The City of Falling Angels
Encyclopedia
The City of Falling Angels is a non-fiction work by John Berendt
John Berendt
John Berendt is an American author, known for writing the best-selling non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction....

. The book tells the story of some interesting inhabitants of Venice, Italy, whom the author met while living there in the months following a fire which destroyed the historic La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...

 opera house in 1996.

The book explores local reactions to the fire, from the American "Save Venice" Foundation to Venice's bureaucratic government. (Opera lovers refer to the theater as La Fenice, not 'The Fenice' as Berendt calls it. La Fenice is Italian for "Phoenix.") The opera house burned again while the second renovation was ongoing.

Among those interviewed is Archimede Seguso, a renowned Venetian glassblower of the twentieth century. Signor Seguso lived directly behind La Fenice and witnessed the fire. Soon afterwards he created glassworks dedicated to the memory of the fire, in his own rendition of how the opera house burned.

The book also tells the story of many American and English expatriates who went to live in Venice, from Daniel Curtis
Daniel Curtis
Daniel Curtis was an American politician from New York.He lived in Granville, New York, and was a member from Washington and Clinton counties of the New York State Assembly in 1791 and 1792-93....

, who owned Palazzo Barbaro where Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....

 and John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...

 were guests, to the poet Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...

 who lived the last part of his life in Venice with his long-time mistress Olga Rudge
Olga Rudge
Olga Rudge was an American-born concert violinist, now mainly remembered as the long-time mistress of the poet Ezra Pound, by whom she had a daughter, Mary....

.

Upon this book's release on September 27, 2005, it entered Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

's Top Ten Bestsellers list and was number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

According to Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...

, "Berendt does great justice to an exalted city that has rightly fascinated the likes of Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....

, Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...

, and many filmmakers throughout the world."

External links

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