tailieunhanh - A Historical Romance of the 16th Century

Venice, with her life and glory but a memory, is still the _citta nobilissima_,--a city of moods,--all beautiful to the beauty-lover, all mystic to the dreamer; between the wonderful blue of the water and the sky she floats like a mirage--visionary--unreal--and under the spell of her fascination we are not critics, but lovers. We see the pathos, not the scars of her desolation, and the splendor of her past is too much a part of her to be forgotten, though the gold is dim upon her palace-fronts, and the sheen of her precious marbles has lost its bloom, and the colors of the laughing Giorgione. | A Golden Book of Venice 1 A Golden Book of Venice Project Gutenberg s A Golden Book of Venice by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at Title A Golden Book of Venice Author Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull Release Date December 14 2003 EBook 10455 Language English Character set encoding ISO-8859-1 START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GOLDEN BOOK OF VENICE Produced by Ted Garwin Annika and PG Distributed Proofreaders THE GOLDEN BOOK OF VENICE A Historical Romance of the 16th Century By MRS. LAWRENCE TURNBULL This noble citie doth in a manner chalenge this at my hands that I should describe her . the fairest Lady yet the richest Paragon and Queene of Christendome. 1900 AS A TRIBUTE TO HIS GIFT OF VIVID HISTORIC NARRATION WHICH WAS THE DELIGHT OF MY CHILDHOOD I INSCRIBE THIS ROMANCE TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FATHER. ACKNOWLEDGMENT I desire gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to many faithful loving and able students of Venetian lore without whose books my own presentation of Venice in the sixteenth century would have been impossible. Mr. Ruskin s name must always come first among the prophets of this City of the Sea but among others from whom I have gathered side-lights I have found quite indispensable Mr. Horatio F. Brown s Venice An Historical Sketch of the Republic Venetian Studies and Life on the Lagoons Mr. Hare s suggestive little volume of Venice M. Léon Galibert s Histoire de la République de Venise and Mr. Charles Yriarte s Venice and his work studied from the State papers in the Frari entitled La vie d un Patricien de Venise. Mr. Robertson s life of Fra Paolo Sarpi gave me the first hint of this great personality but my own portrait has been carefully studied from the volumes of his collected works which later responded to my search