Venice

No records describe the founding of Venice, but tradition dates it to the dedication of the church of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto in 421, and late Roman sources mention fishermen living in the marshy lagoon. Refugees from the Lombard invasion of 568 swelled the settlements, which remained a Byzantine outpost. The lagoon's people elected their own leader, the doge, in the 8th century; the ducal seat moved from Malamocco to the safer Rialto under Agnello Particiaco, and in 828 relics said to be those of St Mark arrived from Alexandria, giving the city its patron and its winged lion.

From the 9th to the 12th centuries Venice grew into a maritime republic that controlled trade between Western Europe and the East. The Fourth Crusade, which sacked Constantinople in 1204, brought it Byzantine plunder — the bronze horses of St Mark's among it — and an empire that included Crete. By the late 13th century it was the most prosperous city in Europe, with some 3,300 ships, and by 1482 it was the printing capital of the world.

Decline began in the 15th century with the Ottoman wars and the opening of the sea route to India. Plague killed some 50,000 people in 1575–77 and a third of the population in 1630. Napoleon ended the republic on 12 May 1797; Austrian rule followed, interrupted by Daniele Manin's short-lived republic of 1848–49, and in 1866 Venice joined Italy. The city and its lagoon became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, and the great flood of November 2019, the highest since 1966, was followed in October 2020 by the first raising of the MOSE flood barriers.

Few cities have shaped European art and music as much. The Bellini and Vivarini families, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese made Venice a centre of Renaissance painting, and Canaletto and Guardi painted its views for Grand Tour travellers. Venice is the birthplace of the Baroque composers Vivaldi and Albinoni, and La Fenice saw many famous opera premieres. Carlo Goldoni wrote comedies in Venetian dialect, and Shakespeare, Thomas Mann and Henry James set stories here.

The calendar is crowded. The Carnival, abolished in 1797 and revived in 1979, fills the city with masks in the weeks before Lent. The Biennale, held since 1895, alternates art and architecture exhibitions, and the Venice Film Festival on the Lido is the oldest in the world. Venetians' own festivals are older: the Festa del Redentore in July, with fireworks over St Mark's basin, gives thanks for the end of the plague of 1576, and rowing races culminate in the Regata Storica on the Grand Canal each September.

Local identity is tied to the water and to the sestieri, each with its own house numbering. The six prongs on a gondola's prow represent the six districts. There are about 400 licensed gondoliers, down from 10,000 boats two centuries ago, and gondolas now carry mostly visitors and ceremonies.

The municipality had about 249,000 inhabitants in 2026, but nearly 50,000 of them live in the historic island city; most live on the mainland in Mestre and Marghera, and others on the Lido, Murano and the other lagoon islands. The historic centre's population keeps falling as rising rents push residents out, and many fear it is turning into a museum.

The economy rests on tourism, shipbuilding, services, trade and industrial exports, with Murano glass and Burano lace still important. Estimates of annual visitors run from 22 to 30 million, with up to 60,000 a day at peak. The city has responded with limits: since August 2021 large cruise ships of over 25,000 tonnes have been barred from the Giudecca Canal, a €5 access fee for day-trippers began in April 2024 and has been extended to more days since, and new take-away food outlets have been banned. Ca' Foscari University and the Iuav architecture university bring thousands of students.

Daily routines revolve around the water: commuting by vaporetto, shopping at the Rialto market, and watching the tide forecasts. Between autumn and spring acqua alta can flood the lowest streets, and in many old houses the former ground floors are no longer habitable.

Venetian cooking is built on seafood, vegetables from the island of Sant'Erasmo, rice from the mainland, game and polenta, and some dishes use exotic spices and sauces. Classic dishes include sarde in saór, fried sardines marinated with onions and vinegar; bacalà mantecato, made from stockfish and extra-virgin olive oil; risi e bisi, rice with peas and pancetta; and fegato alla veneziana, veal liver in the Venetian style. Tiramisù, thought to have been invented in nearby Treviso, is popular across the Veneto.

The everyday way to eat is in a bacaro, a simple wine bar, often standing room only, where cicchetti — small snacks such as these — are laid out on the counter and washed down with an ombra, a small glass of wine; the word means 'shadow'. Around the Rialto the cicchetti tend to be simple and traditional.

The spritz, made with prosecco, sparkling water and a bitter liqueur such as Aperol, Campari or Select, is the local aperitif, and Harry's Bar near St Mark's is known as the home of the Bellini. The Rialto market, with its fish hall, remains the place to see what the lagoon and the mainland produce, and Caffè Florian on St Mark's Square has served coffee since 1720.