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"You may have the universe," composer Giuseppe Verdi once said, "if
I can have Italy." Back in the mid-19th century, Verdi's emotive
language appealed to the patriotic sentiments of an emergent nation
state. After decades of struggle and bloodshed, the movement known
as Risorgimento triumphed with the 1861 proclamation of Italian
Unity, assembling disparate kingdoms, territories, and borders that
had hitherto been ruled by Austria, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and
the Papal States. Today, Verdi's call to Italy resounds not only
for its native patriots, but for the millions around the world who
look upon this peninsula shaped like a boot and delight in a land
of light, art, and sensuality. This collection is a fascinating
visual document of Italy at the turn of the century, gathering
photochromes and vintage colored prints. From coast to coast,
through classical sites and Renaissance wonders, down beguiling
Venetian waterways and along the dappled shores of the Amalfi
coast, each evocative image impresses as much for its color clarity
as for the vivid evocation of times gone by. As if in an enchanted
dream, we walk an empty and dusklit St. Mark's Square, stroll the
shady Uffizi courtyard alone, and find just a few horse carts
pulled up in front of the Pantheon in Rome. In place of cameras,
guides, and tour groups, we find ordinary traders and laborers,
quiet street scenes, and humble settlements. As sunlit charms and
historic reality combine, the result is an unrivaled record of this
young nation that fought hard to exist, and went on to win the
world's hearts.
Global travel can be a wearying business: mass tourism, overcrowded
planes, chaotic airports, heightened security, cookie-cutter hotel
chains, well-worn tourist trails. Finding even a sliver of
adventure can sometimes feel impossible. But take heart: for all of
us with an unfulfilled spirit of wanderlust, The Golden Age of
Travel evokes an era when traveling the world was a thrilling new
possibility for those with the resources, time, imagination, and
daring. This richly illustrated volume charts the travel heyday of
1869 to 1939. Bedecked with ephemera and precious
turn-of-the-century photochroms, it follows six classic tours
favored by Western adventurers in the prewar era, including such
famous traveler-writers as Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, and Goethe. From the Grand Tour of Europe,
a traditional rite of passage for young English aristocrats, to the
Far East, barely touched by Western influence, to the famous
Trans-Siberian Railway, we follow each journey through its
itinerant stops and various modes of transport: trains, boats,
cars, planes, horses, donkeys, and camels. With pages brimming with
archival travel posters, guides, tickets, leaflets, brochures,
menus, and luggage stickers, the book evokes all the romance,
elegance, not to mention the sheer sense of novelty, that
enthralled these golden-age passengers. Through decadent new
cities, or wild, rugged terrains, this is your passport to a
long-lost epoch of adventure and wide-eyed wonder at the world.
These rediscovered Photochrom and Photostint postcard images from
the private collection of Marc Walter were produced by the Detroit
Photographic Company between 1888 and 1924. Using a
photolithographic process that predated the autochrome by nearly 20
years, they offered people the very first color photographs of the
United States. Suddenly, the continent's colors were available for
all to see. From the rich ochres and browns of the Grand Canyon to
the dazzle of Atlantic City, these places were now a visual delight
not only for eyewitnesses but for Americans far and wide. Imbued
with a sense of discovery and adventure, the pictures gathered here
are a voyage through peoples, places, and time. They take us
through North America's vast and varied landscape, where we
encounter its many communities, and above all transport us back to
the United States of over a century ago. Across more than 600 pages
including fold-out spreads, this sweeping panorama takes us from
Native American settlements to New York's Chinatown, from some of
the last cowboys to Coney Island's heyday. As luminous now as they
were some 120 years ago, these rare and remarkable images that
brought America to Americans now bring America's past to our
present.
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