By RITA CIRESI

Venice, Italy

I bought it thirty years ago on my first visit to Italy, in a cramped bookbinding shop tucked on a dark, narrow alley behind Piazza San Marco.  I paid for it in lire—heavy coins that bore the images of grapevines and olive branches, and oversized pastel bills printed with portraits of Guglielmo Marconi and Maria Montessori.

My address book, covered in blue marbled paper, is the size of 3 x 5 index card.  The flyleaf is stamped with the symbol of Venice:  a winged lion.  The lion looks proudly out, as if—in a city where many go to deliberately get lost in the enchanting maze—he knows exactly where he is going.