Caffè Florian

Caffè Florian in St Mark's Square has always been the high-society "drawing-room" of the unique, world-famous city of Venice. And Gianni Berengo Gardin, an adoptive Venetian, has always had close ties with the lagoon city, where he began his splendid career. This book is the result of his having photographed a week in the life of the historic café, which can boast habitués from the past like Casanova and Byron. Gianni Berengo Gardin sat in his usual discreet fashion on the plush small red divans in Florian's and captured around forty timeless moments from everyday life in a haunt with a splendid past and an equally fascinating present. Through his art Gianni Berengo Gardin has made a photographic reportage into a lyrical page in the book of Venetian life. The black-and-white images range from lovers' trysts to veiled women sipping coffee, Japanese tourists in awe of gilded stuccos, rich ladies with poodles but also the habitués, waiters and musicians. Gianni Berengo Gardin provides wonderful insight into the daily reality of Florian's, an historic "coffee-shop" like those immortalized by Carlo Goldoni in his Bottega del Caffè, which will soon celebrate three hundred years of glorious social life. In fact the café was opened under the Procuratie Nuove by Floriano Francesconi in 1720. Now a "historic" photographer has prepared a magnificent birthday gift for a place that has seen so much history.