. It is certain,
however, that a coffee shop was opened in Venice in 1683 under the
_Procuratie Nuove_. The famous Caffe Florian was opened in Venice by
Floriono Francesconi in 1720.

The first authoritative treatise devoted to coffee only appeared in
1671. It was written in Latin by Antoine Faustus Nairon (1635-1707),
Maronite professor of the Chaldean and Syrian languages in the College
of Rome.

During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the first half of
the eighteenth, the coffee house made great progress in Italy. It is
interesting to note that this first European adaptation of the Oriental
coffee house was known as a _caffe_. The double _f_ is retained by the
Italians to this day, and by some writers is thought to have been taken
from _coffea_, without the double _f_ being lost, as in the case of the
French and some other Continental forms.

To Italy, then, belongs the honor of having given to the Western world
the real coffee house, although the French and Austrians greatly
improved upon it. It was not long after its beginning that nearly every
shop on the Piazza di San Marco in Venice was a _caffe_[41]. Near the
Piazza was the Caffe della Ponte dell' Angelo, where in 1792 died the
dog Tabacchio, celebrated by Vincenzo Formaleoni in a satirical eulogy
that is a parody of the oration of Ubaldo Bregolini upon the death of
Angelo Emo.

In the Caffe della Spaderia, kept by Marco Ancilloto, some radicals
proposed to open a reading-room to encourage the spread of liberal
ideas. The inquisitors sent a foot-soldier to notify the proprietor that
he should inform the first person entering the room that he was to
present himself before their tribunal. The idea was thereupon abandoned.

[Illustration: GOLDONI IN A VENETIAN CAFFE

From a painting by P. Longhi]

Among other celebrated coffee houses was the one called Menegazzo, from
the name of the rotund proprietor, Menico. This place was much
frequented by men of letters; and heated discussions were common there
between Angelo Maria Barbaro, Lorenzo da Ponte, and others of their
time.

The coffee house gradually became the common resort of all classes. In
the mornings came the merchants, lawyers, physicians, brokers, workers,
and wandering venders; in the afternoons, and until the late hours of
the nights, the leisure classes, including the ladies.

For the most part, the rooms of the first Italian _caffe_ were low,
simple, unadorned, without windows,