The Gardens of Venice and the Veneto takes in a varied selection of gardens old and new, large and small, public and private. It ranges from tiny monastery gardens tucked away within the walls of Venice to grand palatial landscapes in the former marshes of the hinterland. The book is divided into five sections as well as a lively introduction which captures the rich history of this region. The first section will show the extraordinary gardens still to be found locked behind high walls in the city itself. Then Jenny Condie and Alex Ramsay wander through the more modest parts of the city where ordinary Venetians manage to grow flowers, fruit and vegetables in the most unlikely spots. Then it is out into the lagoon and wild gardens on marshy islands before turning inland to the grand Palladian villas and the Baroque splendours of villas like the Villa Barbarigo and the Villa Allegri Arvedi among many fine country residences of ancient families. All the gardens in the book can be reached within a day's expedition from Venice and practical information about access and advice on the best time of year to visit is included for all those open to the public.

Professional tour guide Mariagrazia Dammicco unlocks Venice's garden gates, allowing us access to hidden oases usually closed to the general public. This book invites the reader to explore 20 of Venice's secret gardens, ranging from private family havens to convents and sanctuaries.

A THE TIMES BEST THRILLER OF THE YEAR 2022 When a Jewish classmate is attacked by bullies, fifteen-year-old Nico just watches – earning him a week's suspension and a typed, yellowing manuscript from his frail Nonno Paolo. A history lesson, his grandfather says, and a secret he must keep from his father. Nico is transported back to the Venice of 1943, an occupied city seething under the Nazis, and to the defining moment of his grandfather's life: when Paolo's support for a murdered Jewish woman brings him into the sights of the city's underground resistance. Hooked and unsettled, Nico can't stop reading – but he soon wonders if he ever knew his beloved grandfather at all.

Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn't know her mother? From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes Kristin Hannah's powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past. Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya's life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother's life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

Writer Annemette Fogh stumbled across the abandoned Garden of Eden on the Venetian island of La Giudecca by accident. Intrigued by its locked wrought iron gate, and curious about this lost paradise, she set about discovering its magical past. The nine-

In the development of the "landscape idea", no city played such an important role as did Venice. From about one hundred city gardens, squares, and courtyards, public parks and temporary gardens, the book develops a typology of gardens in a densely built environment that is permeated with history.

From celebrated gardens in private villas to the paintings and sculptures that adorned palace interiors, Venetians in the sixteenth century conceived of their marine city as dotted with actual and imaginary green spaces. This volume examines how and why this pastoral vision of Venice developed. Drawing on a variety of primary sources ranging from visual art to literary texts, performances, and urban plans, Jodi Cranston shows how Venetians lived the pastoral in urban Venice. She describes how they created green spaces and enacted pastoral situations through poetic conversations and theatrical performances in lagoon gardens; discusses the island utopias found, invented, and mapped in distant seas; and explores the visual art that facilitated the experience of inhabiting verdant landscapes. Though the greening of Venice was relatively short lived, Cranston shows how the phenomenon had a lasting impact on how other cities, including Paris and London, developed their self-images and how later writers and artists understood and adapted the pastoral mode. Incorporating approaches from eco-criticism and anthropology, Green Worlds of Renaissance Venice greatly informs our understanding of the origins and development of the pastoral in art history and literature as well as the culture of sixteenth-century Venice. It will appeal to scholars and enthusiasts of sixteenth-century history and culture, the history of urban landscapes, and Italian art.