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Some books have proven invaluable, these are...
Guide books
Giulio Lorenzetti
Venice and its lagoon
The original, the bible. It remains the reliable source and
go-to guide for all guide book writers.
John Freely
Strolling through Venice
Tauris Parke 2008
Describes itself as 'the definitive walking guidebook' to Venice,
and that's no idle boast. Also the only guide book that covers all of
Venice's churches.
The 2008
edition is a straight reprint of the Penguin edition of 1994. This was
disappointing, I admit, but also handily reinforces the need for this here web-site.
Although you might argue that the many hundreds of years before 1994 are more
important than the fourteen since, and you'd have a point.
 Antonio
Manno
The Treasures of Venice
White Star Publishers 2004
It's plush and gorgeous and illustrated in full-colour throughout.
It's also really a
bit too heavy to carry around with you, but I have done so on a fair few
trips now, because it's just so comprehensive and knowledgeable. I also like
the way it occasionally eccentrically tells you a little too much about churches that
don't really deserve such in-depth treatment. The standard of the
translation is a bit erratic though, this being a book originally written
in Italian.
Time Out Venice
Rough Guide to Venice
The best of the 'ordinary' guides for opening times, and some
quirky facts.
Ronald Shaw-Kennedy
Art & architecture in Venice
Sidgwick & Jackson 1972
Old, but handy for facts about church contents. I bought, on a whim
and online, another book by the same author called Venice Rediscovered
which is six-years newer. But it turns out to be exactly the same book,
unrevised, only in a much larger format.
Architectural guides
Edwina Biucchi and Simon Pilling
Venice -
an architectural guide
Batsford 2002
A stylish but comprehensive and accessible
guide to Venice's most important buildings. Arranged by sestiere and
including modern buildings.
Antonio Salvadori
Venice - a guide to the
principal buildings
Canal & Stamperia Editrice 1995
Covering all the buildings of Venice in terse paragraphs and with small
black and white photos and stylish drawings. A pretty much essential guide
to the fabric of Venice explaining, for example, the different patterns of
the stone steps down into the water. It seems to be out of print currently.
Alessandra Boccato
Churches of Venice
Arsenale Editrice 2001
Imperfectly translated (sometimes humourously so) and only dealing with the major churches,
but still the only book of its kind - a recent guide to churches only. I have a stiff-backed edition, but
this has now been replaced by a paperback edition with more and better
photographs (right) and available in Italian and English. I've only ever seen it in bookshops
in Venice.
Churches of Venice - The museum in the city
Marsilio/Chorus 2002
The guidebook to the churches that are run by the
Chorus association
and available from the cash desk inside these churches. Plushly produced
and quite detailed, but pretty dry. Also the translation is not good, often bordering on
the incomprehensible.
And...
Alvise Zorzi Venezia Scomparsa Oscar
Mondadori 2001
Not available in English, but an invaluable book about Lost
Venice. Lists and describes all of the demolished churches, which will
be very handy when I get around to a Demolished Churches page and
when my Italian improves astronomically. Some nice old pics too.
Tudy Sammartini and Daniele Resini
Venice from the Bell Towers
Bought for the spectacular photos taken from the towers, this
also has a bit of history for each church in the main sequence, and for many
others besides at the end. There's a concentration on the campaniles, of
course, and some of the info and dates are, well, wrong, but there's still some useful stuff, from primary Italian sources by the look of it.
With
thanks to...
Anne Atwell
Brigitte Eckert
Deborah Howard
Michelle Lovric
Robert Yates
Albert Hickson
Lucio Sponza
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