The ancient glass-bead industry (conterie), has regained its position through the union of the different factories. Venetian beads are now sent in large quantities to the various colonies in Africa, and to India, Sumatra and Borneo. Similarly, the glass industry has revived. New amalgams and methods of colouring have been discovered, and fresh forms have been diligently studied. Special progress has been made in the production of mirrors, electric lamps, candelabra and mosaics. New industries are those of tapestry, brocades, imitation of ancient stuffs, cloth of silver and gold, and Venetian laces for the manufacture of which there is a government school, with 500 girl pupils. (See LACE.) Population and Administration.—In 1548 the population of Venice numbered 158,069; in 1607-29, 142,804; in 1706, 140, 256; in 1785, 139,095; in 1881, 132,826; in 1931 172,654. The city is extremely healthy, and the climate naturally mild.
Under the republic, and until modern times, the water supply of Venice was furnished by the storage of rain-water supple mented by water brought from the Brenta in boats. The famous Venetian pozzi, or wells for storing rain-water from the roofs and streets, consisted of a closed basin with a water-tight stratum of clay at the bottom, upon which a slab of stone was laid; a brick shaft of radiating bricks laid in a permeable jointing material of clay and sand was then built. On the ground-level perforated stones set at th3 four corners of the basin admitted the rain-water, which was discharged from the roofs by lead pipes; this water filtered through the sand and percolated into the shaft of the well, whence it was drawn in copper buckets. The present water supply comes from S. Ambrogio near Padova, 20 m. away.
Of the 19,000 houses in Venice only 6,000 have drains and sinks, all the others discharge sewage through pipes directly or indirectly into the canals. With the rise and fall of the tide the discharge pipes are flushed at the bottom. An important investi gation undertaken by the Bacterioscopical Laboratory, with regard to the pollution of the Venetian canals by the city sewage, led to the discovery that the water of the lagoons possesses auto purifying power, not only in the large canals but even in the smallest ramifications of the waterways.
The church is ruled by the patriarch of Venice, who is usually raised to the purple. The patriarchate dates from 1451, when on the death of Domenico Michiel, patriarch of Grado, its seat of that honour was transferred to the cathedral church of Castello in Venice, and Michiel's successor, Lorenzo Giustinian, assumed the title of patriarch of Venice. On the fall of the republic St. Mark's became the cathedral church of the patriarch. There are thirty i parishes in the city of Venice and fifteen in the lagoon islands and on the littoral.
It is usually affirmed that the State of Venice owes its origin to the barbarian invasions of north Italy ; that it was founded by refugees from the mainland cities who sought refuge from the Huns in the impregnable shallows and mud banks of the lagoons.
Venice, like Rome and other famous cities, was an asylum city.
But it is nearly certain that long before Attila and his Huns swept down upon the Venetian plain in the middle of the fifth century, the little islands of the lagoon already had a population of poor but hardy fisherfolk living in quasi-independence, thanks to their poverty and their inaccessible site. This population was augmented from time to time by refugees from the mainland cities of Aquileia, Concordia, Opitergium, Altinum and Patavium. But these did not mingle readily with the indigenous population; as each wave of barbarian invasion fell back, these refugees re turned to their mainland homes, and it required the pressure of many successive incursions to induce them finally to abandon the mainland for the lagoon, a decision which was not reached till the Lombard invasion of 568. On each occasion, no doubt, some of the refugees remained behind in the islands, and gradually built and peopled the 12 lagoon townships, which formed the germ of the State of Venice and were subsequently concentrated at Rialto or in the city we now know as Venice. These 12 townships were Grado, Bibione, Caorle, Jesolo, Heraclea, Torcello, Murano, Rialto, Ma lamocco, Poveglia, Chioggia and Sottomarina. The effect of the final Lombard invasionis shown by the resolve to quit the main land and the rapid building of churches which is recorded by the Cronaca altinate. The people who finally abandoned the main land and took their priests with them are the people who made the Venetian republic. But they were not as yet homogeneous.