Derek Perkins’s fluid articulation, like a gondola threading the canals, carries the listener unresistingly through the crowded spectacle of Venice’s centuries of glory. Strathern is a superb writer, and this is a fascinating history of Venice’s evolution as a major trading center from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, “from Marco Polo to Casanova,” a story that encapsulates Europe’s own evolution and its life-or-death struggle against the Islamic East. But somewhere deep into the Genoese wars (1256-1381), one can let loose the thread and enter a state in which that fine voice and the fluid succession of Italian names, battles, and politics papal and secular become pure delight. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2014]
Trade Ed. Tantor Media 2014
CD ISBN 9781452619477 $39.99 Eleven CDs
MP3-CD ISBN 9781452669472 $29.99 Two MP3-CDs
DD ISBN 9781452689470 $17.99
Library Ed. Tantor Media 2014
CD ISBN 9781452649474 $83.99 Eleven CDs
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