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The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City Dennis Romano
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Paris and the Cliché of History: The City and Photographs, 1860-1970 Catherine E Clark
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Romano, Dennis, 1951– author.
Title: Venice : the remarkable history of the lagoon city / Dennis Romano. Description: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifers: LCCN 2023032463 (print) | LCCN 2023032464 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190859985 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190860004 (epub) | ISBN 9780197696026
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032463
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032464
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190859985.001.0001
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
For Mary, Ethan, Philip, Owen, and Rocco and in memory of Mary Josephine Vaccaro (1902–1965)
Illustrations
Plates
1 Te Lagoon near Torcello looking north
2 Te Pala d’Oro
3 Ca’ d’Oro
4 Jacobello del Fiore, Justice with the Archangels Michael and Gabriel
5 V ittore Carpaccio, Lion of Saint Mark
6 Gentile Bellini, Procession in Piazza San Marco
7 Giambattista Tiepolo, Allegory of Marriage
8 Giovanni Borghesi, Bombardment of Venice fom July 29 to August 22, 1849
Maps
1 Venice circa 1400 xviii
2 Venice circa 2020 xviii
3 Te Parishes of Venice xix
Figures
1.1 Map of the Northern Adriatic Coastline in the Early Middle Ages 19
1.2 Map of the Mainland Towns and Lagoon Settlements in the Early Middle Ages, with an inset of the Rivoalto (Venice) archipelago 23
1.3 Te Dream of Saint Mark mosaic 25
1.4 Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto, Te Dream of Saint Mark 26
2.1 Te Trone of Saint Mark 37
3.1
3.2
4.2
4.3 Giustino di Gherardino da Forlì, Te Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III Make Peace in Front
5.1
6.2
6.3a
6.3b
6.4
7.1a
7.3
8.3
9.1
9.2
11.3
11.4
12.1 Jacopo de’ Barbari, Bird’s-Eye View of Venice 340
12.2 Cesare Vecellio, Woman Dyeing Hair
12.3 Andrea Badoer, View of the Cansiglio Forest Reserve 359
12.4 Matteo Pagan, Procession of the Doge 363
12.5 Antonio Gambello, attrib., Gateway to the Arsenal 365
13.1 Paolo Veronese, Te Cuccina Family Presented to the Madonna and Child 382
13.2 Gabriele Bella, Combat on the Ponte dei Pugni 386
13.3 Hospice of the Crociferi
13.4 Andrea Palladio, Villa Barbaro at Maser
14.1 Jacopo Sansovino, Loggetta 417
14.2 Andrea Michieli, il Vicentino, Battle of Lepanto 423
14.3 Andrea Spinelli, Medal Regina Maris Adriaci 429
14.4 Paolo Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi 436
14.5 Andrea Palladio, San Giorgio Maggiore 445
14.6 Andrea Palladio, Santissimo Redentore 446
14.7 Baldassare Longhena, Santa Maria della Salute 448
15.1 Giovanni Giorgi, Stage Set for the Prologue to the Opera Belloferonte (1642) 455
15.2 Map of Italy and the Western Balkans c. 1700 457
15.3 Giuseppe Sardi, Façade of Santa Maria Zobenigo 468
15.4 Giuseppe de Gobbis, Te Ridotto 471
15.5 Venetian Glass Trade Beads 483
16.1 Church of San Stae and Goldbeaters’ Confraternity Hall 489
16.2 Pietro Longhi, Te Faint
16.3 Francesco Guardi, Gondola on the Lagoon 494
16.4 Francesco del Pedro, Bajamonte Tiepolo sottraendosi dalla vendetta aristocratica 511
16.5 Giandomenico Tiepolo, Divertimenti per li regazzi, tavern scene 518
