Venezia

"Every day, a nervous traveller visiting the City of Doges for the first time asks the best way to get to their hotel. 'The shortest or the most beautiful?', I once heard the concierge at Hotel Des Bains ask. The tourist who opted for the most beautiful route is still wandering around the city This is a unique photobook in which to wander and lose oneself."

There are already a thousand unremarkable travel guides and photobooks dedicated to Venice. Only an original, tactile collector's piece can claim a worthy place in today's Google age. This sensual book is accordingly full to the brim with all manner of Venice memorabilia: nineteenth century photographs, engravings, hand-coloured magic lantern slides, antique postcards, old luggage labels and keys for long-lost luxury hotels, golden ducats from the eighteenth century, antiquarian erotica, masks, invitations to Carnival balls, the list goes on. This book, with its gold gilt-edged pages, is not a travel guide or walk-with-tips, but an atmospheric pilgrimage along mythical peaks. It exudes a sense of mystery, and shares its appearance with this miraculous city: a glamorous, elegant ruin, as if it were the facsimile of a valuable book from 1895. With inspiring texts by Belgian journalist Serge Simonart and illustrated with dozens of authentic photographs and documents. In response to general demand, this bestseller is now also available in English.