Tag Archives: Venice

Nix the San Marco bugaboo

Posted on October 16, 2020 by

In my last post, “Neighbors win third straight,” I described the latest zoom meeting of the Providence Historic District Commission, which deferred action for a third (actually, a fourth) straight time on proposals to relocate a historic cottage and to … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

A draftsman in watercolor?

Posted on October 4, 2020 by

My wife, Victoria, sent me a Facebook post by Mario A. Pita, a son of Cuban refugees who resides in Arlington, Va., and who enjoys posting artists’ work on their birthdays. The birthday of watercolorist James Holland (1799-1870) fell just … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Lovely Venice in 9 minutes

Posted on March 31, 2019 by

This beautiful travel video of Venice from Expedia lives up to the high standards of its tribe. The online travel booking service has dozens of fine videos of cities around the world that are so nice that they might make … Continue reading →

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Europe as museum for rich?

Posted on October 7, 2018 by

The late Walter Laqueur, who died last week after a long career cataloguing the sins of communism, terrorism and the Holocaust, was quoted in his New York Times obituary asserting that the “possibility that Europe will become a museum or … Continue reading →

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‘Dream of Venice in B&W’

Posted on July 24, 2018 by

JoAnn Locktov, the editrix and impresaria of photographic essays of Venice in book form, sends me another of her beautiful works: Dream of Venice in Black and White, the third in her “Dream of Venice” series, published by Bella Figura … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

James on Ruskin’s Venice

Posted on March 28, 2018 by

In addition to narratives of place in his novels, Henry James wrote much about his personal travels, including visits to Venice, to which I’ve had the pleasure of a single blissful visit. The excerpts I’ve taken from his writing on … Continue reading →

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More on beauty via Expedia

Posted on November 19, 2017 by

After posting the Expedia video on Budapest yesterday “Nine minutes in Budapest,” and after noting that the link to the Expedia video continued a chain of links to other destinations, I continued along that chain. Without suggesting that a video … Continue reading →

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Beauty vs. elegance of cities

Posted on November 17, 2017 by

My former colleague at the Providence Journal, Froma Harrop, who has a syndicated column and a website called This East Side (about that side of Manhattan; she also lives partly on that side of Providence), recently asked me to contribute … Continue reading →

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Lovely Venice, lovely video

Posted on June 26, 2017 by

I want to go back. To Venice. Ahhh. And to a degree, this Expedia video provides the cheapest, fastest and perhaps the most intensely beautiful way to go. Not that being there is not the best. It is. But few … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Video | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Gallagher: “If Venice Dies”

Posted on March 31, 2017 by

Mary Campbell Gallagher, founder of the International Coalition for the Preservation of Paris, has written a review of Salvadore Settis’s If Venice Dies for The New Criterion. Here is a direct link to her fine review, elegantly titled “La Serenissima” … Continue reading →

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