Venice, a city steeped in a thousand years of history, art and architecture, teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Its architectural treasures crumble--foundations shift, marble ornaments fall--even as efforts to preserve them are underway. This book opens in 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Fenice opera house, a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective--inquiring...

Istanbul, 1840: the new sultan, Abdulmecid, has heard a rumor that Bellini's vanished masterpiece-a portrait of Mehmed the Conqueror-may have resurfaced in Venice. Yashim, our eunuch detective, is promptly sent to investigate, but-aware that the sultan's advisers are against any extravagant repurchase of the painting-decides to deploy his disempowered Polish ambassador friend, Palewski, to visit Venice in his stead. Palewski arrives in disguise in...

A glittering, evocative, fascinating, story-filled portrait of Venice, the ultimate city, embracing facts and romance, history and artists, carnival masks and leper colonies, wars and sieges, and scandals and seductions.

"Venice, 1745. The once celebrated male soprano, Tito Amato, is now determined to prove himself as a director. With the theater losing subscribers to a rival company headed by an unscrupulous impresario, San Marco's Maestro Torani charges Tito with locating the perfect opera to fill the seats in time for the opening of Carnival. Surprisingly, a second-rate composer provides the very thing--an opera so replete with gorgeous melodies the public speculates...

""Focuses on the dress of nuns in early modern Venetian Convents; investigates the intersection of dress and the city's social and economic history: includes illustrations"--Provided by publisher"--

Go into the very heart of ancient and medieval urban life to examine the crucial and historic steps towards civilization, in cities such as Athens, Carthage, Rome, Venice, Paris, and many more.