Venice: Art and Life in the Lagoon City

by John Hagy Davis

An informative history of Venice with illustrations in color and black and white and a selection of literary excerpts.

Genres: History, Travel, Nonfiction, Italy

172 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1973

Reviews

[Patricia Wilson]

Where are the maps?

Very well written, and a fascinating study of what Venitians call the most beautiful city in the world. But historical maps would have helped a lot.

[Josh Sieders]

An interesting, quick read. Would've been better with more photos (they only came at the end) and probably not an ebook then. But I cracked open my laptop a few times while reading about the architecture and the art to understand the descriptions.

[Bruce]

Until I read this book, I never appreciated the history and greatness of Venice. Through much of my reading, I kept my computer open to wikipedia's pages on Venice and its great painters and architects.

[Reid Brooks]

This is a significant achievement—not because of its scope, but because of its streamlined approach. There are numerous masterful works about the city of Venice, the republic’s expanse, and the cultural/“imperial” history. But I haven’t found a good short one other than Davis’. I took a major chance going with it on a short stay in Venice rather than one of the larger works. But I found reading this very fulfilling and it was exactly what I needed while making observations of tourist sites on my trip.

The Venetians were a remarkable civilization. We have inherited incredible cultural accomplishments from them. Davis does a very good job of briefly capturing the crucial historical narrative.

[Paulla Schreiner]

Interesting

I have visited Venice several times and I found the historical detail interesting. The gallery at the end was beautiful.

[Kim]

Great history, just didn’t grab my attention well. Well written

[Lenard Jones]

The beautiful city

It was a nice easy read and gave quote a lot of un biased information the pictures at the end gave a good visual of what was just read

[Nicole Normand]

I found this book discounted on Amazon via BookBub; this is my honest review.
Lots of descriptions and quotes, gives us a good portrait of Venice's history which I didn't know about. I had only watched the movie "The Lion of St.Mark" many years ago and I thought it was fascinating.
That said, with all the visual feast the author offers, it gives me a desire to visit when I finally go to the other side of my world.

[Shaun]

This short book provides a decent overview of the history of Venice. The intended audience seems to be for tourists as there is much elaboration of the art, architecture, and music of the Venetian civilization over time (a major strength of the book).

What I didn't like was there were too many grandiose statements claiming that "the Venetian's are the "most ______ people in history."

Overall, the book suceeds what it sets out to do, which is to provide a brief overview history of the city and the 1000 year history of an unique civilization (quite distinct from the rest of Italy).