17.1 Lorenzo Santi, Cofeehouse in the Royal Gardens 521
17.2 Map of the Unifcation of Italy 531
17.3 Fondaco dei Turchi, following restoration 543
18.1 Molino Stucky viewed from the Zattere 548
18.2 Carlo Naya, Corte dell’Olio in San Martino 552
18.3 Giuseppe Torres, Casa Torres on the Rio del Gafaro 561
18.4 E . Coen- Cagli, New Port of Venice at Marghera 568
19.1 Augusto Murer, sculptor; Carlo Scarpa installation, Te Female Partisan 571
19.2 Arbit Blatas, Monument Commemorating Venetian Jewish Victims of the Holocaust 581
19.3 November 1966 Flood in Piazza San Marco 587
20.1 Santiago Calatrava, Constitution Bridge 593
20.2 Cruise Ship on the Giudecca Canal 595
20.3 Graftti near the Maritime Station 597
Timeline of Venetian History
bce c. 4000 Formation of primordial lagoon
bce 1100–700 Veneti migrate into the region from the Balkans
bce 181 Foundation of Aquileia
bce 131 V ia Annia links Adria to Aquileia via Padua
bce c. 79 Pliny the Elder dubs the route between Ravenna and Altino the “Seven Seas”
bce c. 1 Lagoon assumes current form
ce 8 Establishment of Roman region of Venetia and Istria
421 March 25: Legendary foundation of Venice
452 Huns under Attila invade Italy
476 End of Roman Empire in the West
537 Cassiodorus’s Letter to the Tribunes of the Maritime Provinces
568 Lombard invasion of Italy, further migration into lagoon
580 Exarchate of Ravenna established; Venetia ruled by a magister militum (master of troops)
606–7 Split between Aquileia and Grado, each claiming to be the patriarchate
726–7 Iconoclast controversy; revolt against Byzantium; Orso elected frst dux (doge)
751 R avenna falls to Lombards; end of Exarchate; doge becomes ruler of the lagoon province
774–6 Bishopric established at Olivolo (Castello)
810 Venetians defeat Charlemagne’s son Pepin
811 Doge Agnello Partecipazio moves capital from Malamocco to Rivoalto and builds frst ducal palace
828 Saint Mark’s relics arrive in Venice
877 Saracens attack Grado and Comacchio
932 Venetians humble Capodistria, destroy rival Comacchio, and assert control over Gulf of Venice
982 Doge Tribuno Menio transfers island of San Giorgio Maggiore to Benedictines
1000 Doge Pietro II Orseolo defeats Narentan pirates, asserts Venetian dominance in middle Adriatic, and wrests concessions from bishop of Treviso
1082 Byzantine emperor issues Golden Bull granting Venetians trade advantages; in exchange Venetians ofer naval support to emperor against Normans
1097 Donation of land at Rialto market to government
1100 Venetian participation in First Crusade (1096–1109); Saint Nicholas’s relics brought to Venice
1105 Pala d’Oro commissioned by Doge Ordelafo Falier
1123 Venetians defeat Fatimid navy of coast of Palestine near Ascalon 1143 First evidence of the Venetian commune
1177 Peace of Venice—Doge Sebastiano Ziani mediates peace between Pope Alexander III and Holy Roman emperor Frederick Barbarossa
1192 First extant ducal oath of ofce
1204 Fourth Crusade conquest of Constantinople
1218 Venice gains full control of Crete
1260s Popolo (common people) excluded from political power
1271–95 Marco Polo journeys to China
1285 First gold ducat minted
1286–1323 Serrata (Closing) of the Greater Council
1310 Querini-Tiepolo Conspiracy; origin of Council of Ten
1321 Savi agli Ordini (Maritime Sages) established to coordinate statemerchant galley system
1355 Conspiracy of Doge Marino Falier
1379–81 Fourth Venetian- Genoese War (War of Chioggia)
