| Synopsis: |
A detailed, vivid and passionate account of the glory and sacrifice of Venice in 1848. Illuminating, exciting and profoundly moving. This astounding book tells the story of Venice's great last stand in 1848, when the whole of Europe was convulsed by revolution. In a fervour of rebellion, this great sea-going state, so long Queen of the Mediterranean, was declared a Republic again. The Venetians drove out the Austrians, who had been their rulers since Napoleon's overthrow at Waterloo. The new leaders were middle class professionals, doctors, lawyers and merchants, who ran Venice as a city-state, reclaiming old freedoms and negotiating independently with cagey foreign governments. The people gave everything they had to support the cause, one handing over a palace on the Grand Canal, an estate, another a painting by Leonardo. Treasures from St Mark's were sold to raise funds, or melted down for coin. For over a year, from March 1848 to August 1849, the Austrians blockaded the city - their shells can still be seen, buried in the walls of Venetian churches. Food was scarce, cholera was rife.But the cause was doomed, and without foreign help the sad, if glorious end, was always inevitable. Jonathan Keates follows the story in intimate detail, setting it in the wider context of the struggle for Italian independence. The drama is full of great characters: the fiery, hopelessly idealistic Bandiero brothers, whose death gave Italian independence its first martyrs; the small, bespectacled, courageous leader Daniele Manin; the crusty Austrian general Metternich; the ambitious but dithering king of Piedmont; the glamorous aristocrat and supporter of the rebels, Princess Belgioso. We see Palmerston holding forth in London, the Emperor fuming in Vienna, the Pope fleeing from responsibility in Rome. This is a crowded canvas, bloody with battles flowing back and forth across the plains of northern Italy, and invading the city and its still lagoon. Yet it is also profoundly touching in domestic detail, bringing home vividly what it was like to lived in these terrible times, clinging to ideals in the midst of turmoil. |