Tag Archives: Pietro Longhi

LIKE MOURNING COACHES WHEN THE FUNERAL IS DONE

Extravagant showmanship, a proclivity toward the taking of calculated risks, and unabashed greed- all salient features of the Venetian way of life- are epitomized in Francesco Guardi’s “Il Ridotto” , which also sums up the decadence of eighteenth-century Venice and … Continue reading

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THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS: Stranded in Venice

For a thousand years Venice held, “the gorgeous east in fee” and set its own terms for the West. Then Napoleon saw a bluff…and called it…. In Venice’s finest years she was a hard, unyielding, brilliant sort of state; an … Continue reading

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BETTER AN ITALIAN COUNTESS

It was, by any measure, the most expensive education ever devised. Its classrooms were the capital of Europe, its textbooks the ruins and monuments of eighteen centuries. From it the young aristocrat could learn, if he chose, how to eat,dress, … Continue reading

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