The Stones of Venice

For much of its history, Venice has been the source of a powerfully inspiring myth of ideal and stable government and artistic excellence, as well as a cautionary tale of how states and empires can decline and fall.

The origins of Venice date to the period after the fall of the Roman Empire, when Lombard invasions forced inhabitants of northeastern Italy to flee the mainland and settle on a series of islands on the Adriatic Sea. These isolated communities grew over time, and by the ninth century, the Venetians had formed a government headed by an elected doge (from the Latin dux, leader) assisted by a legislative assembly and an aristocracy. Over the next several centuries, the Republic of Venice rose in power and influence, especially through trade in the Mediterranean region and wealth obtained during the Crusades. These factors, as well as Venice’s original status as an outpost of the Byzantine Empire, led the city to become a cultural crossroads able to synthesize multiple influences in its art and architecture.

The 12th through the 14th centuries—corresponding, not coincidentally for Ruskin, to the Gothic period in architecture—are generally considered the golden age of Venetian power, influence, and cultural and political importance. The Venetian state was known as la Serenissima Repubblica (the Most Serene Republic) because its mixture of monarchical and republican elements was thought to represent a stable and peaceful form of government.

From the 14th century onward, Venice’s powerful status began to unwind. A series of overambitious doges involved the city in conflicts with other Italian city states, making Italy as a whole vulnerable to attacks by other European powers and the Turks. Columbus’s landing in America in 1492 opened up trade between Europe and the Western hemisphere, ending Venice’s monopoly on trade in the Mediterranean. The Venetian Republic finally came to an end in 1797, when Napoleon deposed the last doge in his attempt to conquer Europe in the wake of the French Revolution. The city fell under the control of Austria, a fact reflected in Ruskin’s noting the presence of Austrian soldiers in St. Mark’s Square in The Stones of Venice. Several years after the publication of Ruskin’s book, the city became part of the newly-unified Kingdom of Italy.

At its height, Venice is considered to have produced enduring examples of artistic and architectural beauty in the form of its great buildings and the color-filled paintings of the Venetian School: Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, etc. One of the most popular cities of Italy for tourists, Venice’s status as a “city built on the water” has endowed it with a magical mystique, continuing to draw visitors just as it attracted poets and artists like Ruskin during the Romantic 19th century.