Venice Preserved

'Venice Preserved' is an English Restoration play written by Thomas Otway, and the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s. The book follows Jaffeir, a noble but impoverished Venetian, who secretly married Belvidera, the daughter of a proud senator named Priuli, who has cut off her inheritance. Jaffeir's friend Pierre, a foreign soldier, stokes Jaffeir's resentment and entices him into a plot against the Senate of Venice. Pierre's own reasons for plotting against the Senate revolve around another senator (the corrupt, foolish Antonio) paying for relations with Pierre's mistress, Aquilina.