Venice

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VENICE

the end of the venetian republic
austrian and napoleonic rule
cultural responses in the early nineteenth century
the 1848 revolution and the unification of italy
venice under italian rule
venice and culture, 1866–1915
bibliography

On the eve of the French Revolution, as the capital of an independent Republic, Venice still ruled over an extensive territory stretching along the Adriatic coast into Dalmatia, and deep into Lombardy. Venice had long before lost its position as the Mediterranean's dominant commercial center, falling victim to the rise of the Atlantic economy, and due to an inability to compete with bigger states. Indeed, by the mid-eighteenth century, the Habsburg free port of Trieste had begun to emerge as a rival even within the Adriatic. Nevertheless, Venice—still ruled by a narrow patrician oligarchy—was by no means the decadent and marginalized state often portrayed by contemporaries and subsequent historians alike. It remained a significant trading center, could deploy a sizeable fleet, and, in cultural terms, could still produce figures of the caliber of the playwright Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) and the sculptor Antonio Canova (1757–1822).

the end of the venetian republic

The collapse of the Republic of Saint Mark in 1797 was not the consequence, as has frequently been suggested, of the cowardice and corruption of Venice's patrician class, but a direct result of changes in international relations brought about by the French Revolution. During the second half of the eighteenth century, the Venetian government had recognized that the only possible means of surviving in the face of expansionist neighbors was to adopt a policy of neutrality. When the Directory's Army of Italy invaded Italy in 1796 under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte (later Napoleon I, r. 1804–1814/15), the Venetian state had attempted to keep to this policy, but Austrian and French forces soon violated Venice's neutrality. In the spring of 1797, Napoleon invaded the Republic's mainland territories, establishing Jacobin satellite municipalities in many of the cities hitherto under its rule. Napoleon used a popular anti-French rising in Verona and resistance to French incursion into the lagoon as a pretext to occupy Venice itself. Faced with a French ultimatum, and anxious to avoid bloodshed or French reprisals, the last Doge, Ludovico Manin (r. 1789–1797), transferred power to the French authorities. Napoleon briefly set up a Jacobin municipal republic in the city, but almost immediately entered secret negotiations with the Austrians. In October 1797, these resulted in the Treaty of Campoformido. By this treaty, Venice and most of its former mainland territories to the east of the river Mincio were transferred to Habsburg rule in exchange for territorial concessions elsewhere.

austrian and napoleonic rule

Austrian troops arrived in Venice in January 1798. The city remained under the relatively benign rule of the Habsburgs until January 1806, when, by the Treaty of Pressburg, Napoleon (now crowned Emperor) annexed the city and its remaining territory to his satellite Kingdom of Italy. Until its liberation by Austrian forces in the spring of 1814, Venice languished under Napoleonic rule. Reduced to the status of a provincial capital, and with its remnants of trade destroyed because of Anglo-French naval rivalry and economic warfare, the plight of the Venetians under Napoleon was further exacerbated by heavy conscription, rapacious taxation, and the systematic plundering of Venice's art.

The Vienna settlement acknowledged the Austrian Emperor, Francis I (r. 1804–1835), as ruler of Venetia. Although the newly created Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was technically separate from the rest of the empire, in practice most key decisions were made in Vienna. Such centralized rule was unpopular among Venetians. There was also disappointment that much of the machinery and personnel of the Napoleonic system was retained. Venice continued to suffer from a heavy tax burden and conscription, and many Venetians were angered by the large numbers of "foreigners" (both German-speakers and Lombards) who dominated the higher ranks of the civil service. Nevertheless, government expenditure rose massively under Austrian rule, and the reign of Francis I saw a gradual increase in the numbers of Venetians playing a role in the administration. A major source of resentment remained the apparently preferential treatment given to Trieste, although in 1830 Venice was granted the same free port status as its rival. Another fillip to the Venetian economy came in the form of causeway linking the city with the main-land, completed in 1846. Despite such measures, Venice was characterized by poverty and unemployment. Surprisingly, until the later 1840s there was very little active opposition to Habsburg rule. The one attempted rising—a naval mutiny led by the Bandiera brothers, Attilio (1810–1844) and Emilio (1819–1844)—failed spectacularly.

cultural responses in the early nineteenth century

In the Napoleonic and Restoration periods, Venice's greatest artist was the sculptor Canova, whose exquisite marbles were valued throughout Europe. In literary terms, the city was famous for the work of Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827), who flirted with the Napoleonic regime but went into exile in 1815.

