This rich and fascinating celebration of Venice presents a series of unconventional impressions of the heart of Venice and its dazzling spectrum of people. With a wealth of eyewitness
accounts and comments by its famous visitors, including Joseph Brodsky, Benjamin Disraeli, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mark Twain, Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, and Orson Welles, this book examines the
dark byways of the city's brutal history, the brilliance of Venetian painting, its sumptuous architecture and embellishments, its many arts—from glass blowing and boatbuilding to velvet—its
dress, courtesans, fashions, food, music, politics, its crumbling ruins and abandoned gardens, its ghetto, its offspring, its eccentrics, and its working people. Witty and nostalgic, erudite
and outspoken, this is a thrilling evocation of Europe's capital of color.
