Francesco da Mosto

Michael Berkeley’s guest is the architect, author and broadcaster Francesco da Mosto.

With his shock of white hair, boundless energy and unmistakable accent, Francesco da Mosto is for many of us the quintessential Venetian.

His distant ancestors were some of the first settlers to colonise the swampy islands that were to become Venice, fleeing Attila the Hun in the 5th century, and since then the da Mosto family has been at the forefront of Venetian public life.

One of the team of architects who restored the opera house in Venice after a devastating fire in 1996, Francesco shot to fame with his BBC television series exploring Venice, Italy and the Mediterranean. And with his English wife Jane, he’s at the heart of the campaign to find a sustainable future for this most beautiful and vulnerable city.

Francesco tells Michael about the joys and travails of living in Venice, and about his life in a crumbling palazzo just off the Grand Canal, shared by his parents, his children and more than twenty other Venetian families. And he tells Michael how to cook his favourite Sunday lunch dish.

His music choices are a celebration of Italy, with arias from operas by Puccini and by Verdi; a much loved song by Mina Mazzini; music by Ennio Morricone, Alessandro Marcello, and the most famous Venetian composer of them all: Vivaldi.

Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.