1404–6 Venice acquires Padua, Vicenza, and Verona
1423 General Assembly stripped of its last vestiges of power
1426–8 Brescia and Bergamo come under Venetian rule
1453 Sultan Mehmed II conquers Constantinople 1454 Peace of Lodi ends three decades of war with Milan.
1457–8 Doge Francesco Foscari deposed; efort to rein in Council of Ten 1463–79 First Venice- Ottoman War; Ottomans seize Negroponte and make forays into Friuli and the Veneto
1469 First printing press established in Venice
1489 Caterina Corner forced to cede Cyprus to the Republic
1499–1503 Second Venice- Ottoman War; Venice loses Modon and Coron (the “Eyes of the Republic”); end of Venetian naval supremacy in eastern Mediterranean
1500 Jacopo de’ Barbari produces bird’s-eye view of Venice
1501 Portuguese circumnavigate Cape of Good Hope, sail to India, and disrupt Venetian spice trade
1508 League of Cambrai formed against Venice
1516 Jews allowed to settle in Ghetto; Vittore Carpaccio completes painting of Lion of Saint Mark for the ofce of the State Treasurers
1529 Peace of Bologna; Venice loses Cervia, Ravenna, and Apulian ports; Hapsburgs become predominant power in Italy
1537–40 Tird Venice- Ottoman War
1539 Ofce of State Inquisitors established
1543 Gasparo Contarini’s De magistratibus et republica venetorum (On the Magistracies and Republic of the Venetians) published
1545 Completion of Sansovino’s Loggetta
1569 Final state-merchant galley voyage
1570–73 Fourth Venice- Ottoman War; battle of Lepanto; Cyprus lost to the Ottomans
1573 Painter Paolo Veronese interrogated by Inquisition regarding his painting of the Last Supper
1576 Andrea Palladio receives commission to build the Church of the Santissimo Redentore in thanksgiving for the end of the plague
1580 Courtesan Veronica Franco publishes Lettere familiari a diversi (Familiar Letters to Various People)
1595 Popolo demand election of Marino Grimani as doge
1606–7 Interdict Crisis; Venice defes papacy
1630 Accademia degli Incogniti established
1631 Foundation stone laid for the Church of the Salute designed by Baldassare Longhena
1637 Teatro Sant’Aponal, frst opera house, opens
1645–69 War of Candia (Fifh Venice- Ottoman War); Venice loses Crete
1646 Venice begins selling admission to Greater Council
1654 Arcangela Tarabotti’s Tirannia paterna (Paternal Tyranny) posthumously published with the title La semplicità ingannata (Innocence Deceived)
1677 Amelot de la Houssaye publishes Histoire du gouvernemente de Venise (History of the Government of Venice), helps establish negative view of Venice’s aristocratic republic
1684–89 First War of the Morea (Sixth Venice- Ottoman War); Venetians blow up Parthenon
1714–18 Second War of the Morea (Seventh Venice- Ottoman War); humiliating losses for Venice
1723 Hospital of the Pietà contracts with Antonio Vivaldi for two concertos per month
1737–82 Murazzi (sea walls) built along barrier islands to protect lagoon
1750 Carlo Goldoni debuts sixteen comedies
Timeline of Venetian History
1797 May 12: Greater Council votes itself out of existence; end of the Republic
1797–98 Democratic Municipal Government
1798–1806 First Austrian Domination
1806–1814
Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy; major infrastructure projects developed
1810 Ateneo Veneto established
1846 R ailway bridge linking Venice to mainland opens
1848–9 Venetian Revolutionary Republic led by Daniele Manin
1915 World War I aerial bombardment of city commences
1917 Giuseppe Volpi orchestrates agreement with the national government for development of Porto Marghera
1932 Inauguration of Venice Film Festival
1943 December 5: Order for arrest of Venetian Jews
1951 City reaches population of 174,969 residents
1966 November 4: Devastating acqua alta (high tide)
1968 Completion of Petroleum Tanker Canal from Malamocco mouth to Marghera
1987 UNESCO names Venice a World Heritage Site
1988 Prototype MOSE gate (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico— Experimental Electromechanical Model) to prevent city fooding installed at lagoon mouth
1997 Te group Veneto Serenissimo Governo (Most Serene Venetian Government)commandeers the bell tower of San Marco on bicentenary of Republic’s end
2008 Calatrava bridge linking Piazzale Roma and train station opens
2020 MOSE food gates become operational
2022 Population of Venice drops below 50,000
Map 1 Venice circa 1400
Map 2 Venice circa 2020
Map 3 Te Parishes of Venice
Plate 1 Te lagoon near Torcello looking north. Te green pre-Alps and snowcapped Alps are visible in the distance. Stephen Fleming/Alamy Stock Photo.
