styles of architecture. The fine art academia is located in the ancient convent of La Caritd, was formed in 1807 by Napoleon, and consists of several schools, and has the finest collection of pictures of the Venetian school, including works by Titian, Tintor etto, Bonifacio, Giovanni Bellini, Paolo Veronese, and many other masters. Specimens of the works of these artists arc also to be found in many of the palaces and churches of the city. There are several theaters, the chief of which is la Fenice. Fresh water, formerly, and even still to some extent, obtained at great expense, and of bad quality, from the mainland, or kept in cisterns, is now obtained by means of a number of artesian wells, sunk in 1847, at the expense of the municipality. The library of St. Mark's eon talus 120,000 vols% and 10,000 MSS. Many writers have led to misconception by omit ting to note the fact, that the Venice of to-clay is by no means the same city as the Venice of earlier and more famous days. On this subject, it will be of interest to quote the fol lowing from Ruskin's Stones of Venice (vol. ii., pp. 4, 5): " The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream, which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust. No prisoner whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrows deserved sympathy, ever crossed that of Sighs,' which is the center of the Byronic ideal of Venice; no great merchant of enice ever saw that Rialto, under which the traveler now passes with breathless interest." Among the chief manufactories of Venice are the glass-works, in which magnificent mirrors, artificial pearls, gems, colored beads, etc., are made, and which employ 4,500 people. Jewelry, especially chains of the precious metals, gold and silver stuffs, silks, laces, velvets, soap, earthenware, wax-candles, etc., are also manufactured ; and sugar and ship-building are carried on. The trade of Venice greatly declined for several years previous to 1866. This decline, however, being due to the uncertainty and actory political state of the Venetian provinces, there have been signs of revival since the incorporation of Venice with Italy. In 1874, the value of the total imports amounted to £10,019,265; that of the exports to £7,992,397. The goods imported con sist chiefly of cotton, coals, coffee, colonial produce, woolen and linen yarns, and manu factured goods; and the exports of grain, fruits, fish, wine, etc. In the same year 3,473 vessels (including coasters), of 578,741 tons, entered the port. In 1877, 200 British steam ers and 11 British sailing vessels entered the port. Pop. '72, 128,901.
to the Roman conquest, we know almost nothing of time history of Venetia; but, at the time when that event took place, we know that this region was inhabited by two nations, the Veneti and the Carni. The Veneti, from whom the dis trict derived its name, occupied the tract between the Plavis (Piave) on the n., and the Athesis (Adige) on the south. The origin and affinities of this people are unknown, and almost the first thing ascertained concerning them is that, in the very earliest times of which we have any record, we find them a commercial rather than a warlike community, carrying on a trade in amber, which they brought from the shores of the Baltic, and sold to the mercLants of Phenecia and Greece. Under the Roman empire, the province became opulent and flourishing; and besides its capital, Aquileia, which rose to be one of the most prosperous cities in Italy, it contained also the powerful and wealthy pro vincial cities, Patavium (Padua) and Verona, and numerous important towns. But before the close of the empire, the early prosperity of this province was swept away by the Huns under Attila, who, in 452, raised Aquileta to the ground, and devastated the cities of Concordia, Altinum, Patavinm, Vicentia, Verona, and other cities of the prov ince. ,Many of the inhabitants of these cities, driven from their ruined homes, sought shelter in the marshy lagoons, in a position too miserable to provoke the ambition of the conquerors, and defended from invasion from the main-land by the wide tract of muddy shallows which intervened between it and the actual shore, and secured against attack by sea by the shallowness of the water and the intricacy of the sea-passages. Of the cluster of islands upon which ancient Venice stood, the principal were Grado Bibione, Cnorlo. Heraclia, Equilo, Torcello, Murano, Rialto, Malamocco, Pelestrina, Brondolo, San Nieolo, Chioggia (Piccola and Grande), Amiano, Constanziaco, Olivolo, and Spina lunga. To Rialto and to Malamocco, the refugees from Padua resorted. The name of the province they had left was afterward transferred to time cluster of the islands of the lagoon—the new settlement being commonly known, at least as early as the 8th c., as Venezia, or as we have it, Venice. Protected by the peculiar position of the islands in which they had found refuge, the early settlers devoted themselves to the pursuits for winch their situation offered the greatest facilities—fishing and the manufacture of salt. Houses began to cluster thickly on the Rialto; and when, in 568, Padua was sacked by the Lombards. many of its inhabitants emigrated to that infant colony which their ances tors had helped to found. The first form of government of the island-commonwealth was republican, administered by a consular triumviate; but in 457 the consuls were superceded by tribunes who, elected annually, and varying in number at different times from 1 to 12, administered the .government for 240 years. during this