Venice, the Enchanted Mirror - A Bedside Compendium (Paperback, Main)

This rich and fascinating celebration of Venice presents a series of unconventional impressions of the heart of Venice and its dazzling spectrum of people. With a wealth of eyewitness accounts and comments by its famous visitors, including Joseph Brodsky, Benjamin Disraeli, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mark Twain, and Orson Welles, this book is a thrilling evocation of Europe's capital of color. It examines the dark byways of the city's brutal history, the brilliance of Venetian painting, sumptuous architecture and embellishments, many arts--from glass blowing and boatbuilding to velvet--courtesans, fashions, food, music, politics, crumbling ruins and abandoned gardens, the ghetto, eccentrics, and working people.