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Article: Artists view splendorous Venice in Swiss show
- Article from:
- AP Worldstream
- Article date:
- November 14, 2008
- Author:
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Superlatives are never lacking in descriptions of Venice's stunning beauty, with its unmatched wealth of magnificent palaces lining a labyrinth of canals crossed by hundreds of bridges.
For Petrarch, regarded as the greatest humanist of the Middle Ages, Venice was "another world" when he arrived there 700 years ago. As the principal East-West trade hub, it was then the most prosperous European city.
Lord Byron, the English poet, was enthusiastically devoted to the splendor of what became generally known as "La Serenissima" (the most serene). For James McNeill Whistler, the American artist, the city was "intoxicating," as he wrote a friend. And ...