The palaces of Venice have long excited the wonder of visitors. These grand, ornate buildings seem to float on the water of the city's canals like the sea castles in a mariner's dream. But Juergen Schulz demonstrates that the origins of these residences lay on terra firma, in a widely disseminated building type that, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was adapted to the special circumstances of an Adriatic lagoon and the needs of the merchants who were turning this environment into a center of trade. 

This book investigates who Lady Godiva was, how the story of her naked horseback ride through Coventry arose, and how the whole Godiva legend has evolved from the thirteenth century through to the present day.

Identifying the attraction of the city in its urbanitas, its “urbanity,” or the way of living in a city, Pounds discusses first its origins in prehistoric and classical Greek urban revolutions. During the Middle Ages, the city grew primarily between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, remaining essentially the same until the Industrial Revolution.