Noted Venice expert and lover John Julius Norwich's portraits of famous 19th century visitors to Venice, outstanding on their own, fail to combine to into a sound gestalt. Venice in the 19th century was certainly no paradise of cities, in fact, it was a moribund and decaying cesspool. Its visitors came to admire its crumbling past, to live cheaply in grandiose retirement, to retreat from public view, to profit from the local sex traffic or to die in splendor. Richard Wagner ticked all of them off and, with his scenic eye, he chose it as his place of apotheosis (but not as a final resting place). Whether this collection of sinners, large and small, found the ultimate paradise in Venice is not so certain. In my view, Henry James would vote for Boston, Richard Wagner for Bayreuth and even John Ruskin for London.

The chapters about Napoleon's short business visit (putting the Republic into Chapter 11 receivership and later trading it to Austria) and the 1848 revolution clash with the other chapters about rich, excentric or artistic visitors to Venice. As the other chapters, sensibly, break his 19th century restriction self-imposed by his title, he should also have included a portrait of Thomas Mann (who remained a 19th century man well into the 20th century). Overall, a mixed bag of portraits that does not meet Norwich's usual mark of quality. ( )