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Tuscany, with Florence its capital and a host of gorgeous medieval cities set in a rolling countryside of fields, vineyards and olive groves, is the cradle of the Renaissance and for many visitors the cultural heart of Italy. This guide amply covers Florence (itself the subject of a whole Blue Guide)…
Displayed on its own in a glass case in one of the later rooms of the excellent Archaeological Museum in Aghios Nikolaos, Crete, is an arresting clay head. It was found near Siteia, where it had been left at a shrine as a votive deposit. The young man’s lips are…
Blue Guides coverage of Italy is colossal in its scope: 9 guides to the regions and cities of Italy are currently in print, totalling 5,000 pages of material. This brand-new guide draws on the depth and range of previous Blue Guides to offer the ultimate concise guide to the entire…
The City of Light boasts a huge variety of art collections from small and intimate to one of the most celebrated museums in the world, the Louvre. One of the gastronomic capitals of the world, Paris can only be understood if approached through its history and culture. View the book’s…
The first Blue Guide to cover both Rome and Florence in one book, as well as the attractive countryside and towns rich in art history in between the two. View the book’s contents, index and some sample pages, and buy securely from blueguides.com here »
Covering mainly Manhattan, focusing on history, art and architecture and includes Blue Guides Recommended dining and accommodation suggestions. View the book’s contents, index and some sample pages, and buy securely from blueguides.com here »
Ostia is spectacular, the picturesque remains of a working port town cover an enormous area of red-brick and marble ruins on the banks of the (now scarcely visible) river Tiber. It gives much more of a feel for life in the Roman empire than yet another nutty emperor’s palace. (Not…
Mountains, rivers, rolling hills, pine forests and the Atlantic coast provide a spectacular range of food and drink, while its cultural inheritance is equally wide-ranging; prehistoric caves, Romanesque pilgrimage churches, 18th-century chateaux and cityscapes, eclectic seaside architecture and rich art collections. View the book’s contents, index and some sample pages,…
The author, supported by the classicists and art historians on the Blue Guides editorial board, has updated this new edition with a wealth of detail. Now with useful Blue Guide Recommended advice on hotels and restaurants. The whole region is covered from the Bay of Naples, with some of the…
The first in the new Blue Guide Concise city series: small format and good value, ideal for on-site use. Blue Guide Concise Rome builds on Blue Guides’ exhaustive coverage of Italy and its cities. View the book’s contents, index and some sample pages, and buy securely from blueguides.com here »
The Brenta Canal was built to facilitate navigation between Venice and the city of Padua. Wealthy Venetians built magnificent villas along the banks of the canal – the “Riviera del Brenta” – to escape the heat of the lagoon in high summer. Being in Venice in July we too decided…
A day trip to the island of Murano, famous for a thousand years for its production of glass. The island is about 20 mins from Venice itself. We took vaporetto #82 from the Giudecca, riding all the way round the bottom of the Bienale gardens and Arsenale, up the Fondamento Nuovo…
Tomorrow we will get the train to Pisa and on to Pietrasanta, the birthplace of Stagio Stagi. Having based ourselves in Lucca (a fortunate choice), we spent today searching out works by Matteo Civitali, both in the town (his birth- and workplace) and out in the surrounding countryside. But tomorrow…
By Robert Hewison and published by Yale University Press, £45 Viewed from 160 years later it is not always easy to take Ruskin seriously: his romanticisation of the Gothic and demonisation of the Renaissance verges on the absurd, while curious relationships first with his beautiful and lively young wife – with whom…
Taken from Blue Guide Tuscany, 5th edition (2009) FlorenceGene A. Brucker Renaissance Florence (Wiley, 1969). An excellent and very readable historical introduction.Margaret Haines (ed.) The Years of the Cupola 1417-1436. A fascinating digital archive of the sources of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, now available on line at www.operaduomo.firenze.it/cupola.Amanda…
This reading list is taken from Blue Guide Venice, 8th edition (2007). And Blue Guide Literary Companion Venice (2009) is an anthology of writing about or set in Venice: The number of books that have been written about Venice is enormous. Ever since the first published descriptions of the city appeared…
Unlike the Blue Guides to Florence and Venice, Blue Guide Rome does not include a list of recommended reading. Blue Guide Literary Companion Rome is due out Dec 2010, a sister volume to the Blue Guide Literary Companion Venice, to be joined by London in Spring 2011. In any case…
