Venice
The merchant as global reporter
Joad Raymond Wren explores the role played by Europe’s polyglot traders in disseminating news before the invention of the telegraph
Venice deserves Jeff Bezos
Venetians are once again revolting. Not, this time, against cruise ships, wheeled luggage, over-tourism or rule from mainland Mestre. No…
The love that conquered every barrier – including the Iron Curtain
Iain Pears tells the dramatic story of how two art historians – one English, one Russian – met by chance in Venice and found they couldn’t live without each other
The sexual escapades of Edmund White sound like an improbably sordid Carry On film
The octogenarian writer seems unable to resist the burlesque, describing the most lurid encounters at an apparently droll remove
A necklace for the Empress Josephine: The Glassmaker, by Tracy Chevalier, reviewed
With the family business in Murano under threat, the daughter of a Venetian glassmaker learns to craft perfect coloured beads, soon much sought after by high society
How a market town in Hampshire shaped Peggy Guggenheim
On 24 April 1937 Marguerite Guggenheim – known as Peggy – of Yew Tree Cottage, Hurst was booked by a…
Tourists are the new pariahs
Think of Majorca and what do you picture? Maybe it is elegant tapas bars in the Gothic quarter of Palma,…
The summer I dwelt in marble halls
Gill Johnson recalls the glorious months she once spent in the ‘gilded labyrinth’ of a Venetian palazzo, employed as an English tutor to an aristocratic Italian family
Always carry a little book with you, and preserve it with great care, said Leonardo da Vinci
Despite the digitisation of everything, many of us still choose to jot down thoughts and sketches on paper, and would be bereft without a notebook to hand
Two for the road
Jane Glover follows the rapturous Wolfgang around Venice, Bologna, Florence and Naples on three journeys that would change the young composer’s life
Bittersweet memories
This is a deceptively slim novel. Its 96 pages contain multitudes: two lives, past and present, seamlessly interwoven. The narrator,…
Doors of perception
Describing the Venice Biennale, like pinning down the city itself, is a practical impossibility. There is just too much of…
Strong opinionsloosely held
In his 2005 book What The Dormouse Said John Markoff traced the roots of the personal computer industry to the…
Character is king
Thriller writers are hard pressed to stand out in what’s become a very crowded field. As a result, from Cardiff…
Renaissance radical
‘Camp,’ wrote Susan Sontag, ‘is the paintings of Carlo Crivelli, with their real jewels and trompe-l’oeil insects and cracks in…
Vignettes to treasure
Jan Morris, in all her incarnations, was always able to evoke a place and a moment like no other. As…
Modern master
Gossipy, amusing, a little vain, Albrecht Dürer was a 16th-century Andy Warhol, says Martin Gayford
Should it stay or should it go?
There are many examples of beautiful old buildings being knocked down in favour of undistinguished new ones. But not everything can be preserved in aspic, says Martin Gayford
When thoughts turn to Venice
We were discussing travel, that forbidden delight now tantalisingly close. Where would be our first destination? Forswearing originality, I chose…
Gritti drama
Dining in catastrophe used to be more interesting: but we must be fair. It was a smaller (and wetter) catastrophe:…
A mad social whirl
The name Arthur Jeffress may not conjure many associations for those not familiar with the London post-war art world, but…
