FictionalCities :: Venice 2


Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo Giorgione Attentive readers of my sites might be surprised by how few books about artists there are hereabouts. It's not that I don't buy them, it's just that most are bought for the illustrations and usually have disappointing text, often losing fatally much in the translation. But here we have a lush and lovely book with fascinating and elegant text, and so I thought I'd share. The language sometimes slips into eccentricity, it must be said, with the frequent use of the word 'terse' to describe landscape a noticeable oddity. This is not the first time I've noted this word used wrongly/oddly in books translated from the Italian. Maybe it's a mistranslation of a word that might more comprehensibly be rendered as 'stark' say, or 'sparse'. There is laughably little known about Giorgione, and the author fesses up to this hindrance from the off, with a chapter dealing with the certainties. One painting is signed (but on a slip of paper stuck to the back) and the artist's contested payment for his (largely lost) work on the frescoes on the outside of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi is documented. Apart from the notes of a connoisseur who visited palazzi in the 16th Century and Vasari, with whom pinches of salt ever need to be taken, that's all the documentation. The action of reading between lines and following trails is the fascination here, and the book spins convincing conclusions whilst avoiding tempting wild assumptions. The second chapter, on the art world and wider society while Giorgione lived and traded, is enlightening too. Then we get to the third part, and the meat of the book - each of Giorgione's works, the contested and the confirmed, dealt with in fine detail and many fine illustrations. The first work is an impressively enigmatic work in the Tempest vein which I had not seen before, Pozzolo calls it Saturn Exiled. Looking to the caption I see it belongs to the National Gallery in London! Now the rooms of the NG are as familiar to me as the rooms in my own house, but it seems this lovely puzzling painting is rarely displayed, its showing dependant on whether current art-historical opinion is ascribing it to Giorgione or not. Shame. Update: The painting, which the NG calls Homage to a Poet by a 'follower of Giorgione' is in Room A, down in the basement, which is open Wednesday afternoons only, 2.00-5.30. I went on a Wednesday afternoon to check it out and, well, it's a sweet painting and in a good state of preservation, but if that's a Giorgione then I'm a gelato! The faces look all wrong. Room A is a big scruffy hangar, but there's some interesting stuff. Mostly 'attrib's and 'follower of's, but some surprises, including a Carpaccio in a very poor state.
Sarah Quill Ruskin's Venice The Stones Revisited Ruskin's place as the foremost foreign fighter for Venice of relatively recent times is assured, and The Stones of Venice is the proof that remains. In its full length it remains pretty daunting for the average reader. His concentration on surface detail and his prejudiced abhorrence of the classical can be wearing too. There have been many attempts to abridge - a few years ago Jan Morris made a pretty good job of it - and there have even been editions published in the form of guide books. In this, the most recent abridgement, Sarah Quill presents mouth-watering snippets of Ruskin's prose arranged in guide-book format by building and all made more gorgeous by lots of his drawings and her photos. A less glossy and more portable abridgment of The Stones... is available as a Penguin edited by J.G.Links.
Heather Reyes ed. city-pick Venice It was inevitable that this series should get around to Venice, but not that they should get me to write the introduction for it. They did, and so this book has my name on it. Such circumstances make a bad review almost impossible, I'll admit, so you'll just have to trust me when I say that this is one fine collection. Most of the books on this non-fictional page have excerpts in here, as do a lot of the novels I've listed and reviewed on the main Venice fiction page. If you're thinking that this makes for a some major symbiosis (and some other sym-prefixed words) you'd be darn right. The extracts include fewer writings from the last few decades than in the previous volumes, but as most of the big names and the best writing about Venice date from the 19th Century (and just before and just after) this was inevitable. There are still some surprises and gems from late 20th Century, though, and Heather Reyes works her magic again by making the extracts link and flow in a way that transforms the book into much more than a mere dipping thing. What more can I say? If you like this site you'll need this book, and so will all of your fiends, it's as simple as that. Robin Saikia The Venice Lido A slim volume that is nonetheless fat with facts about what is an often-forgotten part of Venice and remains a fascinating anomaly. I admit to seeing it as a place apart myself, as very different from 'my' Venice of art, gelato, decay, and dark romance, the Lido being just so 'seaside', so bright and open. It's acquired a reputation for fun and glamour, what with the film festival and the beach-front hotels and all that's not, for me, very Venetian. The author obviously loves the place, though, and reading his book often made me think I'd done the Lido wrong. There's lots of history, from Malamocco being the first centre of Venice, through the famous old wedding ceremony to visits from Mussolini and Hitler. The concentration, though, given the reputation for glamour and indulgence, is unsurprisingly on the late 19th Century and, especially, the early decades of the 20th. Diaghilev, Cole Porter, Churchill, Thomas Mann and the Mosleys all feature amongst the period wastrels during this prime. I think that the aspect of the Lido that I can get behind, and which this book brings out, is its status as a break from the rigors of