Architect Peter Wilson offers a Grand Tour in his idiosyncratic guidebook to architectural (and other) wonders of Italy. It is illustrated with his own witty watercolours and sketches of Lake Lugano, men in suits, paving stones and benches, islands and a drawing of Alma-Tadema measuring Pompeii. This beautiful clothbound edition contains Wilson's chronicles ranging from 'To Be the Subject of an Equestrian Painting by Uccello in Florence Cathedral' to 'To Rebuild Herculaneum in Malibu' which was the desire of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in the 1970s. In between he gives readers a deeper understanding of Italy's architectural habitat and cultural mythology with his narratives and anecdotes, place names functioning as talismans, events not tallying with recorded history, or with the exact topographies of actual places. He recounts how Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, set out 'To Flee England Out of Embarrassment' after breaking wind when he bowed to Queen Elizabeth I; French novelist Stendhal went 'To Discover an Anti-France', and at the first Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1980, a dapper architect found that he had come to Italy 'To Fall Overboard in a White Suit'. Originally published in 2016 as 'Some Reasons for Traveling to Italy' by the Architectural Association, London, we have a 2022 glamorous US edition packed with colour images throughout. Remainder mark, 270pp.
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