene.
Among his new friends was Giacomo Casanova, who returned to Venice in 1752 after his first trip to Paris. He and the three Memmo brothers were often seen together at one of the popular malvasìe, where they drank until late, played cards, and boisterously panned the latest play by the Abbé Pietro Chiari, Goldoni’s chief conservative rival. Andrea’s mother was not happy about her sons’ friendship with Casanova. She saw him as a dangerous atheist with low morals who was bound to corrupt her children, and she alerted the authorities through her political connections. It turned out that the Inquisitori di Stato—the secretive three-member committee that oversaw internal security—viewed Casanova much in the same light and were already compiling a hefty dossier on him. Indeed, the band of merry revelers was being watched by the few shopworn informers still on the government payroll, one of whom confidently explained in his report that what bound Casanova and his friends was the fact that “they are philosophers of the same ilk … Epicureans all.”10
In spite of his busy life and his many distractions, Andrea’s sense of duty to the Republic was so ingrained in his mind that he saw his passion for architecture, his love of the theater, and his knowledge of painting and drawing not as ends unto themselves but as additional endowments that he would put to practical use during his public service. It did not occur to him to seek a different road from the one his uncle Andrea had set for him. He clearly considered marriage from the same perspective. Before meeting Giustiniana, Andrea had enjoyed a number of affairs. He loved the company of women and from a young age was much in demand among his female friends—he was also quite a dancer, which helped. But he had had no great romance or lasting relationship. He knew and accepted the fact that he was bound to marry a young woman from his own social class and that the families would seal the marriage after long negotiations that would have little to do with the feelings of the bride and the groom. Everything young men like Andrea had been taught at home “underscored the irrationality of choices made solely on the basis of sentimental feelings.”11
Andrea’s