An operatic soprano, born in Venice. She leased a house in Soho Square which became London’s entertainment hotspot, specialising in masked balls and banquets. Her concerts featured Johann Christian Bach. She introduced a one-way traffic system to control the crowds flocking to her venue. She had a child by Casanova. At one point she controlled all the theatres in The Austrian Netherlands. She was imprisoned for debt in Paris, after which she returned to England under a false name and died of breast cancer in Fleet debtors’ prison. Mentioned by Laurence Sterne, Dickens, Thackeray and Tobias Smollett.