Venice Preserv'd is an English Restoration play written by Thomas Otway, and the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s. It was first staged in 1682, with Thomas Betterton as Jaffeir and Elizabeth Barry as Belvidera. The play was soon printed and enjoyed many revivals through to the 1830s. In 2019, the Royal Shakespeare Company staged a modern adaptation, Venice Preserved, at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Jaffeir, a noble but impoverished Venetian, has secretly married Belvidera, the daughter of a proud senator named Priuli, who has cut off her inheritance. Jaffeir's friend Pierre, a foreign soldier, stokes Jaffeir's resentment and entices him into a plot against the Senate of Venice. Pierre's own reasons for plotting against the Senate revolve around another senator (the corrupt, foolish Antonio) paying for relations with Pierre's mistress, Aquilina. Despite Pierre's complaints, the Senate does nothing about it, explaining that Antonio has senatorial privilege.

Pierre introduces Jaffeir to the conspirators, led by bloodthirsty Renault. To get their trust, Jaffeir must put Belvidera in Renault's care as a hostage. That night, Renault attempts to rape Belvidera, but she escapes to Jaffeir. Jaffeir then tells Belvidera about the plot against the Senate. She devises a plan of her own: Jaffeir will reveal the conspiracy to the Senate and claim the lives of the conspirators as his reward. (Jaffeir would then choose to pardon some or all of the conspirators, notably his friend Pierre.)

Jaffeir follows Belvidera's plan, but when the Senate gives the conspirators the choice between confession (and the possibility of pardon) and death, they choose to die rather than sacrifice their pride. In remorse for betraying Pierre and losing his honor, Jaffeir threatens to kill Belvidera, unless she can obtain a pardon for the conspirators. She does so, but the pardon arrives too late. Jaffeir visits Pierre before his execution. Pierre is crestfallen because he is sentenced to die a dishonourable death by hanging, not the death of a soldier. He forgives Jaffeir and whispers to him (unheard by the audience) to kill him honourably before he is executed. Just as Pierre is about to be hanged, Jaffeir rushes up to the gallows and stabs him; as a form of atonement, he then commits suicide. Belvidera then goes insane and dies.

Antonio is a corrupt senator who is sexually involved with the courtesan Aquilina: in the prologue of Venice Preserv’d, Otway describes Antonio as “a Senator that keeps a whore/ In Venice none of a higher office bore. / To lewdness every night the lecher ran;/ Show me, all London, such another man, /”. Otway's invitation to find a “such another man” has allowed several critics to connect Senator Antonio with Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who was a Whig politician.

Antonio's key scene in Venice Preserv’d is the "Nicky Nacky" scene where Antonio attempts foreplay with Aquilina by pretending to be a bull, a toad, and a dog. According to Derek H. Hughes, Antonio's relationship with Aquilina mirrors other relationships in the play by portraying prostitution, submission, and self-abasement, which can be subtly seen in the relationships between Renault and Belvidera, Jaffeir and Pierre, and Jaffeir and Belvidera.

Aquilina is a courtesan who is romantically involved with Pierre and sexually involved with the senator Antonio. Aquilina allows Pierre to meet with the conspirators in her home (II.i.48.) Aquilina appears in the play three times: Act II, Act III, and Act V (8). When the Lyric Theatre performed Venice Preserv’d in 1920, Edith Evans performed as a successful Aquilina. Aquilina was played by Stephanie Beacham at the Lyttelton Theatre in 1984.

Belvidera is a noblewoman who is the daughter of Priuli and the wife of Jaffeir. “Belvidera is affectionate, constant, and pure” character who remains faithful to Jaffeir and gains pardon for the conspirators who were plotting to murder her father (1). According to Derek Hughes, Belvidera is a complex character; sometimes Belvidera is an admirable character, particularly in comparison to those who surround her. When Jaffeir tells Belvidera of the plot to destroy the senate, she recognises the corruption of the senate, but does not condone the plan of the conspirators (4): she says to Jaffeir, “Can thy great heart descend so vilely low, / Mix with hired slaves, bravoes, and common/ stabbers,… and take a ruffian's wages/ To cut the throats of wretches as they sleep?” (8). Her argument persuades Jaffeir to not partake in the conspirators’ plan, but to instead turn them in to the senate.