Venice itself. There's more nature and sky to be found here and a visit can be a rest from the crowds and the crumble. But however you approach it this book will broaden your horizons. Click on the link to read Robin's answers to The Venice Questions. Patricia H. Labalme, Laura Sanguineti White, and Linda L. Carroll Venice, Cità Excelentissima Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo Marin Sanudo's diary, kept from 1496 to 1533, consists of 58 volumes, now kept in the State Archives. It's 40,000 pages contain an unparalleled record of life in renaissance Venice. Official documents, private letters, news from abroad, first-hand records of events...all were copied, and sometimes pasted, into the diaries. Initially he planned that the diaries would form the source material for a history of Venice. This was never written, but his awareness of the future publication of the material kept him from being too critical of the Republic. As a source of details of everyday life in Venice during this period, though, the diaries are unsurpassed. They've long been milked by authors and scholars as a primary source, but here we get the first user-friendly volume giving us access to the cow itself, if you'll pardon my metaphor. The expertly-selected excerpts are collected into chapters on a variety of subjects covering the arts, religion, society and politics. This last topic dominates as Sanudo was involved, through his holding of various posts, with the governance of Venice throughout the whole period, a time of much turmoil and event. Tiziano Scarpa Venice is a fish A cultural guide An attention-grabbing title, you have to admit. But this book is not about Venice from a surrealist perspective - it's another of those collections of rambling and entertaining (usually) digressions on what makes Venice Venice, with the promise of secrets revealed and essences distilled. After the explanation of the fish theory there are small chapters called things like feet, legs, heart and face, dealing with the joys of wandering and getting lost, the gondolier's stance, Venice as a city for lovers, masks and the need for them in such a small city, and so on. All very entertaining and even occasionally educational, but then my cool appreciation got very much heated up by the smell and sight chapters. The first is full of fragrant poo and pee lore, including an explanation of the Venetian proverb In the Summer even turds float, and the latter has cat stories and reveals the secrets of the differences between, and conventions in naming, calli, salizada, rami, rii and the rest. It also posits the theory that Venice is such an eye-bashing feast that it needs view-blocking scaffolding and eyesores like the bank in Campo Manin just to give our eyes a rest.		Toni Sepeda Brunetti's Venice This is a handy-looking little book, nicely presented and with good maps. It takes the form of twelve walks through Brunetti's life as presented by the novels, with much use made of lengthy quotes, which points up Donna Leon's obvious sanction of the project. Toni Sepeda, who gives Brunetti tours, obviously knows her stuff and needs us to know it. After a while the waffley and self-important tone began to grate on me, I must admit. I'd suggest the book's use to help find locations rather than as a cover-to-cover read or as a guide to take on your travels. The novels are anyway rare in their avoidance of invented locations and other such liberty-taking. Paul Strathern The Spirit of Venice From Marco Polo to Casanova This book's USP is the contention that the history of the Venetian Republic, whose system of governance had evolved specifically to prevent the rise of individual personalities, can actually be traced through its singular personalities. I'm not sure I find this stress particularly convincing, or interesting, but it's not laboured. The subtitle sets out the timescale, not the morality of these people, so we start with Marco Polo's return from the East and end with Casanova. The first half is pretty much all battles and politicking, with plenty of byzantine (and Byzantine) double-dealing, murder, torture and hypocrisy. Then about half way through we reach the 16th Century and as Venice's political power fades so it's artistic influence strengthens. But after some painting, printing and writing (Giorgione, Manutius, Aretino) it's back to decline and lost battles. Chapters on women (nuns, courtesans, Veronica Franco) and Jews, and then some major musicians and licentious librettists take us to Tiepolo, Napoleon and the sudden end. This is quite a fruity and fresh canter over familiar ground, with quite a few unfamiliar names to add spice. It won't replace Hibbert or Norwich, but it sure earns a place on the same shelf. Nicholas Woodsworth The Liquid Continent Volume 2: Venice The blurb and the publicity for this book lead you to expect a book that's all about 'Venice's love-affair with the sea'. But this is more than a little cheeky as the 279-page book doesn't reach Venice until page 107 and doesn't start discussing matters nautical until page 177. This dishonesty aside it is a good read if you like travel books. The opening chapters (or the pre-amble as it's known to impatient Venice fans) progress along the Eastern Mediterranean coast and around cities and ruins, offering insights and observations of Mediterranean life and the range of characteristic Mediterranean personalities. The Turkey bit I liked a lot, but I've not read much about Turkey. Reaching Venice he first keeps to the area around his apartment in Eastern Cannaregio, and finally ventures into the wider and crowdeder bits. Venice the tourist nightmare stars in this section, with the usual queues and crowds and Murano glass ornaments like 'glazed vomit'. So far so not unpredictable, if well and sharply described. The discussion of Venice's maritime history and relationship with the sea, past and present, contains few surprises for the well-read Venetophile either, but again the author marshals and presents pretty well.

