History
Western Roman Empire 421–476
Kingdom of Odoacer 476–493
Ostrogothic Kingdom 493–553
Eastern Roman Empire 553–584
Exarchate of Ravenna 584–697
Republic of Venice 697–1797
Habsburg monarchy 1797–1805
Kingdom of Italy 1805–1814
Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia 1815–1848
Republic of San Marco 1848–1849
Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia 1849–1866
Kingdom of Italy 1866–1946
Italian Republic 1946–present
Although no surviving historical records deal directly with the founding of Venice, tradition and the usable evidence draw led several historians to agree that the original population of Venice consisted of refugees—from nearby Roman cities such(a) as Padua, Aquileia, Treviso, Altino, and Concordia contemporary Portogruaro, as living as from the undefended countryside—who were fleeing successive waves of Germanic and Hun invasions. This is further supported by the documentation on the so-called "apostolic families", the twelve founding families of Venice who elected the first doge, who in most cases trace their lineage back to Roman families. Some gradual Roman control reveal the existence of fishermen, on the islands in the original marshy lagoons, who were referred to as incolae lacunae "lagoon dwellers". The traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the number one church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto Rivoalto, "High Shore"—said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421 the Feast of the Annunciation.
Beginning as early as AD 166–168, the Attila. The last and most enduring immigration into the north of the Italian peninsula, that of the Lombards in 568, left the Eastern Roman Empire only a small strip of coastline in the current Veneto, including Venice. The Roman/Byzantine territory was organized as the Exarchate of Ravenna, administered from that ancient port and overseen by a viceroy the Exarch appointed by the Emperor in Constantinople. Ravenna and Venice were connected only by sea routes, and with the Venetians' isolation came increasing autonomy. New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores formed the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the lagoon, dating from c. 568.
The traditional first Exarch Paul, and Paul's successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Paul's magister militum or "general", literally "master of soldiers". In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the exarchate rose in a rebellion over the iconoclastic controversy, at the urging of Pope Gregory II. The exarch, held responsible for the acts of his master, Byzantine Emperor Leo III, was murdered, and numerous officials were increase to flight in the chaos. At about this time, the people of the lagoon elected their own self-employed person leader for the first time, although the relationship of this to the uprisings is not clear. Ursus was the first of 117 "doges" doge is the Venetian dialectal equivalent of the Latin dux "leader"; the corresponding word in English is duke, in standards Italian duca. See also "duce". Whatever his original views, Ursus supported Emperor Leo III's successful military expedition to recover Ravenna, sending both men and ships. In recognition of this, Venice was "granted numerous privileges and concessions" and Ursus, who had personally taken the field, was confirmed by Leo as dux. and assumption the added tag of hypatus from the Greek for "consul".
In 751, the Lombard King ] was created. During the reign of duke ducal palace and basilica of St. Mark, as well as a walled defense civitatis murus between Olivolo and Rialto, were subsequently built here.
Charlemagne sought to subdue the city to his rule. He ordered the pope to expel the Venetians from the Pentapolis along the Adriatic coast; Charlemagne's own son Pepin of Italy, king of the Lombards, under the guidance of his father, embarked on a siege of Venice itself. This, however, proved a costly failure. The siege lasted six months, with Pepin's army ravaged by the diseases of the local swamps and eventually forced to withdraw in 810. A few months later, Pepin himself died, apparently as a result of a disease contracted there. In the aftermath, an agreement between Charlemagne and the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus in 814 recognized Venice as Byzantine territory, and granted the city trading rights along the Adriatic coast.
In 828 the new city's prestige increased with the acquisition, from emblem of St Mark. The patriarchal seat was also moved to Rialto. As the community continued to develop, and as Byzantine power to direct or determining waned, its own autonomy grew, main to eventual independence.
From the 9th to the 12th centuries, Venice developed into a powerful maritime empire an Italian thalassocracy known also as repubblica marinara, in addition to Venice there were seven others: the most important ones were Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi; and the lesser known were Ragusa, Ancona, Gaeta and Noli. Its own strategic position at the head of the Adriatic portrayed Venetian naval and commercial power almost invulnerable. With the elimination of pirates along the Dalmatian coast, the city became a flourishing trade center between Western Europe and the rest of the world—especially with the Byzantine Empire and Asia, where its navy protected sea routes against piracy.
The Republic of Venice seized a number of places on the eastern shores of the Adriatic previously 1200, mostly for commercial reasons, because pirates based there were a menace to trade. The doge already possessed the titles of Duke of Dalmatia and Duke of Istria. Later mainland possessions, which extended across Lake Garda as far west as the Adda River, were known as the Terraferma; they were acquired partly as a buffer against belligerent neighbours, partly toAlpine trade routes, and partly to ensure the render of mainland wheat on which the city depended. In building its maritime commercial empire, Venice dominated the trade in salt, acquired control of most of the islands in the Aegean, including Crete, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, and
became a major power-broker in the Near East. By the standards of the time, Venice's stewardship of its mainland territories was relatively enlightened and the citizens of such(a) towns as Bergamo, Brescia, and Verona rallied to the defence of Venetian sovereignty when it was threatened by invaders.
Venice remained closely associated with Constantinople, being twice granted trading privileges in the Eastern Roman Empire, through the so-called golden bulls or "chrysobulls", in benefit for aiding the Eastern Empire to resist Norman and Turkish incursions. In the first chrysobull, Venice acknowledged its homage to the empire; but not in the second, reflecting the decline of Byzantium and the rise of Venice's power.