In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Venice began again to attract steadily larger numbers of travelers, including such figures as the French Romantic François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848), the novelist Stendhal (Henri Beyle; 1783–1842), the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779–1852), and Lord Byron (1788–1824). Literary reactions to Venice were far from consistent, but few writers engaged with its current political and economic state; they preferred instead to explore a mythologized version of its past, and used the modern city as a trope for decay. This was echoed in representations by painters such as Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) and Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828) whose sketches showed contemporary Venice, but whose finished works tended to populate it with figures from much earlier periods. To the extent that foreign travelers did address the contemporary situation, they were generally critical of Austrian rule. One notable exception to this was John Ruskin (1819–1900), who loathed contemporary Venetians and bizarrely located the start of Venice's decline in 1418. However, the general trend was reflected in the description of the city offered by Charles Dickens (1812–1870) in his Pictures from Italy (1846): in contrast with the gritty realism of the rest of the book, his chapter on Venice is entitled "An Italian Dream."

the 1848 revolution and the unification of italy

The passive nature of Venice completely changed in 1848. Grievances had been growing since the late 1830s, as Venetians became increasingly intolerant of the bureaucratic and unresponsive nature of Austrian rule, of high taxation used to service the imperial debt, and of heavy-handed censorship. Matters were aggravated by the rule of the mentally weak Ferdinand I (r. 1835–1848), whose inability to provide direction was highlighted by the economic crisis of the so-called hungry forties. During 1846 and 1847, the people of Venice and its mainland increasingly criticized Austrian rule. The most eloquent opponent of the regime was Daniele Manin (1804–1857), who had risen to prominence during debates over the construction of a railway line between Venice and Milan. His persistent—although initially far from radical—attacks on Habsburg misrule landed him briefly in prison; on his release he assumed the role of champion of Venetian interests against alleged Austrian oppression. Revolution in France, the fall of Prince Clemens von Metternich (1773–1859) in the face of popular demonstrations in Vienna, increasing agitation in Hungary, and unrest elsewhere in Italy—including insurrection in Milan, which led to the retreat of the Austrian commander Count Joseph Radetzky (1766–1858)—generated panic among the authorities in Venice, and the governor, Aloys Palffy, evacuated the city. A provisional regime was swiftly established under the direction of Manin, who declared the establishment of a Republic of Saint Mark. The threat from Austria encouraged the population of the mainland to seek closer links with Milan and Sardinia-Piedmont, tying Manin's policy more closely to that of Piedmontese King, Charles Albert (r. 1831–1849), than he would have wished. However, defeat of

Charles Albert by Habsburg forces at Custoza (July 1848) forced the Venetians to rely on their own resources to safeguard their newly won independence. Although the rest of the peninsula experienced risings in 1848 and 1849, the Venetian revolution endured longer than any other, eventually succumbing to military blockade and cholera.

