In 1948, Orson Welles is in Venice to shoot on location several scenes of his masterpiece. In town there’s a still active piece of movie industry, the Scalera Studios – that were located at a walking distance from Molino Stucky – and the ancient marbles of Doge’s Palace are the natural scenery for Shakespeare’s tragedy…

Another scene was shot on the eastern side of St. Mark Cathedral, featuring Desdemona and Otello. Under the watchful guidance of Waszynski [the Second Unit director, ], the couple was simply to walk between two Byzantine columns. After the shot, the protagonist said, “Xe finio tuto?” (“Are we done?” in Venetian), setting off a chorus of exclamations as the crowd marveled at Welles’ mastery of the local dialect, but the autograph sought by the admiring locals was that of Alfredo Lombardini, a local actor hired as stand-in for Othello when seen from a distance.

(Alberto Anile, Orson Welles in Italy, 2013 Indiana University Press, pp. 136-137)