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The city of
Venice .
Venice is a unique artistic achievement. The
city is built on 118 small islands and seems to
float on the waters of the lagoon. The influence
of Venice on the development of architecture and
monumental arts has been considerable. Venice
possesses an incomparable series of
architectural ensembles illustrating the age of
its splendour. It presents a complete typology
whose exemplary value goes hand-in-hand with the
outstanding character of an urban setting which
had to adapt to the special requirements of the
site.
In this lagoon covering 50,000 km2, nature and
history have been so closely linked since the
5th century AD when Venetian populations, to
escape barbarian raids, found refuge on the
sandy islands of Torcello, Iesolo and Malamocco.
These temporary settlements gradually became
permanent and the initial refuge of the
land-dwelling peasants and fishermen became a
maritime power. The small island of Rialto was
chosen as the headquarters of the new city.
In AD 1000, Venice controlled the Dalmatian
coast and in 1112 a trading market was founded
in the Levantine port of Sidon. The year 1204
saw Venice allied with the Crusaders to capture
Constantinople. The abundant booty brought back
on that occasion, including the bronzes horses
of St Mark's, is only the more spectacular part
of the loot from Byzantium that the Doge Enrico
Dàndolo shared with his allies.
Under the Doge, a maritime empire of unequalled
power extended over the entire length of the
shores around the eastern Mediterranean, to the
islands of the Ionian Sea and to Crete. During
the entire period of the expansion of Venice,
over the centuries when it was obliged to defend
its trading markets against the commercial
undertakings of the Arabs, the Genoese and the
Ottoman Turks,as well as those of the European
monarchs who were envious of its power, Venice
never ceased, in the literal sense of the term,
to consolidate its position in the lagoon. The
marriage with the sea, that sposalizio that
since 1172 was symbolized by the ring of the
Doge, who had replaced the Dux (elected for the
first time in 697 by an assembly of the people),
was never called into question.
In this inland sea that has continuously been
under threat, rises amid a tiny archipelago at
the very edge of the waves one of the most
extraordinary built-up areas of the Middle Ages.
From Torcello to the north to Chioggia to the
south, almost every small island had its own
settlement, town, fishing village and artisan
village (Murano). However, at the heart of the
lagoon, Venice itself stood as one of the
greatest capitals in the medieval world. When a
group of tiny islands were consolidated and
merged into one, nothing remained of the
primitive topography but what became canals,
such as the Giudecca Canal, St Mark's Canal and
the Great Canal, and a network of small rii that
are the veritable arteries of a city on water.
In this unreal space, where there is no notion
of the concept of terra firma, masterpieces of
one of the most extraordinary architectural
museums on Earth have been accumulated for over
1,000 years
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