"Venice has always prided itself on its glamorous and exclusive style, and the term 'Venetian' has been associated with beauty and opulence for centuries. The quality of the Venetian syle has softened the divide that traditionally separated arts from crafts. In the city on the lagoon, where famous painters such as Titian, Tintoretto, Guardi and Tiepolo made Venetian scenes famous throughout the world, other, lesser known but equalliy important workshops contributed to the excellence of Venetian arts and crafts. With their creativity and excellent taste, master craftsmen gave shape to a variety of materials. Stone, wood, iron, bronze, gold, silver, glass, ceramic, stucco, cloth, and leather turn into masterpieces of unique beauty and perfection in the hands of expert Venetian artisans. This book, subdivided in four sections corresponding to the art materials -- the solid arts, the malleable sarts, the fragile arts and the soft arts--provides a showcase of magnificent objects, most never seen before, many of which are housed in the aristocratic palaces of Venice. Doretta Davanzo Poli, an expert in what has been called, inappropriately as this book will prove, the 'minor arts', proposes for each chapter a chronological reading of the artisan guilds whose artistic production, adapting to the changing times and fashions, is documented in over two hundred illustrations. The extraordinary photography by Mark E. Smith, whose sensitivity to detail and familiarity with Venetian life captures the essence of objects and decorations, emphasizes the material itself and its transformation into objects d'art and artistic maseterpieces. Where should one look to appreciate the splendor of Venetian decoration? In the lightness of marble panels, the varied chromatic quality of the floors, the sumptuousness of the ceilings -- sculptured and gilded? Or in the virtuosity of the wooden inlays, the unique forging of the grillwork, the transparencies of glass and the masterful stucco decorations? Here, and in many other examples of outstanding craftsmanship presented in this book, the reader will find the elegance that raises Venetian ornamentation to the status of true art"--Publisher's description, p. [2] of dust jacket