We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,567,107.44 | Books Available: 795,884 | Members Online: 205

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Venice Rediscovered

Venice Rediscovered
Author: John Pemble

Venice, the city of the soul. In the two centuries since its political extinction, this shabby relic of a despised tyranny has become one of our greatest modern icons. As American consul Edmund Flagg wrote in 1853, in words that hold true today, "To one weary of the world...there is not a spot in all Italy--in all the world perhaps--as beau... more »tiful as Venice."

In Venice Rediscovered, historian John Pemble traces the development of our modern passion for the city of canals, charting its evolution from a forgotten oddity in the 18th century to a celebrated center for the arts, a city that saw its glory in the years before World War I as home for a great expatriate community and host to a golden age in literature. He begins his history in 1797, when Venice, still accessible only by sea, ceased to be a sovereign republic and saw its captains and the kings depart. A viaduct across the lagoon would not be opened until a half century later, and in 1857 a railway was completed to Milan. For the first time, Venice was within reach of the travelling public of Europe and the United States. By 1881, Henry James could write of tour guides "leading their helpless captives through churches and galleries in dense, irresponsible groups," but Pemble maintains that it was the development of the Lido beach resort that finally put Venice on the map for the chic international clientele. The combination of architectural wonder, literary associations, and seaside sophistication built a scene that led Ezra Pound to wryly remark in 1913 that Venice "seemed yesterday like one large Carlton Hotel."

Drawing on an international range of published and unpublished sources, Pemble links this transfiguration of Venice to the larger current of social and intellectual changes sweeping Europe and North America. Evoking the enduring appeal of Venice to novelists, historians, and other apostles of culture--Pound, James, Ruskin, Proust, Mann, and Nietzche among them--Pemble explains how their perceptions of the city gradually changed, and how they created the language and the imagery that shaped one of the most potent paradoxes of modern culture--Venice as a paragon of a timeless but fading elegance, constantly worshipped yet forever dying, sinking daily into the canals that define it.

Though the famed literary center has given way to museum tours and moonlit gondoliers, Venice remains a destination of distinction for travellers from around the world. A searching exploration of our eternal fascination with a city that continues to inspire artists, writers, and lovers alike, Venice Rediscovered is an important contribution to our understanding of modern culture and will captivate anyone who has ever visited--or dreamed of visiting--Venice itself.

ISBN-13: 9780192853288
ISBN-10: 0192853287
Publication Date: 9/26/1996
Pages: 256
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Oxford University Press
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

History >> Europe >> Italy >> General
Travel >> Europe >> Italy >> Venice

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Venice Rediscovered

Loading...