Venice Revealed: An Intimate Portrait - Hardcover

Barbaro, Paolo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1586420305 ISBN 13: 9781586420307

Publisher: Steerforth Italia, 2001

Synopsis

THE CITY OF VENICE is a kind of miracle - surrounded by the sea, cut by as many canals as streets, built on fill reinforced with pilings made of huge tree trunks, it defies nature and belief. No city has been more often painted or written about; for centuries it has drawn visitors for its food and cafés, its masked balls and street life, its public squares and buildings, the beauty of its sunsets, the softness of the air, the clarity of its light.

But Venice is dying - literally sinking into the sea - and its beauty has drawn so many tourists that ordinary citizens can no longer afford to live there. Paolo Barbaro grew up in Venice and after a full working life as a civil engineer in cities scattered across the world he went home. There he fell in love all over again with a city that seemed to be slipping away. He describes the illumination of that rediscovery in this extraordinary book - a brilliant evocation and description of a city which has lost none of its power to charm, dazzle, and take one's breath away.

But the passion in Barbaro's plea for the salvation of his native city has a deeper source than nostalgia. If humankind cannot stir itself to save Venice, he asks, what hope is there for other endangered cities, places, and animals?

“Not since Rilke have we read pages about Venice with the power of these.” -- Vittorio Branca

About this title

About the Author

PAOLO BARBARO left Venice in his twenties and worked as a civil engineer around the world before returning to Venice, where he now lives on the Rio di Santa Margherita in the section known as Dorsoduro. He is the award-winning author of more than thirty books, both fiction and nonfiction.

From Publishers Weekly

erhaps no other city in the world has inspired writers, artists and architects like Venice, the Jewel of the Adriatic, la Serenissima. In Barbaro, Venetians have a native bard worthy of their city. Of his several books on Venice, this is the first to be translated into English. Hardly the barbarian his name implies, Barbaro is an urbane, sophisticated engineer who spent decades working abroad before returning home. This lyrical, intimate guide offers a Venice that tourists rarely see: working-class districts, industrial zones, hidden gardens and minuscule alleyways. Barbaro says that in no other city are the elements so ubiquitous. The moon, the fog, the wind (different words describe various types of fog and wind) and above all the water, "ever-present and ever-changing," affect the city's moods. More than just a lush portrait, this is a cri de coeur, a lament and a desperate plea to the world to save the city. Already Venice has become the victim of its own beauty, the economy destroyed by tourism. Nature is doing the rest. "Acqua alta" ("high water") occurred rarely in Barbaro's childhood; today, with the dredging of the lagoon and canals for large oil vessels and the draining of the local aquifers, the water surges up frequently and Venice is literally sinking. Barbaro's topography of "the most beautiful labyrinth created by man in the world" is laced with nostalgia but also a keen realism. Rarely has ecological writing approached such poetry. If the world acts in time to save a true human wonder, at least partial credit should go to Barbaro.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Steerforth Italia
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1586420305
• ISBN 13: 9781586420307
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272