An ugly woman on holiday in Venice
I read this novel something like twenty years ago. The main character is an older woman (English, I think). She speaks some Italian, and at one point overhears a couple of locals calling her ugly. She's not happy about it, but she doesn't disagree with them. In fact, she meditates for a long while about being an ugly person in a beautiful city. It's quite a literary novel.
There's some discussion of Venice's history of glassblowing on the island of Murano, and of the fact that the cemetery is also on an island, a bit away from the rest of the city.
At one point, she sees some graffiti from young lovers written on a historic building, and muses that to lovers nowhere is sacred because everywhere is sacred.
She's in Venice for a while, and becomes slightly obsessed with a local child (whose father is an immigrant, also English-speaking, and whose mother is local), at one point luring him away from his mother. The child is tracked down and rescued by an American woman in Venice on holiday. The American doesn't speak Italian, and has trouble with the local currency. (Which was lira. This book is definitely set in a pre-euro world.)
As I write this, I'm getting a vague memory: she travelled to Venice to die. Either she had a terminal disease, or she intended to commit suicide. I cannot recall which. And I don't think she went through with it in the end, but I cannot swear to that.
This is more a vague succession of images and impressions than a plot summary. Sorry about that. But it's what I have.