Chapter I: Preface

For a detailed guide to Venice the reader must go elsewhere; all that I have done is invariably to mention those things that have most interested me, and, in the hope of being a useful companion, often a few more. But my chief wish (as always in this series) has been to create a taste.

For the history of Venice the reader must also go elsewhere, yet for the sake of clarity a little history has found its way even into these pages. To go to Venice without first knowing her story is a mistake, and doubly foolish because the city has been peculiarly fortunate in her chroniclers and eulogists. Mr. H.F. Brown stands first among the living, as Ruskin among the dead; but Ruskin is for the student patient under chastisement, whereas Mr. Brown's serenely human pages are for all. Of Mr. Howells' _Venetian Life_ I have spoken more than once in this book; its truth and vivacity are a proof of how little the central Venice has altered, no matter what changes there may have been in government or how often campanili fall. The late Col. Hugh Douglas's _Venice on Foot_, if conscientiously followed, is such a key to a treasury of interest as no other city has ever possessed. To Mrs. Audrey Richardson's _Doges of Venice_ I am greatly indebted, and Herr Baedeker has been here as elsewhere (in the Arab idiom) my father and my mother.

E.V.L.

_June, 1914._

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