Venice, home of Tiepolo, Canaletto, Piranesi, Piazzetta, and Guardi, was the most artistic city of eighteenth-century Italy. This beautiful book examines the whole range of the arts in Venice during this period, including paintings, pastels and gouaches, drawings and watercolors, prints, illustrated books and sculpture.

The book begins with an introduction by Andrew Robison and a general introduction to Venetian art by Michael Levey. Essays by other eminent authorities then discuss the international taste for Venetian art and major aspects of the art of the period. The essays are followed by a catalogue that discusses and reproduces many of the finest works of the time along with biographies and critical discussions of the artists. The selection of works emphasizes the beauty, quality, distinctiveness, variety, balance, and unity of Venetian art. It includes altarpieces by Tiepolo, Piazzetta, and others that demonstrate the importance of profoundly serious and grand religious art; it presents the finest examples of history paintings and allegories, views and landscapes, architectural fantasies, decorative paintings, and portraits; and it offers a large selection of particularly fine graphic art, for many of the greatest painters-including Marco Ricci, Piazzetta, Canaletto, and Tiepolo-also devoted themselves to printmaking, book illustration, and designs for stage sets and the decorative arts, and often found greater freedom for their fantasy in such works.