Another extraordinary museum, less for paintings but for odd things, is the Naval Historical Museum, which is up by the Arsenale. She became great as a market city, poised between East and West, between Crusader and Saracen, between white and brown: and if you try very hard, allowing a glimmer of gold from the Basilica to seep beneath your eyelids, and a fragrance of cream to enter your nostrils, and the distant melody of a cafe pianist to orchestrate your thoughts if you really try, you can imagine her a noble market-place again. Palladianism also comes out of the Veneto and Venice, and that has its own contrasting series of influences, but that’s a separate thing.

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This hymn to Venice, from someone who has lived there, is, as you would expect, a lyrical and haunting evocation of the beauty of one of the world's most visited tourist destinations, and a fascinating history of a city state that was a republic and maritime empire throughout the middle ages, but it is also shrewd and practical and funny. Sex reassignment surgeon Georges Burou did the surgery, since doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time. By the end of the period, Venice was more of a place to visit than a commercial or certainly a political center. The book is generally regarded as one of the greatest travel books, but then, it shouldn't be treated as a travel book say it's (many) fans.There are lots of good effects, mass tourism is keeping Venice going—and has done for about 300 years.

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Then there was a seismic change as trade moved from the Silk Road and the route to the East and spices to the New World and Venice’s whole raison d’ être began to fall apart. What I wanted to do with my book, I suppose, is get past the crowds and the bad effects of mass tourism.I listened to another radio programme - a series of excerpts from The Politics of Washing: Real Life in Venice by Polly Coles- but even then, among the material on Moldovan immigrant workers there was the usual modern-rarefied-Venice stuff about Contessas in decaying palazzos. More than half of Castello is situated within Arsenale, the naval base, which occupies over one-fifth the area of Venice. In the second and third parts of the book, especially, it did sometimes leave me rather confused as to exactly what time period the events she's describing are actually happening in.

Venice holidays 2023/2024 | British Airways Venice holidays 2023/2024 | British Airways

But for others who were always conscious of the narrowness of that world, or who did not become accustomed to it early, the faults in this book may be more obvious. There are still PLENTY of books on this list that don't seem to have anything to do with Venice whatsoever! Whilst the book's tone feels very much like a product of sixty years ago, not all the information is (Morris revised the book in the 1990s) and, as my friend Patrick pointed out in his review, there are moments when it is unclear whether the Venice of the early 1960s or of the 90s is being described, as it is all thrown in together. The whole world is full of people moving into cities, but when you get highly developed as Venice did you move out.

The main problems with the book are two revisions that marry poorly with the original text; I'd have preferred leaving it as a snapshot of Venice ca. Castello is the largest of the six sestieri (districts), and the only one not facing onto the Grand Canal. The presenter's joke against a Scotsman - with an accent reminiscent of Fraser from Dad's Army - for raising the expense of motorboats made even the radio show seem like an artefact from former times. From the reviews here, many people rave about this book and others thought it was terrible for various reasons and couldn't finish it.

The best books on Venice - Five Books

I didn’t choose Death in Venice because it’s too jolly obvious, but there are all sorts of miserable books out there. What a fabulous person, what an interesting life story and how many fantastic journeys she had made. I am glad I read it but if you just want an overview before a 3-day visit, this book is not for you. The Canal Grande, the beautiful Main Street of Venice, is of course "paved" with water and the vehicles using the Canal Grande are all boats.It begins with the murder of a German officer and it’s about a Jewish woman who is rescued by a fisherman who hides her. It may be strange for me to categorise this book as a biography, but Jan Morris treats the city here as a character in a melancholic story of her history, her streets, her canals and her people. In there Morris also mentions that the recommendation to see the city by motorboat no longer stands. Palladio looked at these emerging buildings and, in the early 16th century, developed a new language of classicism which was of huge significance.