How is a life defined by a city, and a city by the lives within? Where do an individual and a culture coincide? Perhaps more than any city in the world, Venice inspires these questions and suggests romantic answers. Venice in their turn. The author considers them in five groups: the mutilated culture heroes, (e.g., the eunuchs Narses), who despite or because of some great sacrifice helped the city define itself and its mission; the fugitives from splendour, (e.g., the St. Pietro Orseolo or El Greco), so overwhelmed by beauty that they fled the city; the prisoners of Venice - the convicts, the cloistered, the mad; the symbiotics, who lived in close communion with the city for long periods of time (e.g., Titian); and the fugitives from self (e.g., Igor Stravinsky), who have come from elsewhere seeking a new identity, and who ended up helping to create a new identity for the city itself. work examines the roots of people's Venice-ness as well as the city's own humanity.