... near the lagoon, is the 15th-century church of San Giovanni in Bragora, a domed and columned edifice in Italian Gothic style and formerly the funeral church of the doges. In its vicinity is the greatest monument in Venice, the 15th-century equestrian statue of the Venetian general Bartolomeo Colleoni, the ork of the Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio. Nearby is the site of the Arsenal, a former centre of shipbuilding, and public gardens. Islands extend to the east in the direction of the Lido, an island reef outside the lagoon that is famous as a bathing beach and holiday resort. Great museums, such as the Ca dOro located in a Gothic palace on the Grand Canal, and historic churches are found throughout the city. The Libreria Vecchia Old Library contains about 13,000 manuscripts and more than 800,000 books, some of immense value. The University of Venice as founded in 1868.History The area around Venice as inhabited in ancient times by the Veneti. According to tradition, the city as founded in AD 452, hen the inhabitants of Aquileia, Padua, and other northern Italian cities took refuge on the islands of the lagoon from the Teutonic tribes that invaded Italy during the 5th century. They established their on government, hich as headed by tribunes for each of the 12 principal islands. Although nominally part of the Eastern Roman Empire, Venice as virtually autonomous. In 697 the Venetians organized Venice as a republic under an elected doge. Internal dissent disturbed the course of government during the folloing century, but the threat of foreign invasion united the Venetians. Attacks by Saracens in 836 and by the Hungarians in 900 ere successfully repulsed. In 991 Venice signed a commercial treaty ith the Saracens, initiating the Venetian policy of trading ith the Muslims rather than fighting them. The Crusades and the resulting development of trade ith Asia led to the establishment of Venice as the greatest commercial centre for trade ith the East. The republic profited greatly from the partition of the Byzantine Empire in 1204 and became politically the strongest European poer in the Mediterranean. The groth of a ealthy aristocracy gave rise to an attempt by the nobles to acquire political dominance, and, although nominally a republic, Venice became a rigid oligarchy by the end of the 13th century. In the 13th and 14th centuries Venice as involved in a series of ars ith Genoa, its chief commercial rival. In the ar of 1378-1381, Genoa as compelled to acknoledge Venetian supremacy. ars of conquest enabled Venice to acquire neighbouring territories, and by the late 15th century the city-state as the leading maritime poer in the Christian orld.The beginning of Turkish invasions in the middle of the 15th century marked the decline of Venetian supremacy. Thereafter, faced ith attacks by foreign invaders and other Italian states, its poer aned, and the discovery of a sea route to the Indies around the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama in 1497-1498 accelerated the decline. In 1508 the Holy Roman Empire, the Pope, France, and Spain combined against Venice in the League of Cambrai and divided the Venetian possessions among themselves, and although Venice reacquired its Italian dominions through astute diplomacy in 1516, it never regained its political poer.In 1797 the Venetian Republic as conquered and ended by Napoleon Bonaparte, ho turned the territory over to Austria. In 1805 Austria as compelled to yield Venice to the French-controlled kingdom of Italy but regained it in 1814. A year later Venice and Lombardy ere combined to form the Lombardo-Venetia Kingdom. The Venetians, under the Italian statesman Daniele Manin, revolted against Austrian rule in 1848, and a ne republic as established. Austria, hoever, re-established control a year later. In 1866, after the Seven eeks ar, Venice became part of the nely established kingdom of Italy.Population 19 ... Download