Queer Places:
Palazzo Vendramin ai Carmini, Fondamenta Foscarini, 3462, 30123 Venezia VE
Cimitero di San Michele Venice, Città Metropolitana di Venezia, Veneto, Italy

Victor Cunard (Febbraio 8, 1898 - August 28, 1960) was a diplomat and the London Times correspondent in Venice, where he had an apartment in the Palazzo Vendramin Calergi ai Carmini, which he rescued from an antique dealer. He served in the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office, 1941-46. In 1935 he co-authored the play Golden Arrow, with Sylvia Thompson.

In December 1918 he began a casual affair with Harold Nicolson. Cunard was twenty years old, brash in manner, exuding self-confidence, and was openly gay. Nicolson stayed with him in Lord Cunard's house in Leicester then invited him to Knole. Vita Sackville-West described Cunard in a letter to her husband as "a nice, easy, pleasant ineffectual little thing." When Nicolson went to stay with Cunard in Venice, his wife Vita wrote warning him that Ezra Pound was also in the city. She advised him to avoid a meeting or the enraged American poet might well challenge him to a duel.

He was the son of Sir Gordon Cunard, 4th Baronet and Edith Mary Howard. He was the brother of Sir Edward Cunard, 5th Baronet and Anthony Gordon Cunard.

Djuna Barnes biographer Phillip Herring describes how Cunard helped Barnes prior to her coming to Devon: "Barnes's decision to leave Paris for Hayford Hall was precipitated by a frightening attack of asthma at 5.00 A.M., which, as described to Natalie Barney, caused her hair to stand on end and her heart to pound in her chest. She took a taxi to her friend Victor Cunard, who got her coffee, held her hand, and sent his servant for their medical friend Dan Mahoney. Apparently the attack was not serious, but Peggy Guggenheim suggested that Barnes pack a bag and go with her to England". Cunard was the cousin of Nancy Cunard (1896-1965), daughter of Sir Bache Cunard, heir to the Cunard shipping line.

It was to the borrowed apartment of Victor Cunard, that Robert Heber-Percy first accompanied Lord Berners abroad. Cunard was also one of Dolly Wilde's closest friends.

References:

Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World Paperback – November 21, 2017 by Gregory Woods

Other references:

• Rough Draft: The Modernist Diaries of Emily Holmes Coleman, 1929-1937 Elizabeth Podnieks Lexington Books, Mar 21, 2012
• Building: Letters 1960-1975 Isaiah Berlin Random House, Aug 31, 2013
• Zelda Fitzgerald: The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess Sally Cline Skyhorse, Jan 12, 2012
• Loved Ones: Pen Portraits Diana Mosley Sidgwick & Jackson, Jan 1, 1985
• Harold Nicolson: 1930-1968 James Lees-Milne Archon Books, 1982

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