Plate 2 Pala d’Oro following fourteenth-century modifcations, 1342–45. Basilica of San Marco, Venice. Photo by Daperro, distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license via Wikimedia Commons.
Plate 3 Ca’ d’Oro, begun 1421, Venice. Photo by Wolfgang Moroder, distributed under a CC-BY-3.0 license via Wikimedia Commons.
Plate 4 Jacobello del Fiore, Justice with the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, 1421. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. Scala/Ministero per i Beni Culturali e le Attività Culturali/Art Resource, NY.
Plate 5 Vittore Carpaccio, Lion of Saint Mark, 1516. Ducal Palace, Venice. Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY.
Plate 6 Gentile Bellini, Procession in Piazza San Marco, 1496. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
Plate 7 Giambattista Tiepolo, Allegory of Marriage of Ludovico Rezzonico and Faustina Savorgnan, commissioned 1758. Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice. Photo by Didier Descouens, distributed under a CC-BY-SA-4 .0 license via Wikimedia Commons.
Situated in the middle of a tidal lagoon, at the northernmost extreme of the Mediterranean Sea, Venice astounds. Te improbability of splendid churches and gilded palaces emerging, Venus-like, from the watery depths defes logic and sends observers, native and foreign alike, into ecstatic reveries. For centuries, writers have sought to capture the essence of Venice and its civilization in an image, a metaphor, an allusion. Coming from the solid ground of his native Tuscany, fourteenth-century humanist Francesco Petrarch described marshy Venice as “another world.” Francesco Sansovino, Renaissance scholar and chronicler of the city’s artistic treasures, characterized Venice and its watery locale as the “impossible in the impossible.” Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen pronounced it, appropriately enough, “the city of a fairy tale,” while Russian socialist theorist Alexander Herzen considered Venice a “magnifcent absurdity” and the decision to build it amid the waves “the madness of genius.”1 What these writers and countless others have sought to convey is that Venice is, simply put, a miracle. Yet since miracles cannot be explained, such musings rob the history of Venice of its lessons and meaning, obscuring the ceaseless work and harsh realities that building a city on water requires.
Te truth is that no city on earth has been more profoundly infuenced by its natural environment than Venice. Nature endowed it with extraordinary gifs. Venice’s location, at a site where numerous rivers originating in the Alps empty into the Adriatic Sea, made it the ideal spot for terrestrial, riverine, and maritime trade routes to intersect. Here, the cities of north and central Europe could be linked to the wealthy metropolises of Constantinople and Alexandria and to the silk and spice routes that lay beyond them. Venice had the potential, if great efort was made, to become a global trade emporium. At the same time, the lagoon had its own treasures to bestow, especially upon its earliest inhabitants. Salt was the original source of Venetian riches, fsh the sustenance of life, the surrounding waters its defensive barrier.
But living in a lagoon, especially one as hydrologically dynamic as Venice’s, was (and remains) fraught with toil and peril. Every inch of dry land must be wrested with great efort from the shallows, reinforced with embankments, and constantly protected lest it be reclaimed by unrelenting waves.2 Water imperils Venice from two directions. Te mainland rivers carry huge quantities of silt from the nearby mountains, threatening to transform the lagoon into a malaria-ridden swamp and, ultimately, dry land. Only through centuries of efort at building dikes and channeling the rivers into artifcial beds were the Venetians able to divert the fow away from the lagoon and maintain its viability. Te sea poses a diferent danger as periodic foods of salt water inundate the city, damaging goods and undermining buildings. If sea level continues to rise, it will eventually render the city uninhabitable. To stem the tide, generations of Venetians have built sea walls to protect the barrier islands from erosion. Originally, they were made of wooden poles backflled with chunks of stone; later more elaborate curved walls were built to counteract the power of the waves. More recently, rising sea level has prompted the introduction of mobile gates that can shut the lagoon of from the Adriatic when extreme high tides are threatening. Managing the lagoon is the great constant in Venice’s history.3
