Yet another wonderful biography of a city
- Lesley McDowell, The Independent on Sunday
He is brilliant on beginnings... Ackroyd covers an immense amount of ground with verve and elegance
Independent on Sunday
Ackroyd tells the story well...where he excels is in his descriptions...he writes beguilingly
Guardian
Ackroyd is hugely intelligent and formidably industrious; there can be few people, Venetian or foreign, who know Venice better than he... It is full of good things
Daily Telegraph
Elegant... Interweaving psychogeographical investigation with history, picking out defining characteristics which were present from its earliest days
Scotsman