History of Venice
Venice is extraordinary, magical, and it merits every minute of the 2 or 3 days an average tourist stays there. Venice is an astonishing place to spend a few weeks walking along little canals. To really enjoy the city, however, one needs to know the history of Venice.
Venice – The Sinking City
Venice has an unworldly beauty; it is a living, suspiring, extraordinary city that appears almost too beautiful to be real, too fragile to continue to exist in the innumerable flow of visitors who have been making the pilgrimage here in the last centuries. Its 15,000 houses and palaces are all built on piles to keep them from sinking into the ooze of the 117 small islands over which the city stands. Venice is thoroughly divided, like a jig-saw puzzle, by some 150 canals; linked up again by 378 bridges. In many places there are no sidewalks along the canals-the front steps of the houses descending right into the floating orange rinds.
Summaries on the history of Venice
Venice has a long and far-reaching past. Venice was supposedly founded around the year 400 by Romans who were fleeing the Goths. The Goths were at that time trying to triumph over large areas of the declining Roman Empire. Yet, there are no actual records of when exactly Venice was established. As barbarian Nordic hordes rushed down the Italian peninsula the inhabitants of the Veneto region grew tired of being routinely sacked and pillaged along the way. In the next centuries, many had begun to settle on the mudflat islands of the muddy lagoon, created by the ancient delta of the Po River, and began to live with the sea.
Around the ninth century and continuing on into the twelfth century, Venice became a city state similar to other city states such as Genoa and Pisa. Strategically, Venice was strong, as it was situated at the edge of the Adriatic Sea and was virtually untouchable. It’s naval and other marine forces made it a center of commerce for the region.
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The building of the Venetian Arsenal started in 1104, and when Venice acquired control of the Brenner pass in 1178, they likewise prevailed in the silver trading from Germany. This established Venice as one of the greatest economic powers of the time. In fact, the Torcello is one of the best glimpses into how early Venice appeared, dispersed buildings and canals banked by waving rushes and reeds, everything defined by the scattered lines of wooden piles hammered down into the mud. This construction made with Istrian stone and oaks is what lies beneath all those houses of central Venice.
History about Venice says that by 1204, Venice was at another crossroad. Venice was on the front line in the fourth and most successful Crusade with taking into custody Constantinople. It went on to conquer territories across the Adriatic Sea and what are today the Greek islands, Turkey, and Crete – and eventually became the capital of Italy’s inland provinces, now the Veneto, Trentino, and Friuli. This was the period of the Fourth Crusade where Venice played a decisive role in the taking of Constantinople and creation of an Empire. Venice’s facility to send out ships to transport men and goods made them priceless in the Crusades, and they received much stolen goods from the city’s takeover.
Venice’s form of government also helped the city to prosper – here, a form of rule much like that of ancient Rome took place. A doge (or duke) ruled over the city state theoretically for life (although some of the doges were forced into early retirement). A senate, comprised of nobles, also ruled over the area as advisors to the doge. A mass of the citizens were included in the ruling class, but they held limited political power and were eventually removed from the government entirely. By 1300 it was one of the largest cities and the leading maritime republic of Europe and the Mediterranean. Venice remained a maritime power until the 18th century, when trade through the new American colonies would increasingly steal much of the city’s thunder. By the end of the 18th century, Venice had run out of steam commercially, not to mention militarily after centuries spent fighting the Turks (who slowly regained most of Venice’s Aegean and Greek territories).
Modern-era rule of Venice started when the city state lost after 1070 years its independence. It was Napoleon that conquered Venice in 1797and then in 1798, Venice was part of the Austrian Kingdom.
In 1866, Venice along with the rest of Venetia became part of Italy. Although initially dominated by the rule of the various Popes, the united country slowly developed into a full fledged republic. It was the king Vittorio Emanuele II that defeated the Austrians, gained control of the Veneto, and made it a part of the newly made state of Italy. In its position at the crossroads of the Byzantine and Roman – later Eastern and Western – worlds, Venice over many centuries acquired a unique amalgamated heritage of art, architecture, and culture, which all make a glorious history of Venice.