period, although the young republic progressed in wealth and population, it did little to increase its political importance. Society was divided into factions by the ambition of the rival tribunes, and variety of interests rendered united action in warfare impossible. With the purpose of remedying the many evils of the government, Christofero, patriarch of Orado, in 697, laid before the arengo—the periodical convention of the whole adutt male population—a scheme in which he proposed that the tribunes should abdicate sovereign power, and that a magistrate, with the title of duke or doge, in whom should be vested undivided authority in civic, ecclesiastical, and military matters, should be placed over them. The proposition was received with much favor, and the election to the office fell upon Paolo Luca Anafesto, who was invested by the metropolitan with his insignia of office, a crown of gold, and a scepter of ivory, March, 697. Anafesto remained at the head of affairs till his death in 717, and under his rule the position of the republic greatly improved. Civil discords were in great measure stilled, and the Venetian territory was increased by the acquisition of a strip of the main-land, obtained by treaty from the king of the Lombards. tinder Orso, the third doge (720-737); the Venetians entered upon that career of enterprise in which their prudence and their valor were always equally and which they continued to pursue to the last. In 735 the Lombards seized Ravenna,compelling the exareh (q.v.) to seek shelter in the lagoon, and implore the republic to lend her aid in reacquiring the lost territory. Still considering themselves as nominally subject to the eastern emperor, besides being anxious, in the interests of their commerce, of securing the alliance of Constantinople, and of obtainingthe freedom of the seas of the eastern empire, the Venetians supplied the required assistance, and re instated the exarch in his vice-royalty. The services of the doge on this occasion were rewarded by the Byzantine court with the honorary title of hypatos, or imperial con sul. The common punishment among the Venetians for tyranny was putting out the eyes, and the reigns of several of the doges at this time are but periods of tyranny and excess on the part of the ruler, terminated by exoculation or assassination by the people. By a treaty concluded in 803 between Charlemagne and the emperor of the east, it was stipulated that the maritime towns of Istria and Dalmatia should be considered an integral portion of the eastern empire. This stipulation was adhered to till the year 808, when the aggressive policy of Charlemagne and of his son Pepin, now king of Italy, prompted Nicephorus, the emperor of the east, to dispatch a squadron to the Adriatic, and to seek the alliance of the Venetians; and as the latter perceived that they had much more to gain from the friendship of the court of Constantinople—the key to the rich waters of the east—than front that of Charlemagne, the alliance was soon cemented. War immediately
broke out, and Venice was invaded by king Pepin, who took a number of the islands without meeting any resistance—the inhabitants having all been transferred to the cen tral island, Rialto. The French advanced to the island of Albiola, when, to their dis may, they found that the tide had been ebbing, and that their vessels were stranded in these shallows. The whole French squadron now fell an easy prey to the swift-mov ing galleys of the Venetians, and such of the enemy as escaped being drowned were massacred by the relentless islanders (809). This struggle, called the battle' of Albiola, was conducted on the part of the republic by Angelo Badocr, tribune of the island of Rialto, who was raised to the rank of doge, and transferred the scat of government to Rialto—the island of Heraclia and others having previously enjoyed that honor. In his reign, also, connection was established between Rialto and all the circumjacent islands, by means of wooden bridges, and the cluster thus united now formally took the name Venezia (Venice), although it commonly received that name early in the previous cen tury. The year 829 is memorable as that in which, according to tradition, the body of St. Mark was transferred to Venice from Alexandria. "That the Venetians pos sessed themselves of his body in the 9th c., there appears," says Ruskin, " no sufficient reason to doubt:" and however we may regard this story, it cannot be denied that the belief in it by the Venetians and others attracted crowds of pious pilgrims to Rialto, and thus increased the traffic and prestige of the port; while the Venetians adopted St. Mark as their patron saint; and their war cry, " Viva San Marco!" inspired their courage in many a fight, both on sea and land. For many years after this date the history of Venice is marked by no event of special note; but the naval importance, the commerce and wealth, and refinement of the republic, increased year by year.. Dodge Orseolo IL (991-1008) greatly extended the trade of the republic by establishing commercial relations between it and the empires both of the east and west, the Crimea, Syria, Egypt, Tartary, Tunis, etc.; and under his rule, the territory of Venice, which, until lately, comprised only the islands of the lagoon, and a narrow slip of territory on the mainland, was increased by further acquisitions on the mainland, and by the addition of the sea-boards of Dalmatia and Istria, which he annexed in 998. In 1085 the provinces of Dalmatia and Croatia were formally ceded to Venice by the emperor