All Venice - In 140 Kodak-Color Photographs

All Venice - In 140 Kodak-Color Photographs by Eugenio Pucci, published by Bonechi Editore in 1976, is a wonderfully period photographic tour of Venice from an age when travel books were glossy, colour photography was still something worth announcing proudly on the cover, and nobody had yet taken forty-seven nearly identical pictures of the Rialto Bridge on a phone.

As the title promises, this is Venice in 140 Kodak-color photographs: canals, bridges, churches, palaces, squares, gondolas and all the other visual ingredients required to make the rest of Europe look temporarily under-decorated.

Venice is, of course, almost unfairly photogenic.

Most cities have streets.

Venice has waterways.

Most cities have buses.

Venice has boats.

Most cities have traffic lights.

Venice has centuries-old façades slowly leaning towards canals while tourists attempt to photograph them from moving gondolas.

It is difficult to compete.

This 1976 volume captures the city in a particularly appealing period. The landmarks are recognisable, the architecture is timeless, but the photographs themselves have that unmistakable 1970s colour palette which makes even ancient stone look as though it has recently returned from a Mediterranean package holiday.

There is something especially charming about old colour travel photography.

The tones are warmer.

The skies are bluer.

The clothes are more alarming.

And every piazza seems to contain at least one person who could only possibly have been dressed in 1976.

The book is therefore doing two jobs at once.

It documents Venice, one of Europe’s great historic cities, while also accidentally documenting the era in which the photographs were taken.

That is one of the great advantages of old travel books: they age into social history without anybody having intended them to.

The Venice shown here is the familiar city of St Mark’s Square, canals, campaniles and grand façades, but seen through the visual expectations of mid-1970s tourism.

This was before online booking, before digital cameras, before review sites, and before anyone stood outside a restaurant checking whether strangers on the internet approved of it.

You went somewhere.

You looked at it.

You bought a book.

Civilisation somehow survived.

The Bonechi travel books of this period were designed to be highly visual souvenirs, and All Venice has exactly that flavour: a compact photographic record intended to bring the city home with you without requiring you to transport a gondola through customs.

For modern readers, it has a pleasingly analogue quality.

These photographs were taken on film, selected, processed, printed and arranged for publication. There was no instant preview, no delete button and no software quietly straightening the horizon afterwards.

Somebody had to get the photograph right before the pigeon moved.

The result is a book that will appeal not only to travellers and Venice enthusiasts but also to collectors of vintage photography, 1970s travel books and old tourist publications.

It also makes an excellent reminder that Venice has been photographed endlessly for generations and still somehow refuses to look ordinary.

Condition: Fair. A used vintage copy with noticeable signs of age and handling consistent with a book published in 1976. It remains complete and usable, but this is not a pristine collector’s copy. Think of it as having acquired a little patina, which is entirely appropriate for a book about a city that has made an art form out of graceful ageing.

No ISBN stated.

A colourful period portrait of Venice through 140 photographs, offering equal parts architecture, atmosphere, nostalgia and evidence that 1970s travel publishing took the phrase “full colour” very seriously indeed.

Sold by Crappy Old Books — bringing you Venice without the crowds, the flooding or the price of a coffee in St Mark’s Square.

Keep browsing: See more Travel books Other books by Eugenio Pucci