Yriarte's Venice (1 cent)

Charles Yriarte was a 19th century French author, who devoted much of his life to travel and to writing of his travels. In the 1870s, he wrote a book on Venice, which was published in English just before the turn of the century. I found a beautiful copy and bought it and, much to my surprise, read it.

I learned quite a bit, although the book presupposed more knowledge of Venetian history than I had (my friends at Wikipedia helped me along). The book told of the origins of Venice (during the last days of the Roman empire, future Venetians escaped their pursuers and wound up on a series of islands off the Adriatic coast), how they built the city off-shore, of their need to defend themselves and consequently to develop ocean going expertise. The growth of trade. The independent kingdom. Its expansion on both sides of the Adriatic. Its assistance during the crusades; its rivalry with Constantinople. The effect of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks - a trading partner was gone. The end of independence with the coming of Napolean, the Austrian rule after the Napoleonic Wars, and finally the unity of Italy.

And the architecture (mixture of east and west), the churches (in what was not a very religious city), art, lace making, the publishing industry.

A very nice introduction (albeit too detailed for common man) to a unique place.