Predrag Matvejevic's writing glints and eddies as if subject to the same winds and currents that stir his Mediterranean. "Crickets often crop up in accounts of Mediterranean moods," we read. "The sound or possibly song of the cricket does not disturb insomnia—I know from experience—on summer nights when waking is easier than sleeping and the spirits keep watch and almost seem to merge over the Mediterranean." In the space of a few pages we encounter knots, ballast, voyages, swimming, diving, shipwrecks, burial at sea, sponge and coral gathering, rivers, and the distribution of olive, fig, and agave. The author has stories to tell about each topic and freely mingles the observations and discoveries of fellow travelers, ancient and contemporary, with his own, creating a powerful narrative tide. The book is divided into three sections: "Breviary," "Maps," and "Glossary." "Breviary" catalogs the sights, smells, sounds, and features common to the many peoples who share the Mediterranean—Jews, Arabs, Copts, Berbers, Turks, Syrians, Greeks, Romans (and Italians), Spaniards (and Catalonians), the French, Dalmatians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Romanians, even Russians. "Maps" retraces the same itinerary through documents up to the seventeenth century that represent the Mediterranean; "Glossary" deals with linguistic diversity and history. The brilliant variety of details and the verve with which they are conveyed will appeal to active and armchair travelers alike. With this portrait of a place and its civilizations, Matvejevic joins a cohort of writers that includes Claudio Magris (Danube), Angelo Maria Ripellino (Magic Prague), and Neal Ascherson (Black Sea)—authors who have created a literary genre all their own, at once personal and objective, imaginative and erudite. Although, as Matvejevic says, "we do not discover the sea ourselves, nor do we view it exclusively through our own eyes," this Mediterranean is joyously his, and it becomes ours as well.

Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape

Matvejevic, Predrag

History

University of California Press

Mimmo Jodice, one of Italy's finest photographers, has set out like a modern Odysseus on an epic journey that he describes as "a voyage in search of the past." The result, Mediterranean, is Jodice's most personal and significant undertaking to date. Not content merely to document archaeological sites and artifacts, Jodice has aimed to rediscover a sense of the Classical universe, presenting it in a vivid and original way.From Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Macedonia, Turkey, Tunisia, Syria, and Jordan, Jodice's luminous photographs evoke a vision of Mediterranean civilization that is a conflation of history and mythology. His dramatic yet ethereal images refuse both classical and contemporary boundaries in a fusion of the topographical and the intimate. Ruined temples, lost cities, heroic landscapes, gods and goddesses, vistas of Vesuvius and of the omnipresent sea transcend the constraints of their historical context in terms of both time and space.At the same time, Mimmo Jodice's artful darkroom interventions give these images a renewed energy, one that is born of the present material world, but which seems sustained by loftier, more elusive mysteries. He begins with black-and-white negatives, and then works in the darkroom to create the simultaneous presence of a multiplicity of tones. Jodice's treatment of the photographic paper gives the images a suggestion of movement-- they vibrate with the sense, as he puts it, that "everything is fleeting and somewhat impregnable."Jodice's deeply original work reveals not only an experimental creative process, but also an informed and unique vision addressing a subject matter-- archaeology-- that has never before been considered in this way. His particular interpretations of such Classical icons remind of the continuing impact of the Mediterranean world on our present lives, and reinstill a sense of epic, of adventure, of wonder, and even of providence-- all so often missing in contemporary culture. Jodice provides us with a vision of the Mediterranean that is rich and vast, letting symbolic images become links between the experience of diverse peoples and between ourselves and our distant ancestors.Mediterranean includes essays by distinguished Yale University art historian George Hersey, and renowned Slavic writer and scholar Predrag Matvejevic."This collection of images implies the destiny of a nomad. We accompany Jodice into his chosen places, on both the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. The camera follows paths that we thought we understood, showing us what we never perceived."--Predrag Matvejevic"...Looking at these places, almost always the camera chooses a center with radiating shafts or strata of stone that move from a white center out into a dark, irregular periphery, a shimmering sight that is perhaps equivalent to echoing music or the shouts of invisible nymphs."--George Hersey

Mediterranean

Travel

Hersey, George L.

Jodice, Mimmo

Middle East

Aperture

To know a city is to become intimately intertwined with its nooks, crevices, secret passageways, and dark places where its lifeblood flows—and what city has more of those than Venice? In The Other Venice, Predrag Matvejevic ventures past the infamous canals and cobblestone streets of the tourist’s Venice to find the heart of the ancient Italian metropolis. A lyric re-imagining of the City of Romance, The Other Venice utterly reconfigures the Venetian landscape, as Matvejevic follows both real and imaginary maps, contemporary and historical, to trace out the details of this sensuous city. He probes into what the ancient metropolis means to its people, the nation, and global culture. But he also finds hints of life in the smallest and most mundane details—ancient bridges, rust-flecked boats, wall sculptures, rivers, and piazzas scattered throughout the city. Each has a little-known story and with Matvejevic as our guide, he reveals the stories behind them all. The book carries readers to a Venice that has escaped the eyes of writers, artists, and photographers through the centuries, and Matejevic by turns plays a historian, cartographer, anthropologist, and philologist as he unravels elusive artifacts of time past. Arresting black-and-white photographs by renowned photographer Sarah Quill accompany the text, offering a silent testament to Matvejevic’s pilgrimage. A fascinating and beautifully written guide, The Other Venice reminds us that there is always another mystery to uncover in the city of water and stone.

The Other Venice: Secrets of the City (Topographics)

Europe

Reaktion Books

Our Daily Bread: Its Cultural and Religious Significance throughout History

Istros Books

Nuestro pan de cada día

Acantilado

Breviario mediterráneo

Science & Math

Earth Sciences

Ediciones Destino

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Editorial Anagrama

Breviario mediterraneo

History & Criticism

Garzanti Libri

Between exile and asylum

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Books by Matvejevic, Predrag