This book is an introduction to the vernacular (or "minor") architecture of the villages of the Venetian lagoon, excluding the historic centre of the city itself. It is intended as a companion volume to Dr Goy's "Chioggia and the Villages of the Venetian Lagoon".

Margaret Plant presents a wide-ranging cultural history of the city from the fall of the Republic in 1797, until 1997, showing how it has changed and adapted and how perceptions of it have shaped its reality.

"As the sixteenth century opened, members of the patriciate were increasingly withdrawing from trade, desiring to be seen as "gentlemen in fact" as well as "gentlemen in name." The author considers why this was so and explores such wide-ranging themes as attitudes toward wealth and display, the articulation of family identity, the interplay between the public and the private, and the emergence of characteristically Venetian decorative practices and styles of art and architecture. Brown focuses new light on the visual culture of Venetian women - how they lived within, furnished, and decorated their homes; what spaces were allotted to them; what their roles and domestic tasks were; how they dressed; how they raised their children; and how they entertained. Bringing together both high arts and low, the book examines all aspects of Renaissance material culture."--BOOK JACKET.