“To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself. But to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.”
Alexander Herzen
“A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.”
Arthur Symons
“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty. This city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.”
Thomas Mann“There is something so different in, Venice from any other place in, the world, that you leave at, once all accustomed habits and, everyday sights to enter an, enchanted garden.”
Mary Shelley