3 books to read on a way to Venice
Visiting one of the most beautiful places in the world ?
To get more into secrets of this special place, I would recommend you to read few lines about that.
Your travel - related experience might be enrichened. These books might inspire you to visit hidden corners, and moreover, to get better connection with the space you are visiting.
I have chosen 3 books, that definitely changed my vision of Venice. Besides tour guides, documentaries, or facts on the internet, this might be engaging reading on your way to Venice, or while you will be staying there.
Maybe it would even make you think about writing down your own thoughts about the place?
"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."
Rene Descartes
1. Giacomo Casanova : My Escape from Venice Prison
Quite short novel, or diary book written by Giacomo Casanova. Casanova reveals funny, romantic, egocentric stories from his life in Venice. If it is all truth, we can only imagine. He is expressing himself as seducor, lover, and adventurous character.
As we know, the story was created during his "retirement", so he is remembering facts from his younger years, while full of power in romance.
This is one of the reasons, why he tells us so many romantic details.
Furthermore, the story is showing us Venice
in the mid- 18th century, from the first hand.
His long life was many things, but never boring.
" I can say I have lived." Casanova
2. Byron: A Self-Portrait: Letters and Diaries 1798-1824
This books covers also Byron´s stay in Venice. He tells us in his memoirs, who he met, how the place was living. You can also feel like someone in the past centurues, who want to travel and to have the spirit uplifted.
He would take you to his favourite places in Venice, especially Armenian Island.
"I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure's rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble pines, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles."
Lord Byron
Isn´t it stunning, to know that you are standing on the same stone, as important thinkers or writers were standing centuries before ?
3. Roger Crowley: City of Fortune: How Venice
Ruled the Seas 2013
You don´t have to be historian to have understood a bit from exciting history of La Serenissima, right ?
This book would bring you at the early years of Venice, will take you through its rich and famous years.
Also, it uncovers sources of its art and architecture monuments. You might be surprised, but not all beautiful, that you will see on its islands was built or gotten in a good way.
There had been wars, quarrels, historic conflicts. But that all makes this place original and unforgettable.
City of Fortune traces the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga, from the ill-fated Fourth Crusade,
which culminates in the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, to the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499–1503,
which sees the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean.
By reading this, you will also get to understand the "Venetian spirit" of never giving up, and to get what you want. This is why it is City of Fortune. Also, it could be called City of The Great Human Will.
