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Title details for Venice by Peter Ackroyd - Wait list

Venice

Pure City

by Peter Ackroyd
Simon Vance
Audiobook
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The Venetians' language and way of thinking set them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. This latest work from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its listeners to that sensual and surprising city.


His account embraces facts and romance, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the festivals and the flowers. He leads us through the history of the city, from the first refugees arriving in the mists of the lagoon in the fourth century to the rise of a great mercantile state and its trading empire, the wars against Napoleon, and the tourist invasions of today. Everything is here: the merchants on the Rialto and the Jews in the ghetto; the glassblowers of Murano; the carnival masks and the sad colonies of lepers; the artists—Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo; and the ever-present undertone of Venice's shadowy corners and dead ends, of prisons and punishment, wars and sieges, scandals and seductions.


Ackroyd's Venice: Pure City is a study of Venice much in the vein of his lauded London: The Biography. Like London, Venice is a fluid, writerly exploration organized around a number of themes. History and context are provided in each chapter, but Ackroyd's portrait of Venice is a particularly novelistic one, both beautiful and rapturous. We could have no better guide—enjoying Venice: Pure City is, in itself, a glorious journey to the ultimate city.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 9, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400197934
      • File size: 404183 KB
      • Duration: 14:02:02

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Peter Ackroyd works his usual magic on this most majestic city. It's fascinating to learn that Venetians often feel they're not part of Italy. Narrator Simon Vance remains understated as he describes the glorious city and its influence on the works of Bellini, Titian, and Tintoretto. His sublime pronunciation of Italian words and names adds to the Venetian flair. It's exciting to realize that St. Martin's and St. Peter's churches have always had a rivalry, that there are multiple words to describe the fog that often shrouds the city, and that glassblowers were banished to Murano with fire safety in mind. Like Venice itself, the book and narration are multifaceted and are perfect for both tourist and armchair traveler. S.G.B. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 23, 2010
      Novelist and biographer Ackroyd (The Canterbury Tales) provides a history of and meditation on the actual and imaginary Venice in a volume as opulent and paradoxical as the city itself. Structured and organized with a fluidity that reflects its many-faceted subject, he launches his tour de force with the basics of Venetian geography, hydrology, and climate before turning to history and architecture. The narrative continues to develop around themes both usual and unexpected such as trade and gossip or subjects such as the city's fabled churches, its love of sexuality, and theater. As it glides along, it gracefully incorporates tidbits about such traditions as the cabins on gondolas and the masks worn during Carnival. How Ackroyd deftly catalogues the overabundance of the city's real and literary tropes and touchstones is itself a kind of tribute to La Serenissima, as Venice is called, and his seductive voice is elegant and elegiac. The resulting book is, like Venice, something rich, labyrinthine and unique that makes itself and its subject both new and necessary.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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