MAKERS OF VENICE, EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED WITH 24 PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS

(VENICE) OLIPHANT, Mrs. Makers of Venice. Doges, Conquerors, Painters, and Men of Letters. London and New York: Macmillan, 1889. Octavo, contemporary full parchment-covered boards, elaborately gilt decorated spine and covers, navy morocco cover onlays and spine label, patterned endpapers, all edges gilt. $950.

Early edition of this guide to Venice, with 48 full-page and in-text wood-engraved illustrations by R.R. Holmes. This copy extra-illustrated with 24 mounted photographic illustrations of views, buildings, monuments and works of art, handsomely bound by Giulio Giannini of Firenze, likely for the tourist trade.

"Venice has long borne in the imagination of the world a distinctive position, something of the character of a great enchantress, a magician of the seas… While there are scarcely any who are unmoved by her special charm, there are some who are entirely subdued by it, to whom the sight of her is a continual enchantment, and who never get beyond the sense of something miraculous, the rapture of the first vision" (page 1). First published in 1887.

Only very infrequent faint foxing. A very handsome copy in near-fine condition.