In the aftermath of revolution, Venice was subjected to the stern administration of the elderly Radetzky, before a milder regime was introduced under Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg (1832–1867) in 1857. Nevertheless, relations between Vienna and the local population had been badly damaged, and many Venetians increasingly looked toward Italian unity as a means to escape from Austrian rule. This stance was strengthened when Manin publicly renounced his former republican sympathies and called on Italians to support unification under the Piedmontese monarchy. Hopes that Venice might be annexed by the Piedmontese evaporated in 1859, when the French emperor Napoleon III (r. 1852–1871) broke his promise to the prime minister Count Cavour (Camillo Benso; 1810–1861) that he would free all of northern Italy from Austria. The creation of the new Kingdom of Italy in 1860 led to intermittent calls for the seizure of Venetia. In 1865, the Austrians rebuffed an Italian offer to purchase the region. Acquisition of Venetia finally took place in 1866, when the Italians fought against Austria in alliance with Prussia. Despite defeats on land and sea by the Austrians, the Italians were still able to gain Venice and its mainland provinces, thanks to Prussian victory and the diplomatic involvement of Napoleon III. Legitimacy was given to the annexation by an overwhelmingly positive vote in a plebiscite, which was nevertheless marred by rigging and intimidation.

venice under italian rule

Neither Venice nor the Venetian mainland initially benefited from Italian unity. As a port Venice continued to decline in the face of competition from other maritime cities in the peninsula. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and Venice's selection as chief port of the India Mail in 1872 did act as a slight stimulus to trade, which was increasingly located in the west of the city (near the railway) rather than around Saint Mark's Square. Venetians, however, remained generally indifferent or hostile to their new status as Italians, a fact reflected in their unwillingness to stand as parliamentary candidates in the 1870s.

Economic problems persisted in the late nineteenth century, and, until the 1890s, Venetia witnessed some of Italy's highest rates of emigration, albeit usually to European destinations rather than to the New World. Yet, despite the poverty of the region, Venice gradually reconciled itself to Italian rule in the decades before World War I. This in part reflected a gradually improving economy, helped by the growth of industry in the 1880s (including the establishment of the Stucky grain mill and pasta factory on the Giudecca and construction of warships in the Arsenale), and, more significantly, by the massive expansion of tourism. Venice now appealed not only because of its romantic past, but also because of the development of the Lido as a center for sea bathing.

venice and culture, 1866–1915

Despite the establishment of a biennial international art festival in 1895, the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were not an especially fertile period for Venetian art or literature. In general, however, the city was more interesting as a stimulus to foreign artists, writers, poets, and composers than to homegrown ones. The most famous resident Italian writer in the years before World War I was the nationalist firebrand Gabriele d'Annunzio (1863–1938), whose novel The Flame of Life (1900) played with the contrasts between Venice past and modern. In very different ways, Henry James (1843–1916) and Thomas Mann (1875–1955) loaded Venice with symbolic significance.

The tension between Venice past and present was evident in the city's treatment by other creative artists. Many remained obsessed with Venice's exotic past, as evidenced in Hans Markart's painting Homage to Queen Caterina Cornaro (1873), in the Johann Strauss (1825–1899) opera A Night in Venice (1883), and the Venetian plays of Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), as well as in many of the canvases of the Venetian painter Giacomo Favretto (1898–1964). British views of the city continued to be heavily influenced by the backward-looking legacy of Ruskin. However, the city was also periodically home to a wide range of British, including the historians Rawdon Brown (1803–1883) and Horatio Brown (1854–1926), the poet and historian John Addington Symonds (1840–1893), and the novelist and fantasist Frederick Rolfe (1860–1913), who, while deeply interested in its past, engaged passionately with the modern city and its inhabitants. A similar preoccupation characterized the work of many American and British painters, such as Robert Frederick Blum (1857–1903), John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Maurice Brazil Prendergast (1859–1924), and Sir Samuel Luke Fildes (1843–1927), who sought to portray a living city (albeit in a sometimes sentimentalized form). In so doing they echoed local painters, such as Ettore Tito (1867–1941), who was anxious to portray scenes of everyday Venetian life rather than turning the city into a symbol of past glory. The most radical response to the city in this period, however, came in 1910 when the leader of the Futurists, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944), declared rhetorical war against a Venice that he saw as no more than a ridiculous museum.

See alsoMilan; Naples; Rome; Trieste; Vienna.