Venice (Venezia)

Traveling to Venice Italy?

Experience the wonders of this magnificent city at your own pace, on your schedule and according to your interests. Unlike other audio guides, Great Discoveries "Personal Tour Guides" take you into the buildings and point out the most significant works of art and other items of historical interest. As you view the carefully selected treasures our professional narrators, accompanied with historically appropriate background music, will delight you with enchanting stories that bring history to life. Learn about Venice's artwork, her stunning buildings, magnificent cathedrals, her cultural heritage, and miles of canals and picturesque bridges, with informative descriptions, photos, maps, building diagrams and suggested itineraries.

Venice, the “Queen of the Adriatic”, a city built on water, whose fortunes depended largely upon the sea, has long welcomed the world. This ethereal city of art, culture, romance and impossible architecture needs no introduction. She is the home of gondoliers, the world’s most photographed square, romantic palaces, the Rialto Bridge and magnificent cathedrals. History is everywhere in this ancient city. As one glides along a misty canal it is easy to slip back through the centuries, to the time of the Doges – the omnipotent rulers, whose influence spread well beyond the Venetian Lagoon. Once the mightiest trading city between Europe and the Orient, now just a touch shabby, she is one of the world's favorite travel destinations.

Venice will embrace you and enter your soul like no other city in the world. You will be enchanted by her people, her buildings and her history. As you walk the narrow streets of this city without wheels, or ride a gondola through her seemingly endless canals, you will be transported to a dreamlike place complete with fairytale castles and palaces. You will feel her precious history and the presence of Marco Polo and others who came before you in a way that is almost palpable. This special place will stay in your heart forever.

Venice has long been sinking into the sea and great amounts of money have been spent to ensure this beautiful city will not disappear beneath the water. Every year, normally during October, November and December, the city endures “acqua alta”, or "high water," which makes the streets of Venice feel more like the streets of Atlantis. During high tide the streets are flooded and visitors and Venetians alike are forced to walk on raised boardwalks to move about the city. The area around Piazza San Marco is very low and especially susceptible to flooding.

Venice consists of 116 islands connected together by 409 bridges which cross her numerous canals. She is protected from the Adriatic by Venice Lido a long narrow barrier island that lies between Venice Lagoon and the sea. Cars are forbidden and all of the necessities of daily life, including police, fire and ambulance protection, as well as garbage removal, go by boat.

The first inhabitants of the Venice Lagoon date back to the 5th and 6th centuries, when following the fall of the Roman Empire the area was invaded by northern barbarians. The local people fled mainland Venice seeking safety on the swampy coastal islands. The new arrivals, struggling to survive in this alien environment, began building their homes and other buildings on wooden rafts and gradually a city emerged. Between the 7th and 9th centuries Venice resisted all invasions and became a sovereign city state of immense power controlling the trade routs of the Adriatic.

Never a democracy or even a pure republic, Venice developed a unique form of government that was dedicated to the protection of trade and the continued enrichment of the city and its nobles. Its government was headed by a doge, who did not receive his authority from a Pope or a Holy Roman Emperor, making Venice and the doge unique among states and rulers of the time. Venice, through the will of the nobles, elected each doge for life and invested him with his power, a power that was by no means absolute.

In theory, the doge embodied the power of Venice, not his own, and he would rise above his personal ambitions and represent the authority and the magnificence of Venice. But, in a republic so dependent upon trade and profit, where every political decision affected both, a single doge could not be sufficiently trusted to represent all interests. So, true power resided with the Maggior Consiglio or Great Council. The Maggior Consiglio consisted of every noble male citizen over the age of twenty-five, at times numbering as high as 3,000 members.

One hundred and twenty doges reigned between 697 and 1797. Three ruled for less than a year and one for twenty-seven years. The average tenure was five to ten years. Elected for life by a complex balloting procedure within the Maggior Consiglio, the doge was always an older man who, the Consiglio reasoned, would not have time to establish a large following.

Venice was then an exotic melting pot of East and West, where traders and travelers came and went, peddling their silk and spices. Venice under the Doges was a land of unimaginable wealth. Riches were spent wisely in crafting some of Europe’s most memorable buildings, from the imposing Doges’ Palace itself to the grand architecture of St Mark’s Square.

The Republic and the reign of the Doges came to an end in 1797 at the hands of Napoleon, who famously described St. Mark’s Square as the "drawing room of Europe." On that occasion the last doge, Ludovico Manin, upon leaving the Doge Palace, handed his valet the ducal cap, and said: "Take it. I shall not be needing it again."

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