Short Break Venice Italy Sources of short break venice italy resources from the Web

Some recent studies have suggested that the city is no longer sinking, but this is not yet certain; therefore, a state of alert has not been revoked. In May 2003, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, inaugurated the "Moses" project, which will lay a series of 79 inflatable pontoons across the sea bed at the three entrances to the lagoon. When tides are predicted to rise above 110 centimetres, the pontoons will be filled with air and block the incoming water from the Adriatic sea. This challenging engineering work is due to be completed by 2011.

Venice became part of the Austrian-held Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia when Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio on October 12 1797. The Austrians took control of the city on January 18, 1798. It was taken from Austria by the Treaty of Pressburg in 1805 and became part of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy, but was returned to Austria following Napoleon's defeat in 1814. In 1866, along with the rest of Venetia, Venice became part of Italy. After 1797, the city fell into a serious decline, with many of the old palaces and other buildings abandoned and falling into disrepair, although the Lido became a popular beach resort in the late 19th century.

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

After a popular revolutions on 22 March 1848 (The Five Days of Milan), the Austrians fleed from Milan, which become the capital city of the Governo Provvisorio della Lombardia (Lombardy Temporary Government). The next day, also Venice arose against the Austrians, forming the Governo Provvisorio di Venezia (Venice Temporary Government). The Austrians, after defeating the Sardininan troops in Custoza (24-25 July 1848), entered in Milan (6 August) and Venice (24 August 1849), restoring Austrian rule.

In Venice the gondola is usually propelled by one or two oarsmen (known as gondoliers) who stand facing the prow, or by poling. A gondola for passengers has a small open cabin, for their protection against the sun or rain. A sumptuary law of Venice required that gondolas should be painted black, and they are customarily so painted now.

The sestieri are the primary traditional divisions of Venice. The city is divided into the six districts of Cannaregio, San Polo, Dorsoduro (including the Giudecca), Santa Croce, San Marco and Castello (including San Pietro di Castello and Santa Elena).

The chief executive was the Doge (duke), who, theoretically, held his elective office for life. In practice, a number of Doges were forced by pressure from their oligarchical peers to resign the office and retire into monastic seclusion when they were felt to have been discredited by perceived political failure.

The Crusaders and Venetians, incensed at the murder of their supposed patron, attacked the city once more in 1204. Alexius V, who had a much larger army, although it was much more poorly trained, marched his troops outside Constantinople and seemed to prepare for an all-out assault on the crusader force. As the crusaders panicked and armed everyone they could find, including cooks who wore their pots as helmets, Alexius V turned around and marched his army back into the city. It is possible that his foot soldiers were afraid of the western knights, who had defeated them earlier in the year in skirmishes outside the city, but the actual reason for Alexius' refusal to fight is unknown. Although Innocent III had again warned them not to attack, the papal letter was suppressed by the clergy, and the crusaders prepared for their own attack, while the Venetians attacked from the sea; Alexius' army stayed in the city to fight, along with the imperial bodyguard, the Varangians, but Alexius himself fled during the night.

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.

During the 16th century, Venice became one of the most important musical centers of Europe, with the development of the Venetian polychoral style under composers such as Adrian Willaert, who worked at San Marco. Venice was the early center of music printing; Ottaviano Petrucci began publishing music almost as soon as this technology was available, and his publishing enterprise helped to attract composers from all over Europe, especially from France and Flanders. By the end of the century, Venice was famous for the splendor of its music, as exemplified in the "colossal style" of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, which used multiple choruses and instrumental groups.

In the early years of the republic, the political system can be classified as an autocracy, with the Doge as the almost absolute ruler. In 1223, the aristocratic families of Rialto drastically diminished the powers of the Doge by the establishment of an advisory body that would later be called the Quarantia and a supreme tribunal which would later be called the Signoria. They also created two bodies called sapientes which later grew into six bodies. The combination of sapientes and certain other groups was called a collegio, a kind of ministry to carry out the functions of government. A senate, called the Consiglio dei Pregadi was organized in 1229 with sixty members elected by the Major Council1. During this period the Doge had little real power left, and actual authority was exercised by the Great Council, an extremely limited parliament-like body in which only members of the great aristocratic families of the republic were allowed to participate. Venice claimed that its government was a 'classical republic' because it was a fusion of the three basic forms present in a mixed government: with the regal power in the Doge, the aristocratic in the senate, and the democratic in the Great Council2.

After a doge's death, a commission of inquisori passed judgment upon his acts, and his estate was liable to be fined for any discovered malfeasance. The official income of the doge was never large, and from early times holders of the office remained engaged in trading ventures. These ventures kept them in touch with the requirements of the grandi.

The command structure in the army was different from that in the fleet. By ancient law, no nobleman could command more than twenty-five men (to prevent against sedition by private armies), and while the position of Captain General was introduced in the mid-14th century, he still had to answer to a civilian panel of twenty "wise men". Not only was efficiency not degraded, this policy saved Venice from the military takeovers that other Italian city states so often experienced. A civilian commissioner (not unlike a commissar) accompanied each army to keep an eye on things, especially the mercenaries. The Venetian military tradition also was notably cautious; they were more interested in achieving success with a minimum expense of lives and money than in the pursuit of glory.

Though the people of Venice generally remained orthodox Roman Catholics, the state of Venice was notable for its freedom from religious fanaticism and it enacted not a single execution for religious heresy during the Counter-Reformation. This apparent lack of zeal contributed to its frequently coming into conflict with the Papacy. Venice was threatened with the interdict on a number of occasions and twice suffered its imposition. The second, more famous, occasion was on April 27, 1509, by order of Pope Julius II

The Congress of Vienna combined the territories of Lombardy (ruled by Austria in 1713-96) and Venetia (under Austrian rule since 1797) under the Austrian Habsburg dynasty. The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was was held by Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled from 1815 to 1835. Ferdinand I of Austria ruled from 1835 to 1848.