Summary of John Berendt's The City of Falling Angels

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The fire in Venice happened on Monday evening, January 29, 1996. Archimede Seguso, an 86-year-old man who lived in Ca’ Capello, a sixteenth-century house in the heart of Venice, waited patiently at the dinner table before joining his wife in the living room to lower the curtains.

#2 The Seguso family had been glassmakers since the 14th century. Archimede Seguso was the greatest glassmaker of them all, and he had earned the nickname Wizard of Fire. He had been making glass since the age of eleven, and by the time he was twenty, he had earned the nickname Mago del Fuoco.

#3 The Gran Teatro La Fenice was one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world, and one of the most significant. The Fenice had commissioned dozens of operas that had premiered on its stage.

#4 The Fenice was a theater in Venice. It had been closed for renovations, and was due to reopen in a month. The canal along its rear façade was also closed, having been sealed off and drained so work crews could dredge the silt and sludge from it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822543829

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Insights on John Berendt's The City of Falling Angels

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The fire in Venice happened on Monday evening, January 29, 1996. Archimede Seguso, an 86-year-old man who lived in Ca’ Capello, a sixteenth-century house in the heart of Venice, waited patiently at the dinner table before joining his wife in the living room to lower the curtains.

#2

The Seguso family had been glassmakers since the 14th century. Archimede Seguso was the greatest glassmaker of them all, and he had earned the nickname Wizard of Fire. He had been making glass since the age of eleven, and by the time he was twenty, he had earned the nickname Mago del Fuoco.

#3

The Gran Teatro La Fenice was one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world, and one of the most significant. The Fenice had commissioned dozens of operas that had premiered on its stage.

#4

The Fenice was a theater in Venice. It had been closed for renovations, and was due to reopen in a month. The canal along its rear façade was also closed, having been sealed off and drained so work crews could dredge the silt and sludge from it.

#5

When the lights went out, Count Girolamo Marcello was having dinner with his son on the top floor of his palace less than a minute’s walk from the front of the Fenice. They heard the sirens and headed upstairs to the wooden deck on the roof.

#6

Marcello decided they should leave the house at once. They descended the stairs, feeling their way in the darkness, Marcello wondering if the six-hundred-year-old palace was doomed. If it was, the most impressive private library in Venice would disappear with it.

#7

The Fenice was a hallowed ground in the social landscape of Venice. It had been built in the eighteenth century, and was regarded as something of an authority on Venetian social history. It was a place where people went to relax and enjoy the opera.

#8

Save Venice was a American nonprofit organization that helped restore Venetian art and architecture. It had raised money to restore the Fenice’s painted curtain, which cost $100,000. The organization had become hugely popular in America because it was set up to be a participatory charity.

#9

The countess was shocked to hear that the Fenice had caught fire and was burning out of control. She sank into a chair