Margherita was born in Constantinople as the daughter of the apothecary Giovanni Battista from Piemonte. She was a widow of a man by the name Bassi and active as a tight rope dancer in Constantinople, where she met Paolo Renier, who was there on a diplomatic mission between 1769-1773. Renier was by that time a widower after his first wife Giustina Donà, and they became lovers and married. According to another version, he had her placed to be educated in a Catholic orphanage for poor girls, after which they fell in love and married. Due to the dislike of the Venetian aristocracy of their marriage, it was not recorded in the Golden Book. Secretary of StateGiuseppe Gradenigo described the role of the new doges marriage in his election:
Because of her past, she was not accepted by the Venetian aristocracy, who referred to her as La Falsa Dogaressa. The candidacy of Andrea Tron to the office of Doge had been damaged by the scandals of his noble wife Caterina Tron, and Delmaz would have been even less accepted in the role of dogaressa, as she could not be inscribed in the Golden Book. Nevertheless, she was acknowledged as dogaressa and given the title as such. However she refrained nonetheless from playing that role in official ceremonies, and the representational duties of the dogaressa was performed by the niece of her spouse, Giustina Renier Michiel. In June 1786, she visited the waters of Recoaro in Valdagno as dogaressa under the treatment of DoctorGirolamo Festari. As dogaressa, she let out the pavement of the della Paglia bridge, for artists' shops, and obtained 1,000 zecchini for letting the Priorato della Gadi Bio. Margherita was said to damage the reputation and popularity of the doge. Margherita is known for a story about her dislike of the sound of church bells: her consort allegedly paid the abbey near the doge palace not to ring the bells, and whenever he was late with the payment, the convent rang the bells. Margherita was involved in a case of counterfeit as the accused. On 3 October 1786, during his stay in Venice, Goethe witnessed the public trial against her in the Ducal Palace. The case was about a deed of trust, and the lawsuit was against the Doge, but in reality against the dogaressa, who was in fact present on the bench of the accused, dressed in the robes of the dogaressa. Goethe describes her as "woman of a certain age, of a noble appearance; she had a handsome face, but a severe expression, and a certain air of melancholy!"
Later life
Margherita Dalmet was widowed in 1789, and left the Ducal Palace. She remarried the Venetian aristocrat Federico Bonlini who was reportedly her lover during her time as dogaressa, but the Venetian aristocracy again refused to record her marriage in the Golden Book. She evidently lived a peaceful life after the death of Renier. In her will of 1817 she left a great deal of her fortune to charity.
