1991/01/01 by Deborah Howard · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #Architecture and Cultural Influences #Historical and Architectural Studies #Historical Astronomy and Related Studies #Middle Ages #Islam #Ancient history #History #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.2307/1568594
openalex publication_date 1991/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/04
Once described by the great Venetian art historian Giuseppe Fiocco as a colossal suq, the city of Venice has always conveyed a distinctly oriental atmosphere to the western european visitor. Mystified by its labyrinth of dark, narrow, often dead-end streets, twisting at right-angles through densely built-up, separately demarcated parishes, glimpsing fragrant gardens hidden behind high, crenellated walls, sniffing the pungent odours of exotic oriental spices in the bustling, crowded markets, the traveller might well have imagined himself transported, as if on a magic carpet, to one of the great mercantile centres of the Middle East — to Baghdad, Cairo or Damascus — to the world of Marco Polo’s travels or the Arabian Nights.