VENICE: LA SERENISSIMA | ULTIMATE COLLECTION
Text by Alberto Toso Fei, foreword by Peter Marino
With Venice: La Serenissima, Assouline presented one of the most historically ambitious volumes in the brand’s Ultimate Collection. Conceived on a grand visual scale, the title approaches Venice as a complete ecosystem of power-political, artistic, architectural, and spiritual.
Venice: La Serenissima Ultimate Edition. © Bowes Museum/Bridgeman Images. Photo © Assouline.
Written by Venetian historian Alberto Toso Fei, a descendant of Venetian master glassmakers, and introduced by famed architect Peter Marino, the book unveils across a thousand-plus years of Venetian history and culture. It follows the Republic from its marsh-born origins through its maritime supremacy and artistic ascendancy to its gradual political decline and a city pressured by mass tourism yet sustained by restoration, cinema, and contemporary art.
Left – Venice: La Serenissima Special Edition in Fortuny Richelieu. / Right – Venice: La Serenissima Special Edition in Fortuny Pigne. Photos © Assouline.
While encompassing the city’s prominent monuments and figures, Venice: La Serenissima (ad) digs deeper, looking beyond to reveal the city’s historical impact on modern culture and its influence in shaping the culture, politics, and architecture of Italy and Europe, from the quarantine islands that originated from the Venetian word quarantena, to the Scuole who founded philanthropic and devotional institutions designed to support social welfare, to the Biennale, which profoundly influences global art trends to this day.
Photo © Pietro Tessarin/Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA 4.0. Photo courtesy of Assouline.
Venice. To visit is to be strongly jostled between fantasy and very real architectural splendor. One opens one’s eyes and sees grandeur and intimacy, unique colors reflecting in the watery canals, medieval and Renaissance masterpieces in every church and civic building. Any book devoted to Venice is cause for celebration.
– Peter Marino, American Architect
The visual scope is equally expansive: Iconic photographs by Helmut Newton and Cecil Beaton appear alongside museum-quality reproductions drawn from rare books, ecclesiastical archives, major institutions, and private collections. Yet beyond scholarship and spectacle, the volume offers something rarer: the sensation of arrival. Venice: La Serenissima is a passage into the city itself-into its shifting light, echoing campi, and salt-laced air. Through the convergence of history, imagery, and atmosphere, the title preserves Venice’s rich artistic and historical legacies, available in a standard Ultimate Edition and two limited Special Editions, each featuring a bespoke, handmade clamshell created in partnership with Venetian textile brand Fortuny.
About the Ultimate
The regular-edition clamshell features Canaletto’s seminal painting, The Bucintoro Returning to the Molo on Ascension Day (circa 1730). In Venice, Ascension Day is celebrated with the Festa della Sensa, a centuries-old festival that commemorates the city’s historical relationship with the sea. The hardcover reproduces Cecil Beaton’s flamboyant photograph for Vogue in 1951 of the famed Le Bal Oriental, thrown by eccentric French- Mexican multimillionaire art collector Carlos de Beistegui.
About the Ultimate Special Edition
Venice: La Serenissima will also be offered in a collector’s edition limited to two hundred copies, which feature a bespoke clamshell fabricated by hand in Italy with sumptuous metallic materials from Fortuny, the iconic Venetian fabric house founded by Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo in 1919. One hundred copies will be available in Fortuny’s Richelieu fabric, in indigo blue and gold, and one hundred in Pigne, a blend of ironweed and silvery gold. The clamshell is adorned with a copper title plaque and a three-dimensional handpainted plaster medallion of the Lion of Venice, the symbol of the Republic (the medallion is a graphic interpretation of a sculpture from the personal art collection of Assouline cofounder Martine Assouline). Unlike most Assouline Ultimate cases, this clamshell, lined in sumptuous burgundy silk, is constructed from wooden slats, to echo the wooden piles that form the unique foundations of Venice’s buildings. The setalux hardcover features a detail of Paolo Veronese’s 1556 masterpiece, Triumph of Mordecai, which is painted on the ceiling of Venice’s Church of San Sebastiano.
About the author
Alberto Toso Fei is a Venetian writer, journalist, and historian widely regarded as one of the most authoritative contemporary voices on Venice’s history and legends. Descended from a family of Murano glassmakers documented in the city since the fourteenth century, Toso Fei has authored more than thirty books (translated into several languages) and regularly collaborates with cultural institutions and media outlets. He is also a consultant and documentary producer for television and a frequent speaker at public lectures and international events (including TEDx) dedicated to Venetian history and storytelling.
Text by Alberto Toso Fei, foreword by Peter Marino
Spanning more than a millennium, this volume traces the enduring life of a city shaped by water, power, and imagination. Venice: La Serenissima presents an expansive portrait of one of the world’s most extraordinary cities, revealing Venice as a place where history, culture, architecture, and spirituality converge. Written by Venetian historian Alberto Toso Fei and introduced by renowned architect Peter Marino, the volume approaches the city through a deeply historical and anthropological lens, capturing the enduring spirit of Venice beyond its celebrated landmarks.
Structured through roughly sixty defining moments, the narrative unfolds chronologically, beginning with the legendary founding of Venice in 421 CE and continuing through more than a millennium of history. From the timber piles that support the city’s foundations and the powerful rule of the Doges, to Venice’s maritime dominance and artistic flourishing, the book traces the rise of the Venetian Republic and the cultural forces that shaped it. The journey extends into modern Venice, touching on figures such as Peggy Guggenheim and the continuing cultural vitality of the Venice Biennale, while also highlighting efforts to preserve the fragile city for future generations…read more
Product details
Publisher: ASSOULINE
Publication date: April 27, 2026
Language: English
Print length: 248 pages
Ultimate ISBN-10: 1649806167
Ultimate ISBN-13: 978-1649806161
SE Fortuny Pigne ISBN: 9781649806833
SE Fortuny Richelieu ISBN: 9781649806987
Item Weight: 22 pounds
Dimensions: 16.14 x 3.54 x 18.9 inches
Click here to buy this book (paid link).
Assouline
www.assouline.com | @assouline
Founded in Paris in 1994 by Prosper and Martine Assouline, Assouline is the first luxury brand on culture. Guided by a passion for knowledge, culture and travel, the company has published over 2,000 titles in five main collections, along with special editions and unique library accessories. Assouline’s roster of collaborators includes some of the world’s most respected brands, artists, photographers, writers and designers. With an unparalleled signature style and elegant savoir faire, Assouline has globally redefined modern publishing.
All images courtesy of Assouline.
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