Open Meeting | Tuesday, 28th Sep 2021
Open Meeting by Zoom – Venice A-Z
Venice A – Z by Adrian Barlow
This illustrated lecture is not offered as a virtual tour of Venice: instead, it is an
attempt to see the city known as ‘La Serenissima’ from different points of view –
architectural and artistic, historical and political, cultural and commercial. It will look
at the impact of tourism past and present; it will ask how the pandemic of the last two
years has affected the city – for better and worse – and will end with a reflection by
the writer Jan Morris on why and how Venice lives so powerfully in the memory and
the imagination.
Adrian Barlow lives in Cheltenham. Formerly Director of Public Programmes at the
University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Past President of the English Association,
he is currently Chair of the Friends of The Wilson, and writes and lectures – both at
home and abroad – mainly on literature, architecture and stained glass.