Venice

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Is Jan Morris's book responsible for perpetuating a certain idea of Venice through the later 20th century? Venice as elegant, decaying, exotic, a mélange and meeting-point of East and West... Perhaps in Britain at least. In this book, I felt like I'd found a key to where it comes from. When I was younger, I managed to do an entire course on the city without being aware of these ideas: this legend is something that lives in the realms of literature and pop high-culture, not academic texts. In arts it seems overwhelming once you've noticed it, almost the only way Venice is talked about, a given in general-audience writing and TV documentaries. There’s a 6th-century Roman description of Venice, of a fishing community on an island where everyone is living on alder poles in houses made of rushes in similar poverty. It’s a good foundation myth of people of all estates living equally side-by-side that is absolutely central to the idea of Venice as a republic. Venice’s ruler, the doge, was unbelievably disadvantaged by his role. It was very arcane and famous for the dotty way he was elected, with 20 people choosing 100 and 100 choosing six, and six choosing two and two choosing 40 and 40 choosing 20. They go from one vast room to another and, eventually, I imagine the name of the person somebody wanted in the first place pops out of a hat. But theoretically, people didn’t have such a vested interest and in any case, their rule was often short-lived because it was such a gerontocracy.

Best Books About Venice (24 books) - Goodreads

One bishop playing a double game with such conspicuous ineptitude that he was simultaneously excommunicated both by the Pope and by the Oecumenical Patriarch." (The People: 9) As you’ve mentioned him, let’s talk about his book first. It’s called The Stones of Venice and the edition you’ve chosen is edited by the British travel journalist and author Jan Morris. I fell in love with La Serenissima and have read everything I could get my hands on, fiction and non-fiction. This is one of the best non-fiction titles I have read. From the history to the story of uninhabited islets, the book covers every aspect of this great city. Reading this book gives an idea of what it means to live in Venice. I was trying to help people find…a Venice that’s as unaffected by change as one could hope to find.” Let’s move on to The Architectural History of Venice by Deborah Howard, which seems to go right from the beginning, the founding of Venice.It’s the idea of the Venetian Republic as a complicated world. We don’t get it now because we’ve had universal suffrage for so long, but people longed to be an elector. In Venice, if you weren’t on that list, you didn’t have a vote as to who would be Doge and, as such, preferment was unlikely to come your way.

libreria Acqua alta - Tripadvisor libreria Acqua alta - Tripadvisor

Brunetti is a most sympathetic hero who one can only identify with, with his children and his wife who is an academic, a Jane Austen scholar or something highly convincing like that. The children are busy writing their homework, while he’s sorting out gory crimes. There’s also the most marvelous lady, a Miss Moneypenny figure who is a constant through the books, who’s always tutting and letting him in to go and see his superiors. There’s not an overarching dramatic narrative as exciting as the Cruz Smith book, but these books do immerse you in Venice. She’s American, but her complete fluency in the ways of Venice allows us to dive in with her. It is also very good on the still current quite big issue, which is migration out of the city. The whole world is full of people moving into cities, but when you get highly developed as Venice did you move out. That probably starts in earnest after the Second World War, but it had happened before. There was the building of Mestre, and then of Marghera, the chemical port. Let’s get to your final book, which is a book in Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti crime fiction series, Death in a Strange Country. Before we get to the books you’ve recommended, what do you feel someone visiting Venice needs to know about the city and what drives it? Is it the phrase that comes up in your book, ‘ com’era dov’era’? Let’s turn to the history book you’ve chosen. This is Italian Venice: A History by Richard Bosworth, who is a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. This is about modern Venice, I believe, after the fall of the Republic in 1797.The absolute other end of paintings to go and see would be the Carpaccios in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, which is behind San Marco. They’re almost genre pictures because they are pictures of Venice as it was in 1500. There is this extraordinary, overriding oddity about Venice, which is that because it’s so unchanged whether it’s in Carpaccio or Bellini, Guardi or Canaletto, you’re looking at paintings with a costumed cast that could be you. That’s such an exciting thing. Obviously, things change a bit: the gondolas used to have covers, now they don’t. But, in general, many views, whether medieval or later, are recognizably unchanged.

Books Set in Venice (303 books) - Goodreads

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview. So do the two by Peter Carey ("His Illegal Self" and "Theft" -- both Australia, plus New York City in "Illegal Self") and Winterson's "Sexing the Cherry" (England). It is a most erudite, solid and full guide to the buildings of Venice. If you are more interested in buildings than my book tells you, it’s the one to go for. She has all the facts. Searching for Venice hotels on the beach? Look into the Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort. Built in 1908 by the legendary architect Giovanni Sardi, this regal beachfront property features a restaurant with a private terrace facing the sea, pool bar and beach bar offering private cabana service. The end of the Most Serene Republic of Venice happens when it cedes to Austria. We have Napoleon, Austria, and Italy, all foreign powers—and certainly Venice sees Italy as every bit as much a foreign power as Austria, possibly even more. It’s a bit of history that’s probably less well handled in most guidebooks because it’s quite complicated, but it has quite an effect on what the city looks like. There’s the filling in of some canals, the straightening of some roads, the building of some fairly gloomy social housing. There’s a Teutonic effort to rationalize the city, though if ever there was an absolutely futile project it would be trying to make sense out of Venice.Venice once ruled an empire that stretched across the eastern Mediterranean, but by the early modern period was already evolving into a city whose greatest claim to fame was as a tourist destination. Here Matthew Rice, author and illustrator of Venice: A Sketchbook Guide, recommends books to read about Venice and its history and architecture, as well as a couple of crime thrillers to read while you're there. Another extraordinary museum, less for paintings but for odd things, is the Naval Historical Museum, which is up by the Arsenale. It’s an extraordinary collection of model boats and shells. One of my favorite things is a series of working drawings for First World War battleships. They’re huge, complex, and very neat, and they did all this without a felt pen. They must have been waiting for the ink to splotch at any moment, and for the whole thing to be wasted. But just don't expect to finish it. You may well do. Or you may find, like I did, that your interest wanes after a while.