Hugo PRATT Fable of Venice India ink and felt pen on paper for the final panel of this album published in 1981 by Casterman. Story pre-published in the Italian weekly L'Europeo, under the title Favola di Venezia, from June to December 1977. Text in Italian. Colouring in watercolour on verso. 62 x 47 cm A magnificent plate, emblematic of this album - one of the most complex and captivating in Hugo Pratt's oeuvre. The Venice he depicts, and which he knows so well because it is associated with memories of his childhood, is that of the Old Ghetto (the Ghetto Vecchio where the Jews had to settle at the beginning of the 16th century), with its labyrinthine alleys where the light is scarce and its back alleys that can only be seen by the initiated, Esoteric inscriptions on the walls that few can decipher, Masonic lodges, doors that are rarely opened, and behind which lies a secret world of poetry, philosophy and mysterious stories. Such a place, an incomparable crossroads of Judeo-Christian, Orthodox and Byzantine cultures, could only suit Corto Maltese, who loves nothing so much as the elusive. In the third strip, first box, Pratt alludes to Shakespeare: "We are the stuff / Of which dreams are made" (The Tempest, IV, 1). Provenance: Nuages Gallery, Milan Hugo PRATT