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Jan Morris: Venice (unabridged)

Read by Sebastian Comberti

This release includes a digital booklet

Contents

Jan Morris: Venice (Unabridged)

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$209.30
  • Recording Venue: Danesbury Studio, Hertfordshire

Introduction by Jan Morris

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Venice by Jan Morris read by Sebastian Comberti

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The estuaries of three virile rivers first formed…

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The People – Chapter 1: Islanders

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She was never loved.

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Chapter 2: The Venetian Way

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The Venetian custom is the criterion of good sense…

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This self esteem makes for narrow horizons and short focuses.

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Chapter 3: Strong Men

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They are sharp businessmen still.

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The Republic was sustained, too…

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Under the Republic none of these working men had any share…

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At the other end of the scale there remain the aristocrats…

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The patrician was not allowed to refuse an appointment…

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Chapter 4: The Truth Not to Everyone

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More casual pilferers haunt the water-buses…

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He might also represent the Venetian Nosey Parker…

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Chapter 5: On Women

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Other classes of Venetian women were not so sheltered…

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Chapter 6: Minor Venetians

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Even more, I sometimes think, do the Venetians love…

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One Venetian cat became an international celebrity.

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There used to be many horses and mules in Venice…

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There are many dogs in Venice.

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Chapter 7: Pageantries and Panaceas

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The most memorable of all such galas was arranged…

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Venice is not quite so sumptuous nowadays…

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Half a century later another Patriarch of Venice became Pope…

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Venice used to be a great place for love potions…

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Chapter 8: Poi Christiani

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'Are you a Venetian?' I once asked a saintly Dominican…

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Today the worst is probably over.

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If the Venetians are not always devout, they are usually kind.

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There is a trace of the morbid to this soft-heartedness.

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Chapter 9: Minorities

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At the other end of the city…

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For a taste of Venetian Englishry…

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Chapter 10: Melancholia

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No wonder Napoleon swept her aside.

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Since then she has been a port, an art centre…

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The City – Chapter 11: Ex Island

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Away to the west, beyond the railway station…

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Chapter 12: Streets Full of Water

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The canals, some of which have ninth-century origins…

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A wonderful variety of boats has been developed…

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The water transport of Venice is easy-going…

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Different indeed is the character of the gondola…

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A gondola is very expensive to build…

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Chapter 13: Stones of Venice

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The lanes are often beguilingly unpredictable…

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Long centuries ago the Venetians, looking around them…

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Many stories testify to the pride…

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Do not think, either, that Venice has no gardens.

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The early Venetian bridges were used by horses and mules…

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Chapter 14: City Services

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There are a few traffic notices in Venice…

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Everybody dies in Venice.

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Marvellously evocative is a winter funeral in Venice.

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The marble-workers who erect the fancy mausoleums…

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Chapter 15: Age

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When the most famous of them all fell down…

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In a matter of moments it was all over…

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Today many a campanile is supported…

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Chapter 16: The Bestiary

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An altogether different, gentler kind of derangement…

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Bestial, too, were the men of Venice…

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Venice scarcely needs fables to strengthen her strain…

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On San Michele is buried the French painter Leopold Robert…

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Chapter 17: Arabesques

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More often, though, the allusions of Venice are arabesque…

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In Venice you can enjoy the pleasures of the Orient…

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Venice is no longer the supreme city of music…

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There is no drink that feels organic to Venice…

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Chapter 18: The Seasons

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All is dank, swirling, desolate.

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And then one morning the spring arrives.

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With a thud, a babble of voices and a crinkle…

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Confronted by these multitudes…

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But though crowds do not suit some parts of the city…

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Chapter 19: New on the Rialto

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In its great centuries Venice was more than a mere spectacle…

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Above the stalls of San Giacomo…

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Chapter 20: Curiosities

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Venice is thickly encrusted with the stranger ornaments…

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Venetian art, too, is rich in curiosities.

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In the adjacent picture, another naval battle…

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Then there are the curiosities of politics and diplomacy.

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Other nooks of Venetian oddity are almost out of range…

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A pair of baby seagulls, perhaps, lives beneath the poop…

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Chapter 21: To the Prodigies

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Consider next the southern ward of Dorsoduro…

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But when all is said, and nearly all is done…

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No two churches are starker, pinker, loftier…

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Chapter 22: Purposes

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The prime advantages of Venice lie, as both sides agree…

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The Lagoon – Chapter 23: Seventh Sea

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Thus the lagoon is partly an artificial phenomenon…

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Chapter 24: The Office of a Moat

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It was eight centuries before the next enemy set foot…

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Thus the city has been spared the worst of war…

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Out beside the great sea-gates…

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Chapter 25: Navigation

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Like the canals of the city, the navigational channels…

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Another new canal, to the north of Venice…

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Chapter 26: On the Edge

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Progress, though, has recently struck Cavallino…

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Chapter 27: Island Towns

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Certainly it is a building of symbolic significance…

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Many other islands of the lagoon have had their eras…

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Very different is the spirit of Murano…

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All this is a pity…

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Chapter 28: Holy Waters

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In the museum upstairs there is a fine Egyptian mummy…

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San Lazzaro is always on the move.

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Chapter 29: Dead and Alive

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Other inshore islands are less haunted…

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Mazzorbo is a backwater of quite another kind.

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Chapter 30: The Sacred Bulwarks

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Beside the porto, and visible far out to sea…

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Among these old and mellowed things…

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The gusto of the Lido fades as you sail southwards…

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Chapter 31: Lost

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Embarkation

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All this strikes me as odd…

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It is partly a matter of texture.

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