Europe: Italy: Venice: Facts to Know (part one)
April 27th, 2009Travelling
At the downfall of Rome’s imperial power, when beautiful regions of South Europe were overrun by hosts of barbarians who wanted to compel its populations to accept their laws and their habits, the Huns, Gothes and particularly the Longobards caused a part of the inhabitants of the cities of Aquilea, Altino and Padua, which had been destroyed, to flee toward the lagoon as they did not intend, being faithful to the principle of Christ’s religion, to submit themselves to the church of Arius.
A hundred-odd islets in the middle of the vast lagoon, some of them knawed and halfsubmerged by the sea, other higher above the water and crowned by trees, where a handful of poor fishermen and salt-collectors already used to dwell, offered to the exiles a providential shelter against the fury of men and of the elements.
This is how from the mud of the marshes the first urban nucleus of the “Venetici” was created with the name of “Rius Altus”.
The magnificent isolation of those refugees, together with their strong determination to rebuild their homes, their courage and, in particular, their ingenuity of builder, caused the strangest city in the world to be gradually erected, the so-called “Civitas Venetiarum”, the Venice of the first dwellers, suspended amid the sea and the sky, on a myriad of deep-set piles… the first embryo of the famous “Serenissima” which was to astonish the world for many centuries with her heroic enterprises and to dazzle mankind with her fabulous riches.
After getting rid of the yoke that Byzantium wanted to impose on her, Venice appointed a “Doge” to lead all Venetian maritime communities and went out to sea with her fearless galleys to conquer the markets of the Dalmatian coast, constantly fighting against Slav and Saracenic marauders.
Proud of its powerful fleet and of the courage of her sons, under the leadership of the famous, wise Doge Enrico Dandolo, Venice set out to conquer Constantinople, destroying the Byzantine empire and gaining the position of a great sea power, a condition for the conquest of many big commercial emporiums along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and elsewhere, importing carpets, jems, pearls and spices from India, perfumes from Arabia, and exporting the much-sought products of her own industry and craftsmanship, such as glassware, mirrors, leather articles and laces.
In the name of St. Mark, her venerated patron saint, this faithinflamed Lady of the seas took an active pan in the Crusades, opening new colonies in Palestine and Syria; then she faced and beat the Turkish fleet in the Lepanto naval battle, thus destroying the seapower of the Ottoman empire and bringing everywhere the beneficial touch of the Latin and Christian, civilization.
Having progressed, free and powerful, for over a thousand years, she was bent only by the evolution of times; after being submitted for a comparatively short period to the Austrian rule, Venice again became a part of the Italian territory in 1866.
The peculiar position and urban structure of the city, her miraculous origin and her riches brought inspiration to many a famous artist, so that art and poetry flourished there beautifully and accompanied her glorious evolution through the centuries.
Architecture, mainly of the Byzantine, Gothic and baroque styles, seems to reach in this city its highest triumphs. Picture, essentially Venetian, achieves the limit of forcefulness and beauty through the masterpieces of Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo, Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Carpaccio, Veronese.
Nothing more seem to have been left to say about St. Mark’s (a Byzantine masterpiece), the Ducal Palace, the Old and New “Procuratie”, the belfry with the small, graceful loggia by Sansovino, the Moors tower, the majestic churches that stud the city and the surrounding islets, the typical, popular dwellings through the nightmarish intricacy of a thousand narrow lanes and alleys, and of a hundred canals that end into the Canal Grande, along whose banks is an astonishing parade of marble palaces that makes the canal the strangest, richest and most impressive thoroughfare in the world.
Venice is nowadays, as many other Italian cities, an important tourist, cultural and artistic center, with an excellent hotel setup and world-famous seashore.
The city also includes a large shipyard and a well-equipped, highly-active harbour.
The lagoon is quiet even when the sea is rough. No screeching of streetcars or brakes… just the hoots of some of the small steamers that busily cross the city’s canals, overcrowded with tourists from all parts of the world… and the silent coming and going of the gondolas sliding peacefully through the water that pave the streets of the most picturesque of all Italian cities, framed by the endless lace of its marvelous palaces.
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