Venice
A necklace for the Empress Josephine: The Glassmaker, by Tracy Chevalier, reviewed
With the family business in Murano under threat, the daughter of a Venetian glassmaker learns to craft perfect coloured beads, soon much sought after by high society
How a market town in Hampshire shaped Peggy Guggenheim
On 24 April 1937 Marguerite Guggenheim – known as Peggy – of Yew Tree Cottage, Hurst was booked by a…
Tourists are the new pariahs
Think of Majorca and what do you picture? Maybe it is elegant tapas bars in the Gothic quarter of Palma,…
The summer I dwelt in marble halls
Gill Johnson recalls the glorious months she once spent in the ‘gilded labyrinth’ of a Venetian palazzo, employed as an English tutor to an aristocratic Italian family
Always carry a little book with you, and preserve it with great care, said Leonardo da Vinci
Despite the digitisation of everything, many of us still choose to jot down thoughts and sketches on paper, and would be bereft without a notebook to hand
Travels in Italy with the teenage Mozart
Jane Glover follows the rapturous Wolfgang around Venice, Bologna, Florence and Naples on three journeys that would change the young composer’s life
Bittersweet memories: Ti Amo, by Hanne Ørstavik, reviewed
This is a deceptively slim novel. Its 96 pages contain multitudes: two lives, past and present, seamlessly interwoven. The narrator,…
The jewel-bright, mesmerisingly detailed pictures by Raqib Shaw are a revelation
Describing the Venice Biennale, like pinning down the city itself, is a practical impossibility. There is just too much of…
Stewart Brand: man of ideas and infuriating contrarian
In his 2005 book What The Dormouse Said John Markoff traced the roots of the personal computer industry to the…
Character is king in the latest crime fiction
Thriller writers are hard pressed to stand out in what’s become a very crowded field. As a result, from Cardiff…
Renaissance radical: Carlo Crivelli – Shadows on the Sky at Ikon Gallery reviewed
‘Camp,’ wrote Susan Sontag, ‘is the paintings of Carlo Crivelli, with their real jewels and trompe-l’oeil insects and cracks in…
Jan Morris’s last book is a vade mecum to treasure
Jan Morris, in all her incarnations, was always able to evoke a place and a moment like no other. As…
Albrecht Dürer was a 16th-century Andy Warhol
Gossipy, amusing, a little vain, Albrecht Dürer was a 16th-century Andy Warhol, says Martin Gayford
Why I will miss our mighty cooling towers – and I suspect I am not alone
There are many examples of beautiful old buildings being knocked down in favour of undistinguished new ones. But not everything can be preserved in aspic, says Martin Gayford
Wine by the jug in Venetian Venice
We were discussing travel, that forbidden delight now tantalisingly close. Where would be our first destination? Forswearing originality, I chose…
Feasting on memories of Venice
Dining in catastrophe used to be more interesting: but we must be fair. It was a smaller (and wetter) catastrophe:…
Arthur Jeffress: bright young person of the post-war art scene
The name Arthur Jeffress may not conjure many associations for those not familiar with the London post-war art world, but…
Martin Gayford visits the greatest one-artist show on Earth
For a good deal of this autumn, I was living in Venice. This wasn’t exactly a holiday, I’d like to…
Venice needs Venexit
Some of Venice’s problems are well known: the challenge of conserving her famous buildings, the dangers of poorly managed mass…
Will it be kid pie this Christmas?
A long and messy business is how the chef Rowley Leigh explains his preferred way of eating. Picking at a…
Tintoretto unmasked
Tintoretto was il Furioso. He was a lightning flash or a thunderbolt, a storm in La Serenissima of Renaissance Italy,…
