The Venetians are somewhat eccentric and certainly admire eccentricity in others. Strange quirky cults are discovered and adopted by the fashionable elite and then dropped in favor of a new idea. In Venice, a cat could and did become a celebrity.
Towards the end of the last century, in a coffee-shop opposite the Frari church, lived a white cat called Nini. His owner was as shrewd a money-maker as any Venetian and he somehow managed to encourage elite visitors to Venice to call on Nini to make his acquaintance. Eventually, anybody who was somebody visited Nini as a matter of course. The names of her admirers were carefully recorded in a large visitor's book and included the famous composer Verdi, Pope Leo XIII, Tsar Alexander III of Russia, and Prince Paul Metternich of Austria.
Nini's death in 1894 was met with obituaries written by musicians, historians, poets and artists who wrote lines of deep regret for the `gentleman, white of fur, affable with great and small.'
