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Venice, Italy
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World
renowned city of canals and bridges.
These facilitate internal transportation and have a
beauty and charm that draw countless visitors each year. Chief among these arteries is the
S-shaped Canale Grande the Grand Canal which starts at the railway station and
parking garage on Piazza Roma and ends at Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square). Altogether
there are more than 200 canals, which are literally the streets and avenues of Venice.
Crossing the waterways are about 400 bridges, the most famous of which is probably the
Rialto. Others include the Scalzi, the Accademia, and the infamous Bridge of Sighs, which
leads from the upper story of the Doges' Palace to the republic's prison. Centuries ago
prisoners went over it to their secret and often tortured deaths. The center is connected
to the mainland by viaducts, which carry a major highway and a double-track rail line.
Large cruise vessels and freighters move to the Stazione Marittima (marine station)
nearby. Within the Venetian islands, canals, and lagoons, commodities move by barges and
tugs, while passenger movement is primarily by vaporetti (motorboats). The world-famous
black gondolas, propelled by gondoliers, are narrow with high prows and sterns and are
used mainly for short canal passages. They are mainly the vehicles of merchants,
politicians, and tourists.
Once a city-state that as
a great maritime power served as a bridge between East and West, Venice is now one of the
great cultural centers of Europe. It attracts thousands of tourists each year. It serves
as the capital of the province of Venice (Venezia) and the Veneto region. The historic
center of Venice is built on a group of islets and mudbanks in the middle of Laguna
Veneta, a crescent-shaped lagoon separated from the Adriatic Sea by a barrier of narrow
islands and peninsulas. The modern city embraces the whole 90-mile (145-kilometer)
perimeter of the lagoon and includes ten principal islands in addition to those of the
mother city and two industrial boroughs of Mestre and Marghera on the mainland. The main
core includes the islands of La Giudecca; San Giorgio Maggiore, with its famous
16th-century church of the same name by the architect Andrea Palladio; and San Michele.
Other islands include the Lido, a resort built in the 19th century, with its casino,
hotels, and beaches; Murano, noted for its glassworks; Burano, famous for its lace; and
Torcello, site of the remains of the Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral. Venice is separated
from the sea by natural and artificial breakwaters, but flooding is common from November
through March of each year.
Venice came about after
the fall of the Roman Empire. Barbarian states Goths, Ostrogoths, and later
Lombards swept over Italy in the 5th and 6th centuries AD; people who had lived on
or near the northwest Adriatic coast found shelter on the scores of offshore islets in the
Venetian lagoons, which had previously been inhabited by small numbers of fishermen. The
political climate of that era was so unstable that the early inhabitants were ready to
move into the swamps and lagoons, building their houses on pilings on the partially
flooded islands. The main centers of settlement lay between the Piave River on the north
and the Adige River on the south. Over the centuries Venice grew into a great maritime
power because of the astuteness of its merchants and rulers as well as its location in
relation to the East. This city-state was never part of the old Teutonic empires. For
centuries its main political, military, and commercial ties were clearly with Byzantium
(Constantinople, now Istanbul).
Related software:
Around Venice -
The Venice Enquirer: Art, culture, gastronomy, games, folklore and more... CD-ROM.
Related videos:
Ancient Mysteries
- Miraculous Canals of Venice.
Beautiful Cities
of the World - Venice.
Magic of Venice.
Venice - Queen of
the Adriatic.
Related books:
A History of
Venice.
Antonio Vivaldi :
The Red Priest of Venice.
Art and Life in
Renaissance Venice.
Byzantium and
Venice.
City Culture and
the Madrigal at Venice.
Portrait of
Venice.
The Altarpiece in
Renaissance Venice.
The Art of
Renaissance Venice : Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, 1460-1590.
The Glory of
Venice.
The Grand Canal.
Venetian Palaces.
Venetian Villas.
Further info:
History of Venice.
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