All the Lost Places

Discuss Dante’s words at the end of the story about price versus worth:

“The question is not the price of a man,” he said. “That has already been paid. The question . . . is that of a man’s worth. His value. Not quantum . . . but precium.”

What do you think the difference between price and worth is? How might this have spoken to Daniel as he uncovered this tale?

Sebastien is deeply moved by the statue of Moses, with Aaron and Hur holding up Moses’s arms in battle:

“He knew something of this story—what it was to be caught up by those around. To be held up as the world crumbled beneath you, and to be strengthened for the very thing you were made to do . . . all because of the hands of others. Elena. Dante. Pietro. Valentina. Giuseppe. They had gripped him, reared him, pulled him from waters, pulled him up from mire.”

Have you experienced the gift of being “held up” by others? How and when?

In what other ways does Sebastien’s life echo that of Moses?

What do you think the symbolism might be of Sebastien holding the former Doge’s scepter out to Massimo as a means of rescue in the last scene?

What do you make of Massimo?

Dante and Elena have a few interchanges on page. Do you think they could have a future together?

What do you think about Daniel witnessing the crafting of a mosaic in the refectory, right beneath the giant blank canvas where a work of art once stood?

If you visited Venice and had to choose between:

(a) exploring the canals for the day in a gondola, or

(b) hopping from island to island in the outer lagoon isles and exploring, which would you choose?

When Sebastien became the boatman in the House of Fedele, what do you suppose he and Mariana wrote in the letters they slid under each other’s doors?

Based on the clues in chapter 36, who do you think painted the picture of Mariana at the masquerade? How would that person have been there?

Mariana tells Pietro’s grandchildren that she would love nothing more than to be a mother someday. Having read the story, you know that this was one of Mariana’s “lost places”—something that never happened for her. And yet in her lost place, she poured her love for children into books for generations to come and changed the lives of countless people, including the son of one of those children who was there when she confided her dream.

What do you think she would feel if she could see the fruits of what she poured her lost dream into?

Vittoria says to Daniel, “You are always a mystery. One has to work to invite your words up. Build a staircase with questions, that they might climb out. I . . . am like a floodgate that has lost its gate. A flood of words!”

Which description do you relate to more? Or are you somewhere in between?

Contrast the concept of rebuilding “Com’era, Dov’era.”—As it was, where it was—with the concept of a mosaic artist. The monk who lays mosaics in the story explains it like this: “Mosaic . . . it is the art of empty spaces. Broken things, harvested as treasure and pieced together into something entirely . . . different. Old, but new. Broken, but whole.”

What are the differences between Mosaic and Com’era, Dov’era? And what can we learn from them?

Compare and contrast Daniel to both Massimo and Sebastien. What things did he share with each of the men who came before him? What do you think he learned from each of them as he translated their story?

Consider lives who have come before you and influenced or taught you, either in history or through personal connection. How do you hope your own life might touch others?