The thing about Venice is that the town planning is so mad—who designed this place? M.C. Escher?—that every single outing feels like a journey, which means that every single destination feels like a discovery. And actually, the thing about Venice is that they all feel like your discovery, as if nobody has ever made that discovery before, even though Venice has been around for a long time, and everyone who has ever been is obsessed with it.
I love Venice. I love the romance of it. I love the salty mornings and the misty evenings and the tiny narrow alleys that twist in on themselves until they burst open into some sun-drenched piazza where a huddle of old Italian men in pleat-front trousers are drinking espressos and talking nonsense. I love the way that Google maps just doesn’t work there; it’s given up. You have to surrender yourself to the city and walk until you get somewhere. Sometimes you get to where you’re actually going—Osteria Al Portego, for little plates of cichetti— and sometimes you don’t.
The time before I was last in Venice was in the claustrophobic heat of June, when I willingly paid [redacted] euros for the use of a hotel swimming pool, just to cool down. It was on this trip one afternoon when I found it: Gianni Basso Stampatore. A tiny, historic printing shop filled with stiff, clotted cream-coloured business cards and letterheads, stamped with artful logos in coloured ink. Intricate columns, lions on the prowl, seahorses with individual scales painstakingly drawn on. These etchings were arresting, but I cannot lie. It was the names underneath them that really caught my eye: Ben Affleck. Angelina Jolie. Hugh Grant. (His logo is a winged lion atop an open book; your guess is as good as mine.)
Of course I bought some. A consultation with owner Gianni, flicking through his examples—Ben Affleck has a film camera, so cliche—helped narrow things down. I wanted my name, printed underneath an inky, navy blue shell, on neat cards about the size of a block of Tony’s Chocolonely. A few weeks later, the box arrived at my flat: 200 custom-printed cards and 200 envelopes, thick and elegant and immaculate. And everyone has got their ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘Congratulations on your engagement/baby’ messages on my special, personalised stationery ever since.
I know that Gianni isn’t my discovery. That he’s been doing this for decades; that he’s the literal stationer to the stars. I know this. But I still get a special, secret thrill every time I put pen to my paper. Nothing in my life has ever felt as luxurious. And they are a true luxury: Indulgent, egotistical—did I mention these cards have my actual name branded right across the top?—chic and Italian. They are also expensive, which all pleasures ought to be if they possibly can. But only a little. I can afford this luxury. I just need to find my way back to Venice so that I can buy some more.