Top Venice Resources

The Venetian people will tell you that there is so much more to see and do in Venice than just gondolas!

Whether its a holiday, on business, or for a weekend break Venice is increasing in popularity amongst us Brits - and rightly so!

Thats why its important to get your travel plans sorted out properly, and in our opinion, flight, holiday and hotel specialists Opodo offer the best service online - but you can find that out for yourself here...

Its banks are lined with some of the most beautiful buildings of the city, amongst the many palazzos and churches are the Ca' Rezzonico, Ca d'Oro, Ca' Foscari, Palazzo Barbarigo and the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, housing the Peggy Guggenheim Collection

For some thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Republic of Venice was the Doge (Duke). Doges of Venice were elected by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the most politically shrewd older man in the city. While doges had great temporal power at first, after 1268, the doge was under strict surveillance: he must wait for other officials to be present before opening dispatches from foreign powers; he was forbidden to leave the city and was not allowed to possess any property in a foreign land. He was by law confined for the rest of his life to the Doge's Palace complex and the connected Basilica di San Marco.

In the 12th century the essentials for the power of Venice were laid: the Arsenal was under construction in 1104; Venice wrested control of the Brenner pass from Veronia in 1178, opening a lifeline to silver from Germany; the last autocratic doge, Vitale Michiele, died in 1172.

The idea of rebuilding the bridge in stone was first proposed in 1503. Several projects were considered over the following decades. In 1551 the authorities requested proposals for the renewal of the Rialto Bridge, among other things. Plans were offered by famous architects such as Sansovino, Palladio and Vignola, but all involved a Classical approach with several arches, which was judged inappropriate to the situation.

The city of Venice, previously a dependency of the Byzantine Empire, had established its independence of any eastern or western emperor as early as the ninth century. In the High Middle Ages, Venice became extremely wealthy through its control of trade to the Levant, and began to expand into the Adriatic Sea and beyond. The Venetian fleet was crucial to the sack of Constantinople by crusaders in the Fourth Crusade in 1204. As a result of the partition of the Byzantine Empire which followed, Venice gained a great deal of territory in the Aegean Sea, including the islands of Crete and Euboea. Later, in 1489, the island of Cyprus, previously a crusader state, was annexed to Venice.