A History of Venice

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 736 pages
• Published by: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition June 18, 1989
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0679721975
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0679721970
• Book Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.5 inches
• Weighs: 1.4 pounds

Product Review
At once the most comprehensive and the most engaging history of Venice available in English, this book will be treasured by all those who share the author's fascination with "the most gorgeous and magical of cities."

"As a historian Lord Norwich knows what matters. As a writer he has a taste for beauty, a love of language and an enlivening wit. He contrives, as no English writer has done before, to sustain a continuous interest in that crowded history." -- Hugh Trevor-Roper

"Will become the standard English work of Venetian history." -- C. P. Snow, Financial Times

"Lord Norwich has loved and understood Venice as well as any other Englishman has ever done. He has put readers of this generation more in his debt than any other English writer." -- Peter Levi, The Sunday Times (London)

Product Description
Traces the rise ot empire of this city from its 5th century beginnings all the way through until 1797 when Napolean put an end to the thousand year-old Republic. 32 pages of black and white photos, 4 maps and charts.

Reader Reviews
Quick, name one famous leader or military hero associated with the thousand-year history of the Republic of Venice. (Sorry: writers and painters don't count.) Now imagine that you are writing a 600+ page history of Venice. How do you make it a page-turner without recourse to biography? Can it be done? It seems that John Julius Norwich has done it, and with flying colors. I had originally planned to read the history in small driblets, a chapter at a time to keep my interest from flagging. I was delighted to find that my interest was engaged from the very first and remained so until Napoleon Bonaparte demonstrated to the world during his Italian campaign that the Republic could be had. Before the young emperor-to-be doused the lights, Venice had had a glorious run. Here was a country that began as a naval and mercantile power. Turning its back on the Italian mainland, Venice looked to the east. Its merchants spread out through the Eastern Mediterranean and as far as the Black Sea -- and sometimes, as in the case of Marco Polo -- much farther. While mainland Italy was mired in an endless struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Venice strived to live at peace with its neighbors. For several hundred years, it even lived at peace with the Turk -- to the extent of scuttling a Crusade or two when it felt its interests were better served elsewhere. Only when the resurgent Ottomans under Mehmet II and his descendants became an effective sea power in the 15th century did Venice have to look across its moat to the Italian mainland. When the Turk cut off its colonies in the East, Venice engaged in a brief career of conquest in Northern Italy with mixed results. Much more successful was its strength at diplomacy, for which it became famous. Curiously, reading this book puts the confusing history of Italy as a whole into sharper perspective if only because seen from a stable point of view. While the papacy and the city states were pulled apart or compacted like silly putty, based on the personalities and issues du jour, Venice stood serenely above the fray. What it lost on the battlefield, it won by sharp dealing. It seemed invincible ... until Napoleon entered the scene. Norwich shows us all the pomp and pageantry, the masks and mummery, the octogenarian Doges and the Councils of 10, the Zontas, and all the intricate paraphernalia of Venetian governance. Instead of palling, the book could have gone on for another 600 pages before I ceased to be mesmerized. This is a great book, and Norwich is a great historian.