Water may be a threat, but it is also Venice’s lifeblood, infuencing every aspect of life. Lacking land, the very defnition of wealth in the Middle Ages, Venetians were compelled to look to trade and commerce for their livelihood. Ships stood at the center of the city’s existence and served as formidable projections of Venetian power. Tey were ofen named for the families that owned them. One medieval chronicler even included them in his description of Venice’s inhabitants.4 For centuries on end, tens of thousands of Venetians built and maintained the city’s merchant marine and naval feets and supplied its crews. Te Arsenal, the Venetian Republic’s state-owned shipyard, was a marvel of the preindustrial age. Dante Alighieri captured its frenzied activity as workers crafed new vessels and repaired old ones. In the Divine Comedy, he compared the boiling muck torturing the damned in the ffh ditch of Hell’s eighth circle to the sticky pitch the Venetians used to seal their ships’ hulls.5
At the same time, the Venetians’ focus on business and trade made them suspect, pariahs even, to their western European neighbors. Te aristocrats of mainland Europe questioned the legitimacy of Venetian nobles due to their engagement in trade, which was considered denigrating work suitable only for commoners, and because they failed to participate in the land-based feudal system.6 Venetians famously (and stereotypically) cut a poor fgure on horseback—the very defnition of chivalric dignity. Simultaneously,
the Catholic Church’s doubts whether salvation and money-making were reconcilable—a position popularized by Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth century—combined with Venetians’ willingness to trade with Muslims led some to question their allegiance to Christendom. Te sea and trade may have made the Venetians rich and powerful, but they also saddled them with enduring stereotypes regarding their cunning and faithlessness.7
Te city’s amphibious environment did much to shape social relations and personal interactions. In the earliest centuries, Venetians traveled between the scattered islands of their archipelago in small boats, but as the city solidifed into a compact mass and pedestrian streets developed, residents principally got around by foot. At times nobles employed their private gondolas, themselves potent status symbols, to move about, but they also ofen walked the city.8 Foreigner notables were struck by how they did so without a retinue of retainers in tow.9 Consequently, Venetians of all social backgrounds had frequent face-to-face contact, promoting familiar, if not necessarily cordial, relations. To this day, the streets of Venice are the great social equalizer as people conduct their daily activities on foot.
Water also put its stamp on Venetian festive and ritual life. Much socializing took place in boats, and most of Venice’s festivals and celebrations included an aquatic component, the doge’s annual marriage to the sea ceremony being the most famous.10 And when the Venetians built the votive churches of the Santissimo Redentore on the island of the Giudecca and Santa Maria della Salute at the Custom’s House Point in thanksgiving for the cessation of plagues, they situated those churches to replicate the arduousness of pilgrimage journeys.11 To arrive at these temples on the appointed feast days, the faithful had to cross undulating bridges temporarily fashioned from boats lashed together with ropes. Marine entertainments including bridge battles and rowing competitions were mainstays of Venetian life in the early modern era.12 Regattas and freworks displays in the Bacino (Basin) of San Marco still are.
Erecting solid buildings on water required innovative construction techniques. Early on, the Venetians found ways to build on the unstable ground they had reclaimed from the lagoon. Piles driven into the mud and planks placed one atop the other served as the foundations for buildings. Eventually these wooden supports were supplemented with Istrian stone whose imperviousness to water made it ideal for preventing the constant upward seepage of saltwater that could damage edifces from within. Te Venetians discovered as well that it made sense to orient their buildings so as to protect the lengthy weight-bearing walls from the constant erosion caused by waves. For this reason, as any trip down the Grand Canal makes clear, most
Venetian houses are narrow and long, with their narrow decorative façades fronting the water.13 And buildings ofen abut, ofering further reinforcement and stability. In these ways, water shaped the very form of the city and the confguration of its squares, streets, and houses.
