Venice Through the Ages

Venice Through the Ages

Venice was founded in the 5th century when the Veneti, inhabitants of the mainland region roughly corresponding to today's Veneto, fled their homes to escape invading Lombards. The unlikely city, built atop wooden posts driven into the marshes, would evolve into a great maritime republic. Its fortunes grew as a result of its active role in the Crusades, beginning in 1095 and culminating in the Venetian-led sacking of Constantinople in 1204. The defeat of rival Genoa in the Battle of Chioggia (1380) established Venice as the dominant sea power in Europe.

As early as the 7th century, Venice was governed by a participatory democracy, featuring a ruler, the doge, who was elected to a lifetime term. Beginning in the 12th century, the doge's power was increasingly subsumed by a growing number of councils, commissions, and magistrates. In 1268 a complicated procedure for the doge's election was established to prevent nepotism, but by this point power rested foremost with the Great Council, which at times numbered as many as 2,000 members. Though originally an elected body, the Great Council from 1297 onward was an aristocratic stronghold, with members inheriting seats from their noble ancestors. Laws were passed by the Senate, a group of 200 elected from the Great Council, and executive powers belonged to the College, a committee of 25 leaders. In 1310, the Council of Ten was formed to protect state security. When circumstances abroad or at home endangered the republic's democracy, the doge could expedite decision making and guarantee greater secrecy by consulting only the Council of Ten. In order to avoid too great a concentration of power, these ten served only one year and had to belong to different families.

Venice reached the height of its power in the 15th and 16th centuries, during which time its domain extended inland to include all of the Veneto region and part of Lombardy. But beginning in the 16th century, the tide turned. The Ottoman Empire blocked Venice's Mediterranean trade routes, and newly emerging sea powers such as Britain and the Netherlands ended Venice's monopoly by opening oceanic trading routes. The republic underwent a long, slow decline. When Napoléon arrived in 1797, he took the city without a fight, eventually delivering it to the Austrians, who ruled until 1848. In that tumultuous year throughout Europe, the Venetians rebelled, an act that would ultimately lead to their joining the Italian republic in 1866.

Early in its history, Venice brought in Byzantine artists to decorate its churches with brilliant mosaics, still glittering today. In the 13th through 15th centuries the influence of Gothic architecture produced the characteristic type of palace in the Florid Gothic style, with the finely wrought facades for which the town is famous. Renaissance sensibilities arrived in Venice comparatively late. Early Venetian Renaissance artists -- Carpaccio, Giorgione, and the Bellini brothers, Giovanni and Gentile -- were active in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Along with the stars of the next generation -- Veronese, Titian, and Tintoretto -- they played a decisive role in the development of Western art, and their work still covers walls and ceilings all over the city.

Like its steadily dwindling fortunes, Venice's art and culture underwent a prolonged decline, leaving only the splendid monuments to recall a fabled past, with the 18th-century paintings of Canaletto and frescoes of Giambattista Tiepolo striking a glorious swan song.