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“Italy’s Molière” (1707–93) is celebrated at the Venetian theatre named in his honour (see Teatro Goldoni). Performances of his lively, witty comedies are staged in Venetian dialect and peopled with recognizable local characters. The prolific playwright moved to Paris and was rewarded with a royal pension, but he died destitute due to the French Revolution.

The sombre 1912 novel Death in Venice was both written and set in Venice and the Lido resort by the German Nobel Prize-winner (1875–1955). It tells the story of an ageing writer in dire need of relaxation who visits the city, but in the wake of an impossible infatuation slowly succumbs to the spreading cholera epidemic and dies.

Although he never visited Italy, let alone Venice, the English Bard (1564–1616) used accounts by contemporary travellers for the plots of The Merchant of Venice and Othello , portraying a city buzzing with trade and intrigue. Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona (see Padua, Vicenza and Verona).

The very first English-language traveller to write a detailed description of Venice, this eccentric gentleman from Somerset, England (1577–1617) compiled Crudities, with Observations of Venice (1611): “Such is the rarenesse of the situation of Venice, that it doth even amaze and drive into admiration all strangers that upon their first arrival behold the same.”

The story goes that this German literary giant (1749–1832) had his first ever view of the sea from Venice’s Campa-nile. Attracted by the lands south of the Alps, his first visit was an experience of personal renewal, the account published as Italian Journey (1786–8).

Eccentricities such as a menagerie of foxes and monkeys, not to mention swimming feats in the Grand Canal, made the English Romantic poet (1788–1824) something of a legend during his three-year sojourn here. His Venice-inspired work included The Two Foscari and the fourth canto of his autobiographical work Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage .

The meticulous if opinionated labour of love of this British art critic (1819–1900), The Stones of Venice , was the first work to focus the attention of visitors on the city’s unique architectural heritage and Gothic style, as opposed to the art. The book was largely the outcome of an 1849 visit.

The leitmotif of this US novelist (1843–1916) was the contrast between what he saw as the spontaneity of the New World and the staidness of Europe. Between 1872 and 1909 he compiled Italian Hours , a “travel diary” with plenty of comments on Venice.

This US Nobel Prize winner (1899–1961) experienced Italy first-hand as a volunteer ambulance driver during World War I (recounted in A Farewell to Arms ) and he was wounded near Treviso. Across the River and into the Trees is set in Harry’s Bar (see Harry’s Bar).

The great English novelist (1812–70) spent a brief period in Venice during a tour of Italy, and the city inspired a dream sequence in his work Pictures from Italy (1846).