Venice Rediscovered |
|
Author:
| Pemble, John |
ISBN: | 978-0-19-285328-8 |
Publication Date: | Sep 1996 |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press, Incorporated
|
Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | USD $14.95 |
Book Description:
|
How does a city become an icon? In this engaging and novel book, John Pemble links Venice's transfiguration over the last two hundred years from the shabby relic of a despised tyranny to a great modern cultural symbol to social and intellectual changes in Europe and North America. Analyzing the appeal of the city to novelists, historians, and apostles of "culture," Pemble demonstrates how changing perceptions of Venice reveal much about the development of modern Western sensibility.
More DescriptionHow does a city become an icon? In this engaging and novel book, John Pemble links Venice's transfiguration over the last two hundred years from the shabby relic of a despised tyranny to a great modern cultural symbol to social and intellectual changes in Europe and North America. Analyzing the appeal of the city to novelists, historians, and apostles of "culture," Pemble demonstrates how changing perceptions of Venice reveal much about the development of modern Western sensibility.
Shedding new light on the work of such eminent "Venetophiles" as Ruskin, Proust, Mann, and Henry James, Pemble shows how American and European outsiders developed an obsession with the idea of a dying city which must be preserved at all costs; how they reconstructed the imagery as well as the architecture of Venice, and how the Victorian need to restore was supplanted by a wish to conserve without altering the remains of this fragile inheritance.
A searching exploration of our eternal fascination with a city that continues to inspire artists, writers, and lovers alike, Venice Rediscovered is an important contribution to our understanding of modern culture and will captivate anyone who has ever visited--or dreamed of visiting--Venice itself.