Less obvious is water’s infuence on art, although much has been made of the special quality of Venetian light and how it is refected in the canals and captured in paintings.14 Water’s deleterious impact on frescos—which once adorned the façades of many Renaissance buildings and have succumbed to the damp—favored the adoption of canvas, in ready supply from Venice’s sailmaking industry. Bolts of canvas were sewn together to create pictures of huge dimension, and artists discovered that applying paint to canvas’s rough surface allowed them to create unique textural and coloristic efects.15
Water especially shaped the Venetian mindset, ofering a sense of security since the lagoon’s expanses made the city nearly invulnerable to foreign invasion. Well into the nineteenth century, defensive walls were the hallmark of cities around the world. As a city without walls, Venice was unique. Only twice did enemies nearly breach Venice’s aquatic ramparts: in the early ninth century when Charlemagne’s son Pepin invaded the lagoon, and in the late fourteenth century when the Genoese captured the southern lagoon town of Chioggia. Even on those occasions the surrounding waters proved salvifc. Afer marching up the barrier islands, Pepin was unable to cross the shoals and capture the then capital at Malamocco, its location today lost in the waters of the lagoon.16 For their part, the Genoese were thwarted when the Venetians removed channel markers and blocked waterways with sunken ships, preventing the enemy from advancing on Venice itself. “No walls, no gates, no fortifcations,” proudly proclaimed Renaissance humanist Bernardo Giustinian. For many of his fellow humanists, not walls but the city’s rulers, laws, institutions, and citizens constituted the true safeguard of the city.17 As Petrarch observed, Venice was “ringed by salt waters but more secure with the salt of good counsel.”18
Most of all, the lagoon fostered the Venetians’ sense of identity and of their city’s exceptionalism. When they related the story of Saint Mark’s dream of the great city that would one day arise in his honor, they located that premonition—what they called Venice’s praedestinatio (predestination)—as having occurred while the saint was adrif in the lagoon. Venetians took pride in their city’s divinely sanctioned watery locale, comparing it at times to the Red Sea that protected the Israelites from pharaoh. Tey imagined themselves as God’s newly chosen.19 In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, consternation greeted plans to build rail and automobile causeways linking
the city to the mainland. Opponents feared that these bridges would end Venice’s splendid isolation, undermine its aquatic orientation, and destroy the very thing that made the city unique. When in 1848 the Venetians revolted against their Austrian overlords, they severed the railway span linking Venice to the mainland village of Marghera in a futile attempt to recreate the watery protection that the city had enjoyed for centuries. By then, however, such defenses were obsolete; advances in ballistics allowed the Austrians to bombard the city from the mainland. In the early twentieth century, the fascists put Venice’s aquatic traditions and heritage to their own use. Tey appropriated Venice’s maritime identity to justify Italy’s imperialistic designs on the Adriatic Sea, especially the regions around Trieste recently controlled by Austria. In this way, Venice’s past was linked to Italy’s present.
Te precarity of the natural environment, the sense that water and land were constantly in fux, fostered a Venetian obsession with stability, constancy, and order. Teorists and apologists lauded the longevity of the Venetian Republic, arguing that the city’s inhabitants had discovered the keys to orderly and stable rule.20 Tey celebrated that their regime had outlasted even that of ancient Rome. When change was forced and enshrined in law, lawmakers unfailingly presented it not as innovation but as a return to the rules, precepts, and traditions of the ancestors. Te series of ducal portraits that adorn the walls of the Greater Council Hall and the Hall of the Scrutinio in the Ducal Palace were intended to emphasize the centuries-long continuum of dogal rule.21 Even the predilection for electing extremely elderly men to the dogeship seemed an afrmation of conservatism and stability.22
Venetians called all this serenity. Tey applied the sobriquet Most Serene to their Republic and the title His Serenity to the doge. Tey emphasized the city’s orderliness and social harmony, arguing that there was a concordance of minds, a unity of purpose, that united all Venetians, rich and poor, noble and common, women and men, native born and immigrant.23 Teirs was a city, they claimed, free of social strife. Tey were, of course, trying mightily to deny the forces of chaos and fux, human and especially natural, that surrounded them. Venice’s foes were only too eager to remind them of their environmental vulnerability. Following the Republic’s loss of Cyprus to the Ottoman Turks in 1573, disgruntled Venetian subjects in Spalato (Split) in Dalmatia sang a song whose lyrics recounted that “the Turk is running water that erodes, and . . . the Doge is a sandbank which has been carried away little by little by the river.”24
Despite the rhetoric of timelessness, change is the other constant of Venice’s history. To the modern visitor, this seems counterintuitive since, on
