Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Palladian Days Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House by Sally Gable Got My Reservations. Exploring the world — one reservation at a time. The Sunday Review: Palladian Days by Sally Gable. Carl and Sally Gable were looking for a summer home in New Hampshire, but ended up buying a historically-protected in a small town outside of — the Villa Cornaro. Built by Renaissance architect in 1552, the Villa Cornaro is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. It is owned by Americans who fell in love with , with and with the Villa Cornaro. Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House is based on Sally Gable’s diaries about the process of buying a home in Italy. I fell in love with the book based on its cover — very Edith Wharton and all that — and found it to be an interesting look into the world of Americans learning to care for an Italian treasure while also learning to live in another culture. Unlike Tim Park’s sardonic view of Italy and Frances Mayes’s romantic love affair with Italy, Sally Gable’s prose is elegant, precise, and matter-of-fact while still offering a passionate vision of the expatriate dream of owning a villa in Italy. It’s just that most of us don’t own and live in an international monument. As I read this book, I couldn’t help but think money pit, money pit . I’ve renovated a number of homes in my day, and I know that the amount of money the Gables have poured into this property must be astounding. Carl I. Gable is a retired lawyer and businessman, and Sally Gable is a retired church musician, and Mrs. Gable is pretty reticent about talking about money in her stories. Although most of the restoration had already been done by the villa’s former owners, Richard and Julia Rush, I found it unrealistic how she often glossed over what must have been very difficult decisions. The fact that they both sit on some very prestigious boards of directors gives us a glimpse into why they don’t seem to worry very much about what things cost. I don’t know exactly why this bugged me, but it did. Click into the photo to see the recipe for creamy butternut squash risotto. Sally Gable also includes recipes and a discussion of risotto that had my tastebuds drooling. I do love a good memoir with talk about food! This photo of Villa Cornaro is courtesy of TripAdvisor. A visitor to the Villa Cornaro tells Sally that she is lucky that she and her husband share a passion for the same thing — renovating, restoring, and living in an architectural treasure. As she reflects on this comment she says: How fortuitous, how unlikely, that we both find in our villa, in Venice, in Italy a source of such infinite fascination. Villa Cornaro has been the cornerstone of it all. Like a great athletic coach, the villa is at once a disciplinarian, a trainer, and a motivator. You can step into new stages and play new roles, the villa whispers. Find your hidden pools of strength, open yourself to see art with fresh and wider-ranging eyes, examine whole new palettes of color in your everyday life, vault past barriers of language, culture, and habit. All to better care for me, my villa tells me (247). Click into the photo for more information about Villa Cornaro. The Gables open their house to visitors and also host local events in the gardens. If you cannot get to Venice to see Villa Cornaro anytime soon, perhaps you are able to visit a Palladian style architectural treasure in the United States, Drayton Hall near Charleston, South Carolina, that is said to have been based on the Villa Cornaro. Thomas Jefferson admired Andrea Palladio’s work and used another building, Villa La Rotanda, for the design of his home at . You can also visit The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. which tells “the stories of architecture, engineering, and design.” Got my bags, got my reservations, Spent each dime I could afford. Like a child in wild anticipation, I long to hear that, “All aboard!” Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House by Sally Gable. Palladian Days Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House. Sally Gable and Carl I. Gable. Palladian Days: Dust jacket descriptions: What Sally Gable thought she wanted was a summer house in New Hampshire. What she found and learned to love was a new life in a beautiful and celebrated Palladian villa in the countryside outside Venice. In Palladian Days , she takes us with her on a journey of discovery and transformation as she and her husband, Carl, become the bemused owners of Villa Cornaro, built in 1552 by the great Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and called by Town & Country one of the ten most influential buildings in the world. Sally writes lovingly of the villa as she and Carl settle in and slowly uncover its history, the lives of its former inhabitants, and its architectural pleasures. She tells of her early days there, learning to speak Italian with the help of her engaging new neighbors in the tiny town that surrounds the villa, Piombino Dese, a place both traditional and busily modern with its old-fashioned street markets and its burgeoning economy. She writes with beguiling humor about learning to take care of a Renaissance palace with its 104 frescos and 44 pairs of shutters (all of which have to be opened and closed daily). She tells of baffling encounters with the soprintendente di belle arti , who must give permission for even the slightest repair to the Italian national treasure Sally and Carl call home. And she describes the life she and her husband create for the villa itself, allowing it to be used for concerts, ballet performances, even as a movie set. In Palladian Days , we enter with Sally and Carl into their engrossing adventure, following along as they are woven ever more deeply into the fabric of small-town Italy and into its larger national history. Their story will delight travelers and would-be travelers; all who are fascinated by architecture, by art, by the powerful essence of place--and, especially, house-dreamers everywhere. T HE A UTHORS. Sally Gable, a church musician by training, has served on the boards of Radcliffe College, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and other educational and musical organizations. Carl I. Gable, a lawyer and businessman and the author of a book on Venetian glass, has served on the boards of the Spoleto Festival USA, the Atlanta Opera, the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University and the Center for Palladian Studies in America. They divide their time between Atlanta and Villa Cornaro. Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House by Sally Gable. Palladian Days Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House. Sally Gable and Carl I. Gable. Early praise from authors and critics: "Sally Gable lights up her story of acquiring a house in Italy with boldness and humor." "Sally Gable's sincerity and humor never fail her as she tells of her quest to understand Italian life and history, and to restore Palladio's villa to its full splendor." "This delightful mix of memoir, travel guide and recipes is, in essence, a twist on these well-worn genres--a very chic, expensive twist at that." Die größten Hörerlebnisse nur bei Audible. Erlebe Audible auf dem Smartphone, Tablet, am Computer oder deinem Amazon Echo. Auch offline. Die größten Hörerlebnisse. Entdecke genau das, was du hören willst: Wähle aus 200.000 Titeln und inspirierenden Audible Original Podcasts. Natürlich werbefrei. Genieße dein Hörerlebnis ohne Unterbrechung. Einfach ausprobieren. Teste Audible 30 Tage kostenlos. Du kannst jederzeit kündigen. Hör die Welt mit anderen Augen. Mit Audible Originals und exklusiven Geschichten. Wir können dich kaum erwarten! Entdecke Audible einen Monat lang völlig kostenlos. Genieße jeden Monat ein Hörerlebnis deiner Wahl - und so viele exklusive Audible Original Podcasts, wie du willst. Keine Bindung, keine Frist – du kannst dein Abo jederzeit pausieren oder kündigen. Rated Reads. Ratings based on content, just like movie and TV ratings. Palladian Days. by Sally and Carl I. Gable. On seeing Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House, my first thought was of Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun. Sally and Carl I. Gable’s book seemed to be simply an Under the Venetian Sun. However, even though the books are similar in style and in general location, they do focus on different topics. The Gables do not focus heavily on food, although Sally’s mouthwatering descriptions of the sumptuous meals served by friends in their new neighborhood did inspire me to cook my own version of a recipe for risotto featured in one chapter. Nor is it an Extreme Makeover: Italian Home Edition. Villa Cornaro, the 450-year-old home designed by renowned Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and built for a wealthy Venetian family, is in remarkably good condition even to this day. The Gables had no major renovations to mount when they bought the home in 1989. Of course, they did make a few changes — like putting in a kitchen that would be not only practical for their lengthy spring and fall stays but also stylistically balanced with the rest of the house — but it was quite habitable without any demolition or overhauling. In fact, it is remarkably intact: of the five major designed by Palladio still in existence, Cornaro has the most original tile and terrazzo floors and original exterior stucco. So though it is not a diary of making over an old but dilapidated home or a memoir of the clichéd “liberation of uptight Americans amongst the joie de vivre of Italy,” rather a slightly more mundane examination of the day-to-day demands and rewards of owning an historic Italian villa, it is still a delightful read. Anyone who loves old homes and their unique histories and character, not to mention the beauty and culture of southern Italy, will get a voyeuristic pleasure out of imagining being in the shoes of Atlanta residents the Gables as they enjoy their gorgeous but sometimes temperamental (aren’t they all?) home and environs. Having a hard day? Picture sitting on the villa’s double portico, absorbing the sights and smells and sounds of Piombino Dese, the quaint Italian town in which the villa stands. Wander back in time with Sally Gable as she daydreams about how the house looked when first built, how full it was of busy farm workers going about their daily chores. The author does this frequently: she and her husband have spent their 15 years of ownership visiting other Palladian villas; reading up on Palladio, his designs and the many famous modern-day structures inspired by his then-novel ideas; and consulting with experts about the history of these homes, Venetian city life and politics, summer country living in the and the Cornaros, the influential family who commissioned and owned the villa for several hundred years. She writes about some of their findings and how they are trying to solve certain little mysteries on their own, such as the inspiration for the biblical scenery depicted in frescos throughout the main floor of the house. (Carl Gable believes that given the subject matter of the frescos and the “checkerboard” design of the floor, both added by Andrea Cornaro in the early 1700s, along with the reworking of the villa’s exterior stairs, that Andrea was attempting to turn his home into a Masonic temple.) Despite the fact that most average readers won’t be able to ever afford to buy and maintain an architecturally renowned villa in the south of Italy, Palladian Days is very approachable and somehow lived-in. The Gables have a normal homeowners’ experience in their country estate, stopping leaks, fixing electrical issues, and just keeping everything in running order, just on a grander scale than most. Their friendships, travels around the extended neighborhood and general becoming a real part of their new home are down-to-earth, comfortably approachable and familiar — a satisfying but transporting read for a gloomy winter’s day. Rated: None. There might be one or two mild uses of language. This book is about people living their lives in and around an old villa, but it’s not about any of their intimate moments, thank goodness. Related. — Reviewed by Cathy Carmode Lim. Cathy Carmode Lim has been reviewing books for newspapers for more than 20 years, two of which she was a book page editor. She founded Rated Reads in January 2008.