Like no other city Venice encourages the creation of big and gorgeous books.
There's the glitz of the Palazzi, the grandeur of the Grand Canal, and the glowing colours of Venetian painting.
Heavily illustrated and well produced books on these topics can't help but be objects of desire.

These two are as expensive as you'd think

These three aren't

Umberto Franzoi & Mark Smith The Grand Canal
Arsenale Editrice 1993
This large slip-cased volume takes the form of a photographic panorama recording the whole length of the Grand Canal, both banks. The photographs were specially taken for the book (except the Ca' d'Oro pic which has been pasted in, presumably because it was scaffolded over at the time of the taking of the rest of the photos) and are gloriously bright and sharp. At regular intervals it ventures into a full photographic portrait of a particular palazzo, giving us glimpses of the grandeur within. The text is informative, if a little lacking in sparkle, and can get a little tedious and repetitive if you try to read it through cover-to-cover, but who would do such a silly anal thing? Well, me actually. Later republished in a disappointingly smaller format, but with a proper new photo of the Ca' d'Oro.

Alvise Zorzi & Paolo Marton Venetian Palaces
Rizzoli 1990
In this one the major palazzi, on and off the Grand Canal, and including the Doge's gaff, get photographed inside and out, art and details, with some text giving their history, and the coats of arms of the families who owned them. But it's the photographs that'll have you drooling.

Giandomenico Romanelli, ed. Venice: Art & Architecture Konemann 1997
Two truly huge volumes, in a slip case, trace the history of art and architecture in Venice from the city's foundation to the 20th Century. It does this with a series of heavily illustrated essays on the various periods by various contributors, and even covers the art of the book and weaving and glass. Production values are high, as is the desirability quotient. And the essays are even worth reading, if your arms can take it. Recently republished condensed into one inexpensive volume to make it oh so easy to buy the book twice by mistake.

Gianluigi Trivellato, et al Venetian Palazzi
Evergreen 1998
Does a similar job to the Zorzi volume (below left) but stays indoors, covers fewer palazzi, and has mostly less-good, more flatly-lit, but still rather fine, photographs. The exteriors are taken care of with some nice old prints - that's one of them on the left - and with some contrastily printed photographs strangely standing in for palazzi where prints where presumably not available. But it's reasonably priced and very worth owning if you're a palazzophile.

Andrea Fasolo & Mark E. Smith
Palaces of Venice Arsenale Editrice 2003
An alphabetical survey of the grander palazzi, and not just those on the Grand Canal. The photos are by the same photographer as the lovely Grand Canal book mentioned above and are a big draw. Unfortunately they have to be the main draw as the text is so badly translated from the Italian as to make it all but unreadable, unless you want some cheap laughs. Which I'm always up for, so here goes: A recent and radical intervention of restoration has enabled to recover the original readability of the Gothic building. And from the introduction: Therefore it is not difficult to think that Venice's characteristic had held a fundamental role in the exceptional mark that have always distinguished this city from the others. So that's pretty clear then.

