Search results for ""author andrea di robilant""

National Geographic Traveller's the best books on European cities, 2019In the autumn of 1948 Hemingway was approaching fifty and hadn't published a novel in nearly a decade. He travelled for the first time to Venice and there, at a duck shoot in the lagoon he met and fell in love with Adriana Ivancich, a striking young Venetian woman just out of finishing school. What followed was a platonic love affair; he continued to visit her in Venice; she in turn came to Cuba while he wrote The Old Man and the Sea. This is the illuminating story of a writer and a muse that intimately examines both the cost to Adriana and the fractured heart and changing art of Hemingway in his fifties.'Hemingway [is] an enduringly fascinating character, one whom di Robilant, with his easy-paced style, has sympathetically brought to life.' Literary Review'Effortlessly and expertly explores the secret desires, successes, and depressive obstacles that shrouded Ernest Hemingway's final productive years.' New York Journal of Books

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'A dazzling tale, brilliantly told' Peter Frankopan'A wonderful book' Sunday Telegraph, 5*'Triumphant' Literary ReviewDURING THE AGE OF DISCOVERY, in the autumn of 1550, an anonymously authored volume containing a wealth of geographical information new to Europeans was published in Venice under the title Navigationi et Viaggi (Journeys and Navigations). This was closely followed by two further volumes that, when taken together, constituted the largest release of geographical data in history, and could well be considered the birth of modern geography.The editor of these volumes was a little-known public servant in the Venetian government, Giovambattista Ramusio. He gathered a vast array of both popular and closely guarded narratives, from the journals of Marco Polo to detailed reports from the Muslim scholar and diplomat Leo Africanus.In an enthralling narrative, Andrea di Robilant brings to life

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DURING THE AGE OF DISCOVERY, in the autumn of 1550, an anonymously authored volume containing a wealth of geographical information new to Europeans was published in Venice under the title Navigationi et Viaggi (Journeys and Navigations). This was closely followed by two further volumes that, when taken together, constituted the largest release of geographical data in history, and could well be considered the birth of modern geography.The editor of these volumes was a little-known public servant in the Venetian government, Giovambattista Ramusio. He gathered a vast array of both popular and closely guarded narratives, from the journals of Marco Polo to detailed reports from the Muslim scholar and diplomat Leo Africanus.In an enthralling narrative, Andrea di Robilant brings to life the man who used all his political skill, along with the help of conniving diplomats and spies, to democratise knowledge and show how the world was much larger than anyo

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In the 1380s and 90s, Nicolò and Antonio Zen journeyed from Venice up the North Atlantic, encountering warrior princes, fighting savage natives and, just possibly, reaching the New World a full century before Columbus. The story of their adventure travelled throughout Europe, from the workshop of the great cartographer Mercator to the court of Elizabeth I. For centuries, the brothers were international celebrities, until, in 1835, the story was denounced as a 'tissue of lies' and the Zens faded into oblivion.Following in their footsteps Andrea di Robilant sets out to discover the truth about the Zen voyages in a journey that takes him from the crumbling Palazzo Zen in Venice to the Orkney Islands, the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland. Part history, part travelogue, Venetian Navigators is a charming tale of great journeys, fine detective work and faith, against the odds.

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