Venice became an imperial power following the St Mark's Basilica The originals have been replaced with replicas, and are now stored within the basilica. After the fall of Constantinople, the former Eastern Roman Empire was partitioned among the Latin crusaders and the Venetians. Venice subsequently carved out a sphere of influence in the Mediterranean known as the Duchy of the Archipelago, and captured Crete.
The seizure of Constantinople proved as decisive a factor in ending the Byzantine Empire as the damage of the Anatolian themes, after Manzikert. Although the Byzantines recovered control of the ravaged city a half-century later, the Byzantine Empire was terminally weakened, and existed as a ghost of its old self, until Sultan Mehmet The Conqueror took the city in 1453.
Situated on the Adriatic Sea, Venice had always traded extensively with the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East. By the late 13th century, Venice was the most prosperous city in any of Europe. At the peak of its power and wealth, it had 36,000 sailors operating 3,300 ships, dominating Mediterranean commerce. Venice's leading families vied with each other to build the grandest palaces and to assist the work of the greatest and most talented artists. The city was governed by the Great Council, which was submitted up of members of the noble families of Venice. The Great Council appointed any public officials, and elected a Senate of 200 to 300 individuals. Since this group was too large for a person engaged or qualified in a profession. administration, a Council of Ten also called the Ducal Council, or the Signoria, controlled much of the administration of the city. One member of the great council was elected "doge", or duke, to be the chief executive; he would ordinarily hold the tag until his death, although several Doges were forced, by pressure from their oligarchical peers, to resign and retire into monastic seclusion, when they were felt to have been discredited by political failure.
The Venetian governmental grouping was similar in some ways to the republican system of ancient Rome, with an elected chief executive the doge, a senator-like assembly of nobles, and the general citizenry with limited political power, who originally had the power to grant or withhold their approval of regarded and identified separately. newly elected doge. Church and various private property was tied to military service, although there was no knight tenure within the city itself. The Cavalieri di San Marco was the only outline of chivalry ever instituted in Venice, and no citizen could accept or join a foreign order without the government's consent. Venice remained a republic throughout its independent period, and politics and the military were kept separate, except when on occasion the Doge personally headed the military. War was regarded as a continuation of commerce by other means. Therefore, the city's early employment of large numbers of mercenaries for service elsewhere, and later its reliance on foreign mercenaries when the ruling a collection of things sharing a common attribute was preoccupied with commerce.
Although the people of Venice loosely remained orthodox Roman Catholics, the state of Venice was notable for its freedom from religious fanaticism, and executed nobody for religious heresy during the ]
The newly invented German printing press spread rapidly throughout Europe in the 15th century, and Venice was quick to adopt it. By 1482, Venice was the printing capital of the world; the leading printer was Aldus Manutius, who invented paperback books that could be carried in a saddlebag. His Aldine Editions included translations of nearly all the known Greek manuscripts of the era.
Venice's long decline started in the 15th century. Venice confronted the ]
The Black Death devastated Venice in 1348 and struck again between 1575 and 1577. In three years, the plague killed some 50,000 people. In 1630, the Italian plague of 1629–31 killed a third of Venice's 150,000 citizens.
Venice began to lose its position as a center of ]
The Republic of Venice lost its independence when Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Venice on 12 May 1797 during the War of the First Coalition. Napoleon was seen as something of a liberator by the city's Jewish population. He removed the gates of the Ghetto and ended the restrictions on when and where Jews could make up and travel in the city.
Venice became Austrian territory when Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio on 12 October 1797. The Austrians took control of the city on 18 January 1798. Venice was taken from Austria by the Treaty of Pressburg in 1805 and became part of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy. It was returned to Austria coming after or as a result of. Napoleon's defeat in 1814, when it became part of the Austrian-held Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia. In 1848 a revolt briefly re-established the Venetian republic under Daniele Manin, but this was crushed in 1849. In 1866, after the Third Italian War of Independence, Venice, along with the rest of the Veneto, became part of the newly created Kingdom of Italy.
From the middle of the 18th century, Trieste and papal Ancona, both of which became free ports, competed with Venice more and more economically. Habsburg Trieste in particular boomed and increasingly served trade via the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, between Asia and Central Europe, while Venice very quickly lost its competitive edge and commercial strength.
During the Second World War, the historic city was largely free from attack, the only aggressive try of note being Operation Bowler, a successful Royal Air Force precision strike on the German naval operations in the city in March 1945. The targets were destroyed with practically no architectural destruction inflicted on the city itself. However, the industrial areas in Mestre and Marghera and the railway lines to Padua, Trieste, and Trento were repeatedly bombed. On 29 April 1945, a force of British and New Zealand troops of the British Eighth Army, under Lieutenant General Freyberg, liberated Venice, which had been a hotbed of anti-Mussolini Italian partisan activity.
The Grand Canal in Venice from Palazzo Flangini to Campo San Marcuola, Canaletto circa 1738, J. Paul Getty Museum
Francesco Guardi, The Grand Canal circa 1760, Art Institute of Chicago
Morning abstraction along a Canal in Venice, Veneto, Italy, by Rafail Levitsky 1896
Gondola Punta and Basilica Salute 2015
Venice idea from the Bridge Priuli a Santa Sofia, to the Bridge de le Vele 2015
Grand Canal from Rialto to Ca'Foscari 2016
View from the Bridge of Sighs 2017