Judith Martin No Vulgar Hotel: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice A book about what it is to be a Venice-lover, written by a Venice-lover, for other Venice-lovers. What's not to love? Well, a tendency to tweeness, the coverage of some familiar ground, and a certain lack of depth. But set against this we have some spot-on analysis of what makes us Venetophiles tick and some undeniably witty writing. She covers topics like the famous visitors and the hated Napoleon, but also the pitfalls of the property market and the books and films that we obsessives pore over. Her precise analysis of the impossible route of Katherine Hepburn's canal-jumping vaporetto in Summertime will strike a chord in most of us, I imagine. You'll find yourself grinning often with self-recognition, and the realisation that you're not the only Venice obsessive to do the sometimes sad things she describes. She pretty much nails the joy of posing regally on balconies overlooking the Grand Canal, for example - a pleasure that pretty much beats sex, I think. It's a cosy read rather than a challenging one, but a pretty much essential one for all of us members of its intended readership, no matter what stage of the ongoing relationship we're at. Predrag Matvejević The Other Venice This is the sort of book that has a blurb saying that it promises to 'utterly reconfigure the Venetian cityscape'. But don't let that put you off. What it is is a collection of short chapters each dealing with an odd aspect of Venice's rich and hidden tapestry. There's a piece about the weeds that grow out of the cracks in church walls and another about an eccentric old Venetian who stands in the same sotoportego every day and spouts fragrant 'facts'. Other topics include Venetian bread, fragments of pottery emerging from the slime of ages, barbers, and paving stones. An intriguing and entertaining read but rather lacking in real substance , I thought. A cake of a book, rather than a full meal.		Carlo Moretti Venice - Her Art-Treasures and Historical Associations This is a guidebook of 1871, available as a facsimile reprint published by Elibron Classics. It's interesting how early the pattern for guidebooks to Venice was established. This book, like many that followed, takes up the first third of its length (following a brief history) with Piazza San Marco and the Basilica. This is followed by a trip up the Grand Canal which picks out the important palazzos to left and right but here has no pictures or maps, presumably relying on the reader's gondolier to name the buildings, if not to know too much about them. Also fascinating is how the buildings of the 18th Century were described as being 'in the architectural style of the fall'. Jan Morris A Venetian Bestiary A slim volume dealing with the creatures associated with Venice and to be found in its history and art and on its streets. Birds, sea creatures, cats, dogs and some more mythical beasts are all to be found in here. There's the winged lion, the portentous birds, the horses that were once ridden and the bronze horses that were stolen by and from Venice. There's a chapter on the cats, of course, with a few famous moggies, including Nini the Frari cat and the unfortunate sole victim of the San Marco campanile collapse. This chapter also points out how Venetian artists have all failed satisfactorily to portray a convincing cat, despite the fair number of memorable dogs that they managed. A small book, then, but one full of tasty nuggets. (I speak of gold, not of chickens.)
Hidetoshi Nishijima Memories of Venice Well here's a weird one - a book of photographs, taken by one Fenton Bailey, of a famous Japanese actor taken as he arrives in, wanders around, and leaves Venice. He's wearing the same crumpled white linen shirt, black trousers, Doc Martens (no socks) and sultry/bored expression in every shot. It's like a sequence of (sorry) typical Japanese tourist shots where the visitor has to stand in front of the famous building. Except without the smiles. Or the famous buildings, mostly. He poses on a bridge, he looks at some glass, he walks past a church, he takes a vaporetto, he slouches in some alleys. But he never ventures very far from San Marco, judging by the recognisable details. Not unVenetian, just uninspiring. With thanks to Matt for the finding and the providing.
		John Julius Norwich Paradise of Cities Venice and its nineteenth-century visitors This book looks at Venice from the fall of the Republic in 1797 through the nineteenth century - the period during which the city had to begin to come to terms with its new role as a city defined by its visitors. It's appropriate, therefore, that it does so through the lives of famous visitors and foreign lovers. After a chapter each devoted to the fall and Napoleon, we get straight down to a quartet of Englishmen, none of whom were exactly paragons of Victorian wedded stability. Chapters for Byron and Ruskin are followed by a chapter devoted to two chaps named Brown who kept their dalliances with handsome gondoliers very secret, for many years, unlike Baron Corvo whose later indulgence in the same predilection, a little more openly, scandalised the British ex-pat community. John Julius deals well with these, more private, aspects of lives whilst also keeping and broadening our interest with the less racy details and observations. Later chapters deal with the Siege, Sargent, Whistler, Wagner, Henry James and Corvo. (Very few plain and domestically blissful home lives here.) This period chimes nicely with our melancholy and faded-glory view of Venice and so this is unlikely to be the last book to deal with this century, but it is the one to beat. John Julius was once asked my Venice Questions

