Venice from the Ground Up

by James H.S. McGregor

Book Overview

Venice came to life on spongy mudflats at the edge of the habitable world. Protected in a tidal estuary from barbarian invaders and Byzantine overlords, the fishermen, salt gatherers and traders who settled there crafted an amphibious way of life unlike anything the Roman Empire had ever known. In an astonishing feat of narrative history, James H. S. McGregor recreates this world-turned-upside-down, with its waterways rather than roads, its boats...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674023331
• ISBN13: 9780674023338
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 361 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful Insights

This is a beautifully written and illustrated book for the Veneice lover. Nice mix of history and building descriptions.

Best book of Venice

After reading throughfully several books of Venice (both English and Spanish) this one provided insightful information, perfect tips, great history coverage. Highly recomended if you want to learn about Venice or planning a trip there.

Great architectural guidebook

This book is not a typical guide - where to eat and sleep - but rather a detailed architectural guide with enough history mixed in to put it all into context. Having explored most of the sites discussed, I found that the author gives excellent insight into the buildings, adds detail that enhances visits and turns the buildings that would otherwise blend into the city into treasures. A must for architecture fans and those who want to explore beyond the traditional half day in the St. Marks area.

Venetian Masterpiece

If you have been to Venice or are planning to go, "Venice from the Ground Up" is a great book and necessary for you to own. Why would a city become established and then flourish in what would seem to be the unlikeliest place--in the middle of a lagoon? In answering this question this excellent book proves the basic concept of the other "From the Ground Up" book, ("Rome from the Ground Up"), that you can't understand a city without knowing how it developed-and understand the interplay of natural and historical forces, and cultural institutions. Like the earlier book, this one visualizes a city at various moments in its lifespan. In Rome one grasps immediately that a modern city is overlying a classical one. Venice is different because after it consolidated from clusters of islands and channels became defined as canals, a city of waterways instead of streets emerged which presents a bewildering labyrinth to the visitor. This book is ingeniously well organized to sort it all out. The text presents a development of Venetian architecture, history and society in stages coordinated to the series of clearly legible maps at the end, with the places discussed in the text located in numbered sequence on the map, so that the book can be also be used as a guide to this exploration of Venice in a slice in time, by foot and boat. (Practical information is included on catching the Venetian bus, the vaporetto, etc.) I also own a thick comprehensive guidebook to the city organized in itineraries in various neighborhoods which I carried around with me in Venice--but "Venice from the Ground Up" is more valuable in understanding what you are seeing, which is more a matter of perspective and context than of minutiae. This is still a very complete and scholarly book, elegantly designed, illustrated with wonderful historic prints and paintings and beautiful contemporary photographs which seem to keep you moving between the present and the past. The author is a sparklingly inventive writer, and his descriptions are as vivid as paintings. I had to read through just to find out how the story of Venice would arrive at our own day. I love Canaletto's paintings, and this book has enlivened his paintings for me in new ways. If you love Venice, or are planning to go there, you need to have this book to enhance your understanding or renew your love of this amazing city.