Rick Steves Home > 2008 Tours > Best of Venice, Florence and Rome in 10 Days

Best of Venice, Florence and Rome in 10 Days: Recommended Reading & Viewing

This region is overwhelmingly rich in history, art and culture. Any preliminary reading, viewing or listening you can do will help you get the most from your trip. For a description of any of these books, visit amazon.com; for videos, go to imdb.com. Rick Steves guidebooks are available at our office in Edmonds and also on our website's Travel Store.

Recommended Reading

Non-Fiction: Venice

• A History of Venice — J. J. Norwich
• Venice: A Maritime Republic — Frederic Chapin Lane
• Venice: Lion City — Garry Wills
• Francesco's Venice — Francesco da Mosto
• Venice Observed — Mary McCarthy
• City of Falling Angels — John Berendt
• A Venetian Affair — Andrea di Robilant
• Venice: A Cultural & Literary Companion — Martin Garrett
• A Literary Companion to Venice — Ian Littlewood
• Venice: The Collected Traveler — Barrie Kerper
• Strolling Through Venice — John Freely

Fiction: Venice

• The Wings of the Dove; Italian Hours, The Aspern Papers and Other Stories — Henry James
• Death in Venice — Thomas Mann
• Invisible Cities — Italo Calvino
• The Palace — Lisa St. Aubin de Terán
• The Passion — Jeanette Winterson
• In the Company of the Courtesan — Sarah Dunant
• Dead Lagoon — Michael Dibdin
• Dirge for a Doge — Elizabeth Eyre
• Stone Virgin — Barry Unsworth
• The Haunted Hotel — Wilkie Collins
• Death at La Fenice — Donna Leon
• In the Company of the Courtesan — Sarah Durant

Films With a Venetian Accent

Summertime (1955) • Death in Venice (1971) • Only You (1994) • Dangerous Beauty (1998) • Bread and Tulips (2000) • The Italian Job (2003) • The Merchant of Venice (2004) • Everyone Says I Love You (2005) • Casanova (2005)

Non-Fiction: Florence

• The Prince; Florentine Histories — Niccolo Machiavelli
• The City of Florence — R.W.B. Lewis
• Florence: A Portrait — Michael Levey
• The Stones of Florence — Mary McCarthy
• Brunelleschi's Dome — Ross King
• The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance — Peter Murray
• Lives of the Artists — Giorgio Vasari
• Italian Renaissance Art – Laurie Adams
• The House of Medici; Florence: The Biography of a City — Christopher Hibbert
• Fortune Is a River — Roger Masters
• The Hills of Tuscany — Ferenc Máté
• A Tuscan Childhood — Kinta Beevor
• A Small Place in Italy — Eric Newby
• Under the Tuscan Sun — Frances Mayes

Fiction: Florence

• Romola — George Eliot
• A Room With a View — E. M. Forster
• The Passion of Artemisia — Susan Vreeland
• The Sixteen Pleasures — Robert Hellenga
• Birth of Venus — Sarah Dunant
• Galileo's Daughter — Dava Sobel
• A Rich Full Death — Michael Dibdin
• Death of an Englishman — Magdalen Nabb
• The Dante Game — Jane Langton
• Bella Donna — Barbara Cherne
• The Agony and the Ecstasy — Irving Stone
• The Light in the Piazza — Elizabeth Spencer
• The Decameron — Giovanni Boccaccio
• The Birth of Venus — Sarah Durant

Films With a Florentine Accent

Prince of Foxes (1949) • The Light in the Piazza (1962) • A Room With a View (1986) • Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) • Much Ado About Nothing (1993) • Life Is Beautiful (1997) • Tea with Mussolini (1999) • Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)

Non-Fiction: Rome

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Edward Gibbon
• Rome and a Villa — Eleanor Clark
• The Seasons of Rome — Paul Hofmann
• As the Romans Do — Alan Epstein
• Eat Pray Love — Elizabeth Gilbert
• Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy
• When In Rome — Robert Hutchinson
• Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling – Ross King
• The Pope's Elephant — Silvio Bedini
• A Literary Companion to Rome — John Varriano
• Rome Antics; City — David Macaulay
• Travelers' Tales: Italy — Ann Calcagno
• Marling Menu-Master for Italy
• City Secrets: Rome — Robert Kahn
• Culture Shock: Rome at Your Door — Frances Gendlin

Fiction: Rome

• The First Man in Rome — Colleen McCullough
• I, Claudius — Robert Graves
• Roman Blood (mystery set in Rome in 80 BC, first in a series) — Steven Saylor
• Silver Pigs (mystery set in Rome in AD 70, first in a series) — Lindsey Davis
• Cabal (mystery set in modern Rome, third in a series) — Michael Dibdin
• Angels and Demons — Dan Brown
• Open City: Seven Writers in Postwar Rome — edited by William Weaver

Films With a Roman Accent

Open City (1945) • Bicycle Thieves (1949) • Roman Holiday (1953) • Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) • Quo Vadis (1951) • Ben-Hur (1959) • Spartacus (1960) • La Dolce Vita (1961) • I, Claudius (1976 BBC miniseries) Gladiator (2000)

General Europe Books

• Europe 101 — Rick Steves & Gene Openshaw. History and art overview for the traveler; humorous and easy to read.
• A World Lit Only by Fire — William Manchester
• Innocents Abroad — Mark Twain
• Civilization — Kenneth Clark
• Connections — James Burke

Rick Steves' Travel DVDs

For a fun, informative preview of your next tour destination, watch a DVD from our "Rick Steves' Europe" TV series! Our online Travel Store has 70 shows available on 12 DVDs (a generous five to eight shows per disc).

Mood Music

• Andrea Bocelli
• Three Tenors
• Respighi's Pines of Rome
• Puccini's Tosca
• Three Coins in the Fountain — Frank Sinatra
• Big Night soundtrack
• Claudio Villa