Henry James wrote of Venice: 'You desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it . . .' whereas Mark Twain found St Mark's 'so ugly . . . propped on its long row of thick-legged columns, its back knobbed with domes, it seems like a vast, warty bug taking a meditative walk'. Reactions to Venice have been, throughout the ages, astonishingly different. John Julius Norwich has put together a dazzling anthology, drawing on the writings of Byron, Goethe, Wagner, Casanova, Jan Morris, Robert Browning and Horace Walpole, among many others. The pieces range from the sixth century, when the...
Henry James wrote of Venice: 'You desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it . . .' whereas Mark Twain found St Mark's 'so ugly . . . propped o...
When on Christmas Day, 1130, Roger de Hauteville was crowned first King of Sicily, the island entered a golden age. In this second volume of John Julius Norwich's scintillating history of the Normans in Sicily, Norwich describes the 'happiest and most glorious chapter of the island's history.'
When on Christmas Day, 1130, Roger de Hauteville was crowned first King of Sicily, the island entered a golden age. In this second volume of John Juli...
Chronicling the 'other Norman invasion', The Normans in the South is the epic story of the House of Hauteville, and in particular Robert Guiscard, perhaps the most extraordinary European adventurer between the times of Caesar and Napoleon.
Chronicling the 'other Norman invasion', The Normans in the South is the epic story of the House of Hauteville, and in particular Robert Guiscard, per...
In a sparkling, fast-paced narrative, Shakespeare's Kings chronicles the turbulent events that inspired Shakespeare's history plays, from Edward III to Richard III.
In a sparkling, fast-paced narrative, Shakespeare's Kings chronicles the turbulent events that inspired Shakespeare's history plays, from Edward III t...
