The Spirit of Venice


Book Description

This is a new history of Venice, which looks at the lives of the famous individuals of the Republic to try and define its character.




In the Spirit of Venice


Book Description

An inside view of Venice from bon vivant, art historian, author, musician, and world traveler Alexis Gregory, evoking the great palaces of Venice, legendary friends including Peggy Guggenheim, Lily Volpi, and Arrigo Cipriani, and great Venetian figures of the past such as the mad Marchesa Casati, the Sapphic muse Princess Winnaretta de Polignac, and the spoiled Charles de Besteigui. In this illustrated book, the city's emblematic characters, places, and events come alive.




Key to Yourself


Book Description

Includes a FREE CD of Guided Meditations by Debbie Ford, the Author of The Best Year of Your Life The beauty of Key to Yourself is seen through Venice Bloodworth's insightful approach to combining modern psychology and the very same principles taught thousands of years ago by master teachers such as Jesus. In searching for her own spiritual enlightenment, Venice Bloodworth found the root of true happiness based on concepts of spiritual psychology that disclosed the power of the mind to thinkitself to wellness, prosperity, and peace. Although the world has changed drastically over time, people are still confronted with the same fears and inner conflicts. Key to Yourself meets these challenges with ageless wisdom and boundless compassion.




Soul of Venice


Book Description

We tried 1,000 places. And included only the 30 best. 30 unforgettable experiences that capture the soul of Venice. Every guide in the "Soul of" collection includes: - the 30 best experiences a city has to offer - interviews with those who give the city its spirit - illustrations that capture the city's soul




Serenissima


Book Description

In the new book, Serenissima: Venice in Winter, Frank Van Riper and Judith Goodman provide a stunning combination of fine art and journalistic photography twinned with lyrical text to capture the visual magic that occurs when "the most serene republic" reclaims itself as a living, breathing city and once more becomes a place "of water-filled streets..velvet shadows and footsteps echoing off paving stones in the post-midnight silence..." Six years in the making and shot entirely in black and white, Serenissima: Venice in Winter combines brilliant architectural imagery with documentary photography in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and the great Italian photojournalist Gianni Berengo Gardin. Frank Van Riper's text shows the same literary mastery that won him a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard and reflects the dreamlike quality of the photographs, while also acknowledging the mystery and magic that Venice is famous for. AUTHOR: Frank Van Riper and Judith Goodman are a husband-and-wife team whose speciality is location portraiture and documentary photography. Goodman's photographs have appeared in Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art and in the Baltimore Museum. Van Riper's photographs are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of American Art, and Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. He now writes 'Frank Van Riper on Photography,' a column that appears exclusively and worldwide on Washingtonpost.com, making him the most widely read photography writer in the United States. SELLING POINTS: Over 90 photographs of this historic and romantic city as it is rarely captured, during the winter's mist and rain Of interest to any collector of fine art photography, travelers, and lovers of Italy 92 b/w photos




City of Fortune


Book Description

“The rise and fall of Venice’s empire is an irresistible story and [Roger] Crowley, with his rousing descriptive gifts and scholarly attention to detail, is its perfect chronicler.”—The Financial Times The New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea charts Venice’s astounding five-hundred-year voyage to the pinnacle of power in an epic story that stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. City of Fortune traces the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga, from the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminates in the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, to the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499–1503, which sees the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between are three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance, during which a tiny city of “lagoon dwellers” grow into the richest place on earth. Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their dominion. From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its time—the reverberations of which are still being felt today. “[Crowley] writes with a racy briskness that lifts sea battles and sieges off the page.”—The New York Times “Crowley chronicles the peak of Venice’s past glory with Wordsworthian sympathy, supplemented by impressive learning and infectious enthusiasm.”—The Wall Street Journal




The Souls of Venice


Book Description

How is a life defined by a city, and a city by the lives within? Where do an individual and a culture coincide? Perhaps more than any city in the world, Venice inspires these questions and suggests intriguing answers. This book focuses on people who have been shaped by Venice and have shaped Venice in their turn. The author considers them in five groups: the "mutilated culture heroes" (e.g., the eunuch Narses), who despite or because of some great sacrifice helped the city define itself and its mission; the "fugitives from splendor" (e.g., St. Pietro Orseolo or El Greco), so overwhelmed by beauty that they fled the city; the "prisoners of Venice"-the convicts, the cloistered, the mad; the "symbiotics," who lived in close communion with the city for long periods of time (e.g., Titian) and the "fugitives from self" (e.g., Igor Stravinsky), who have come from elsewhere seeking a new identity, and who ended up helping to create a new identity for the city itself. More than a collection of biographies, this richly textured and insightful work examines the roots of people's "Venice-ness" as well as the city's own humanity.