'None of Venice's innumerable chroniclers have portrayed the Serenissima's character with quite such a combination of the scholarly, the informal and the intimate...Over the years thousands of readers, starting this book, have been relieved to encounter its famously undemanding approach to the city - 'Generally the first thing to do in Venice is to sit down and have some coffee': but by the time they get to the end of it, all the same, they will have learnt virtually everything that an educated stranger needs to know about the place, its art and its history, besides being subtly entertained throughout.' From Jan Morris's introduction