A Sentimental Guide to VeniceDiego Valeri

As happens in books born from an act of love – and Valeri’s love for Venice was the love of his entire life – the quality of the book is immediately indicated in its title: guide, in other words knowledge of the city, set forth without trace of erudite heaviness, and sentimental, the attribute that most fittingly suggests the tone with which the author looks at and describes the city, and especially how he loves it and evokes it. In fact its eight chapters – Rialto, Saint Mark’s, The Piazza The Piazzetta The Molo and The Riva, The Grand Canal, The Other Venice, Painting, The Lagoon – opening with “an invitation” and closing with “the envoy”, furnish a highly poetic, yet simultaneously extremely precise image of Venice: its historic truth, with the admirable legend of its origins and the splendor of its civil grandeur, and the incomparable fascination of its beauty, with the countless masterpieces of art which make the city unique. Diego Valeri’s prose blends history, art and landscape in a vast and vigorous fresco. His gift for description and interpretation creates a guide for eyes and heart, as well as an illuminated guide for the minds of those who wish to penetrate the many secrets and mysteries of the “ineffable city”: the city that awakens all the vital powers in those who are fully alive.