Andrea di Robilant

This delightful journey begins with di Robilant's serendipitous discovery of a travel narrative published in Venice in 1558 by the Renaissance statesman Nicolo Zen that recreated the travels of two of Zen's ancestors who explored the North Atlantic in the 1380s and 1390s. di Robilant set out to discover why later, in the 19th century, the Zens' account came under attack as one of the greatest frauds in geographical history.

In 1787, the beautiful Lucia is married off to Alvise Mocenigo, scion of one of the most powerful Venetian families. But their life as a golden couple will be suddenly transformed when Venice falls to Bonaparte. We witness Lucia's painful series of miscarriages and the pressure on her to produce an heir; her impassioned affair with an Austrian officer; the glamour and strain of her career as a hostess in Vienna; and her amazing firsthand account of...

The author describes the discovery of letters written by his eighteenth-century ancestor, Venetian statesman Andrea Memmo, revealing a secret affair between Memmo and Giustiniana Wynne, a beautiful half-English girl.

"In the autumn of 1550, a thick volume containing a wealth of new geographical information, with startling wood-cut maps of Africa, India and Indonesia, was published in Venice under the title Navigationi & Viaggi (Journeys & Navigations). The person who had edited this remarkable collection of travelogues, journals, and classified government reports was unknown. Two more volumes delivered the most accurate information on Asia and the "New" World...

"This selection of more than 700 mostly black-and-white photographs by Camilla McGrath is from a collection of 60,000 in 100 white leather bound albums covering the years 1948-1999. Camilla, one of four children of Count and Countess Pecci-Blunt, grew up with a mother who was passionate about the arts: she painted, had a small theater, an art gallery, La Cometa, in Rome, and one in New York, and collected celebrated artists, writers, dancers and choreographers...