of the east; and at the same time the emperor exempted the Venetian traders in all parts of the empire, excepting in Cyprus, Candia, and Megalopolis, from all duties and imposts whatever. In 1099 Venice sent forth a fleet of 207 vessels of all sail to the succor of Godfrey de Bouillon and his companions of the first crusade. The defeat of a hostile Pisan fleet employed by the eastern emperor, Alexius Comnenus, and the cap ture of 20 of the vessels, and the obtaining of the body of St. Nicholas at the island of Myra, were the chief incidents of this expedition, which partook more of the nature of a predatory cruise than of a pilgrimage and crusade. But it is noticeable that in all the rases in which Venice joined the crusaders, the chief motive seems rather to have been to monopolise the maritime department of all these movements, and to extend her com mercial relations, than to secure the holy sepulcher in Christian possession. The great fires of 1106, which, besides destroying the island city of Malamoceo, reduced 30 churches and vast numbers of private dwellings in Venice to ashes, were indirectly the cause of great improvements in the architecture of the city; for previously to this event, the dwellings of the Venetians were almost all built of wood; but after it, the material used was always either stone or marble obtained from Italy, Istria, or Dalmatia, in all ' of which it is found in abundance. In 1111 the doge Faliero sent forth 100 galleys to aid 13 ild'N‘in I., the successor of Godfrey de Bouillon, in the conquest of such Syrian ports as remained in the hands of the 3lussulmans; and for the assistance thus rendered, the enetions obtained the right to hold in possession a church, street, mill, bath, etc., and to be represented by' a local magistrate in each of the oriental possessions of co•i.:tendom—rights of the very greatest importance to a trading community. .In 1123 a fleet sent to succor the Christians in Palestine, and led by the doge Michich, distin guished itself by gaining a magnificent victory over an Egyptian fleet, and by the cap ture of ten Turkish galleons richly freighted. In the same year, the Venetians and their allies, the Christians in Palestine, reduced the almost impregnable city of Tyre, after a siege of four and a half months. In 1122 a decree was passed by Johannes Cumnenus, the eastern emperor, commanding the Venetian residents at Constantinople and the other Greek ports to quit the imperial dominions, and declaring the suspetision of all intercourse between the two powers. The islanders thus saw the most profitable branch of their commerce threatened with extinction; and resolved to make reprisals, they launched a fleet in 1123, and in that and the following year they inflicted a terrible . punishment on the empire, capturing Rhodes, and investing and sacking .Andros, Samos, etc., all the Ionian islands, a portion of the Pcloponuesus, etc. Further, this brilliant expedition was not brought to a close until all the Dalmatian fiefs, stirred to insurrec tion by Stephen, king of Hungary, were again reduced to submission. The Venetians were prominent members of the league of Lombardy against the German emperor; and in 1177 won a splendid victory over the Ghibellines, headed by Otho, sou of Frederick Barbarossa, in defense of pope Alexander III., who had appealed for protection to the republic. Otho's squadron numbered 75 sail, chiefly drawn from the ports of Genoa and Ancona; the Venetian force consisted of 34 large galleys; and the victory they gained influenced the pope to show his gratitude by presenting the doge Ziani with a ring, with which lie commanded him to wed the Adriatic, that posterity might know that the sea was subject to Venice "as a bride is to her husband ;" and it is recorded that in this year the pompous ceremony of the "marriage" was celebrated for the first time. The result of the naval battle of Saboro was that'Frederick agreed to a congress, which took place at Venice in 1177. On the occasion of this congress, when the pope, the doge, and other dignitaries were assembled in the palace of St. Mark's, Frederick approaching the throne on which Alexander III was sitting, and prostrating himself, allowed the pope to plant his foot upon his neck. The congress of Venice restored peace between the empire and Lombardy and Sicily. The doge Ziani died in 1178. He did much to improve the architecture of the city, especially of the square of St. Mark. Of the three lofty red granite pillars which he is believed to •have brought from the island of Scio, two adorn the portico of St. Mark's—the third fell overboard and was lost in the attempt to land it. In Oct., 1202 the expedition known as the fourth crusade set out from Venice, in Venetian vessels, under the command of the venerable doge, Arrigo Dandolo; it did not, however, reach Palestine, but directed its force against the Byzan tine empire, which fell into the hands of the so-called crusaders, April 1204. See DANDOLO. On the division of the conquests of this expedition, Venice received the 3lorea, the Illyric isles, a large portion of Thessaly, the Sporades, the Cyclades, the cities of Adrianople, Trajanople, Dedymotichos, and Durazzo, the province of Servia, and the coasts of the Hellespont. A fourth part of Constantinople was set apart as a quarter where the Venetians might reside, under the protection of their own laws; and all restrictions as to trade were abolished. Venice was now itr possession of the fairest portions of the lower empire, and she had long been undisputed mistress of the seas.