Venice: 1,100 Years of a Republic Without a King or Mainland

You arrived in Venice by land, and that is already strange. For centuries, this city could only be reached by water. The station is called Santa Lucia. Until 1846, Venice had no connection to the mainland. That year the Austrians opened a railway bridge more than three kilometers long across the lagoon. Before that, the city had been born fleeing the land. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, people from the mainland took refuge on muddy islands in the lagoon. There, invaders could not reach them on horseback. In time, those refugees formed a republic. According to tradition, they chose…

Cross the bridge and enter a neighborhood that gave its name to a whole word. The first ghetto in the world was born here. It was 1516. The republic decreed that all the Jews of the city must live on this small island. Before, a copper foundry operated here. In Venetian, "geto" means foundry. That is where the word comes from. The rules were harsh. The gates were locked at night, and the Jews paid the guards who locked them in. By day they could go out, but with a yellow mark on their clothes or hat. And yet the community prospered. There were bankers, doctors, printers, merchants. With no …

Look at this façade. It looks like lace made of stone. It is the Ca' d'Oro, the House of Gold. It was built between 1428 and 1430 for a merchant family, the Contarini. Originally, the façade was decorated with gold and blue, which shimmered on the water. Today those colors are lost, but the name remained. Notice the pointed arches and the openwork forms. It is Venetian Gothic style. But it has echoes of the East: Byzantium, Syria, the Islamic world. Venice traded with everyone, and brought back ideas along with fabrics and spices. Look at how a Venetian house works. The main door faces the …

You are in the heart of money. For centuries, the Rialto was the commercial center of Europe. Look at the bridge. It is stone, with one enormous arch. It was finished in 1591. Before that there were wooden bridges. One fell in 1444, when the crowd piled up to watch a wedding procession. Its architect, Antonio da Ponte, won a competition. Among the candidates was Palladio, one of the great architects of the Renaissance. Da Ponte's bet was a single arch, so large ships could pass. And it rests on twelve thousand wooden piles driven into the bed. Here the world's money changed hands. Merchant…

Board the vaporetto and sit by the window. You are on the main street of Venice, and it is made of water. It is called the Grand Canal. It is almost four kilometers long and forms a great S. More than one hundred seventy palaces line both sides. Almost all were built between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. Notice the façades. They were designed to be seen from the water. The owners were merchants and nobles, and they competed to show who was richer. Each palace was home, office and warehouse. Ships unloaded right at the door. The palaces rest on wooden trunks driven into the mud. …

You got off at the Accademia. You are no longer in the Venice of money, but in the Venice of painters. This neighborhood is called Dorsoduro, which means "hard back." It is an area of firmer ground, and so it was among the first to be settled. Here is the Accademia Gallery, one of the largest collections of Venetian painting. Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Giorgione. The Venetians painted with color as a weapon: light, gold, red, blue. And there is a great anecdote. Veronese painted a huge Supper and filled it with jesters, dogs and drunkards. In 1573, the Inquisition summoned him for explana…

This is the only square in Venice that is called a square. All the others are called "fields." Venetians simply call it "the Piazza." They say Napoleon called it the finest drawing room in Europe. Look at it: three sides of arcades, and at the far end, the basilica. It is the lowest point in Venice. That is why it floods first. When the tide rises, the square becomes a mirror. Notice the clock on the tower on the north side. It dates from 1499. Two bronze figures, called the Moors, strike the bell every hour. In the Florian café, opened in 1720, people were drinking coffee when Venice was …

Look up at the golden angel. Almost a hundred meters of tower: the highest point in Venice. But what you see is not the original tower. The real one fell on July 14, 1902. One morning, all at once, it collapsed on itself. There were no deaths. Only the caretaker's cat died. The Venetians decided: com'era, dov'era. As it was, where it was. They rebuilt it exactly the same, brick by brick, and inaugurated it in 1912. In 1609, from up here, Galileo Galilei showed his telescope to the republic's senators. He let them see distant ships before they reached the port. Very useful for a nation of me…

Look up. Five domes, marble columns, golden mosaics. This does not look like a European church. It looks like the East. And that makes sense. Venice had grown up looking toward Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This basilica copied that style. But the strangest story begins in the year 828. Two Venetian merchants traveled to Alexandria and stole the body of Saint Mark, the evangelist. To get past the controls, they hid it under pork and vegetables. The Muslim inspectors did not want to touch it. From then on, Saint Mark was the patron of Venice. And his symbol, the winged…

This palace was the doge's home and the center of government. But note: Venice never had a king. The doge was elected for life, through a system so complicated it mixed lotteries and votes in several rounds. They did it this way so that no family could seize power. And even once elected, the doge had to swear to respect the laws. He was the most visible figure of the state. But not the most powerful. Real power lay with the councils. The Great Council gathered the nobles of the families inscribed in the Golden Book. The Council of Ten watched over the security of the state, with spies, denu…

Look up. This small closed bridge, made of white stone, joins the Doge's Palace to the new prison. It was built around 1600. It is called the Bridge of Sighs. But that name came later. It was popularized by the English poet Lord Byron, in the nineteenth century. He imagined that prisoners sighed as they saw the lagoon for the last time. In reality, it was not so dramatic. Those who crossed were usually accused of minor crimes. The most feared prisoners were held in the palace itself, under the lead roof. Giacomo Casanova was held there in 1755. And in 1756 he made one of the most famous esc…

You crossed the water to this island. And now look back. This is the view visitors had on arrival. Saint Mark's, the Doge's Palace and the campanile, all lined up facing the sea. That image was propaganda. The republic designed its city to impress those who arrived by boat. Showing wealth was a form of power. Here, at San Giorgio Maggiore, stands one of the most elegant churches in Venice. It was designed by Andrea Palladio, the great Renaissance architect. He began it in 1566. He died in 1580 without seeing it finished. Look at the white façade. It looks like a Greek temple attached to a c…

This island is a cemetery. It is called San Michele, and it is a few minutes by boat from the center. Until the early nineteenth century, Venetians buried their dead in churches. Napoleon banned that custom for reasons of hygiene. Since 1807, the cemetery has been here, in the middle of the lagoon. The eternal problem was space. Venice is a small city, and there is no room for so many dead. So, generally, after some time the remains are moved to an ossuary and the grave is reused. World-famous artists rest here. The composer Igor Stravinsky. The impresario Sergei Diaghilev. The poet Ezra Po…

You have closed the circle. You are again beside the station, on the newest bridge over the Grand Canal. It is the Constitution Bridge. It was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and opened in 2008. Steel, glass and a light curve over the water. Few works in Venice caused so much controversy. Many said it did not fit a city a thousand years old. Others said Venice never stopped building and changing. Both are right. Because today Venice faces another challenge. In 1951, about one hundred seventy thousand people lived in the historic center. Today about fifty thousand remain…