Giacomo Casanova History of my life translated by Willard R. Trask Johns Hopkins 1966-71 He's Venice's most famous son, and one of those rare people whose name has entered the language - everyone knows what he liked doing - and so anyone with a light-hearted attitude to love is likely to get called a bit of a Casanova. This is not entirely unfair, but it's also not the whole story. He saw himself as a man who loved well and often, rather than one who trifled with women, and it's a view you can have some sympathy with. He writes so well, feelingly, and perceptively about society in 18th Century Europe that you can't help admiring him. His story starts with his childhood in Venice and he returns home at intervals from his travels around Italy and Europe. His adventures are sufficiently varied and spicy to hold your attention like a good novel of the period would. This translation, published in paperback in six handsome double volumes, was the first untamed edition.
		Andrea di Robilant A Venetian affair In the attic of the family's palazzo in Venice the author's father finds a box of letters made into damp wads by time and humidity. These turn out to be further evidence of the torrid relationship between Andrea Memmo, an ancestor, and a half-English woman called Giustiniana Wynne. Using these and other letters Andrea di Robilant pieces together a story of brazen love and romance thwarted in 18th Century Venice. The story of the affair is interesting enough, but the book also evokes well this era, of Venice's fading as a real power and evolving into a magnet for visitors. Hitherto Venice would be known more for its visitors than its natives (see John Julius Norwich's Paradise of Cities - reviewed below) and so it's appropriate that Consul Smith and Casanova play their parts here, as an early influential foreigner and the last famous native respectively. The love story evolves at a stately pace but has just enough events and details, sometimes lovely sordid ones, to keep you reading. Just as mobile phones are essential to the development of any affair nowadays, so masks where a big help back then. As Giustiniana is banished back to England, via Paris, so the tale takes on a sadder note as the making of choices and the wasting of lives becomes the theme, and our heroine evolves into a far stronger and more ambiguous character. The emotions are well observed and identified by the author, who fills in gaps in a convincing way, and so you end up with a strong feeling of real lives.

Giorgio & Maurizio Crovato The Abandoned Islands of the Venetian Lagoon (Le isole abbandonate della laguna veneziana) This book was originally published in 1978 by two journalist brothers who were shocked and ashamed at the way the history and treasures of the Venetian lagoon islands had been ignored and plundered for so long. The original book, which followed an exhibition, documents their sad decline and dilapidated state. This updated edition provides some cause for optimism that the situation has changed much in the intervening years. The brothers undoubtedly did good, though, raising awareness and also reawakening interest in the use of traditional rowing skills, which had been long in decline and are now again flourishing, what with all the anti-motorboat feeling and the increasing knowledge of the damage they do. The new edition of the book (which has Italian-English dual text) has an updating introduction by the brothers and then a chapter each on thirteen of the islands, consisting of historical texts describing the island in its glory days, then some lovely old prints made back in them days (there's one below) and photos of their sad 70s state (that's one on the right). These black and white photographs (which are also the work of the brothers) are a major part of the pleasure of this book, at least for this fan of romantic ruin and crumble. The future is looking less bleak for some of the islands as they are being preserved and converted to uses ranging from luxury hotels to a museum of lagoon history and facilities for various educational institutions. All these efforts deserve our support and 10% of sales of this book in the UK will go to Venice in Peril, and 10% of US proceeds will go to Save Venice. So the least that you can do is buy and enjoy this book. You can get it from the publishers sanmarcopress.com, some shops in London, most of the bookshops in Venice and many online sources.