This richly textured work examines Venetians' "Venice-ness" and the city's humanity. A cultural history wide in scope and original in conception, it explores how people have been shaped by Venice and, in turn, have shaped the city. Meet culture heroes whose defects have helped define Venice's myth, and fugitives from the city's splendor, such as El Greco. Venice's prisoners numbered cloistered women, the mad, and the Jews of the Ghetto. People living in close, durable symbiosis with the city include Titian, and those fugitives from self who sought wholeness in Venice include Stravinsky.