The origins of Venice go back to the breakup of the Roman Empire in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. Hoping to escape successive waves of hostile 3)barbarian invaders sweeping down from the north, villages and townspeople from the mainland sought refuge on the islands of the Venetian Lagoon. The move to the lagoon was 4)fortuitous, and in time, the settlement began to grow in size and stature. With no 5)hinterland and surrounded on all sides by water, there was very little that these early Venetians could do but to take to the sea. By the ninth century, Venetian merchant adventures had established themselves as major players in a 6)lucrative trade between East and West. And Venice, now a flourishing city, had taken on a shape and form that has little changed until today.

The undisputed heart of Venice has always been St. Mark’s Square. Since the earliest days, this has been the city’s principal gathering place, where festivals were held and official ceremonies, including public executions, took place. Today, it is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city.

The Venetians knew the key to their success was their naval power. So they 7)embarked on a project of 8)colossal scale that would enable them to expand their ship-building capacity. The result was the largest industrial complex of the mediaeval era, The Arsenal of Venice. By the mid 14th century, the Arsenal covered some 110 acres, representing over 15% of the entire city area. Here, hidden behind fortified walls, the republic built and maintained its 9)galleons, the ships that made up its navy and much of its commercial fleet. At its height, The Arsenal employed 16,000 workers and could turn out one galley a day. This was construction on an industrial scale and indeed it wouldn’t be matched again in Europe until the advent of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th century.

The Rialto Market, centrally located along the eastern bank of the Grand Canal, sells some of the freshest fruit, vegetables and fish in the city. But for centuries, it was the 10)epicenter of Venetian commercial life. Merchant ships returning from the markets of the east, laden with silks, spices and other exotic commodities, would dock here to unload and dispose of their precious 11)cargoes.

Colonization of the Americas and the success of trade routes to the East that 12)circumnavigated Africa all challenged Venetian commercial supremacy. The republic was fast becoming an irrelevant 13)anachronism. The decline of Venice reached its lowest point in 1796 when the city surrendered to Napoleon Bonaparte. The Venetian Republic was no more.

Sitting here in Sr. Mark’s Square, once famously described by Napoleon as the “finest drawing room in Europe,” one is surrounded on all sides by evidence of Venice’s past glory. And for me at least, modern day Venice is always pervaded by a slight sense of melancholy, a sense of faded splendor, of irredeemable loss. A city that grew fabulously wealthy on its trade with the East, jealously defended by a formidable navy, now has to rely on a new kind of import: the foreign tourist. For all I know, they brings as much revenues as silks and spices ever did.

Venice is a city that can not change, must not change, if it is not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The golden egg, of course, being the lucrative tourist trade. But this is not to suggest that Venice is some 14)stagnant backwater out of touch with modern times. With typical Venetian 15)pragmatism, the city has cashed in on its architectural legacy and rich artistic past to reinvent itself as a contemporary capital of the arts. Venice is not a living museum, nor are its citizens 16)superannuated fossils. Rather, they are modern Italians living modern Italian lives. They just happen to live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And who in their right mind is gonna change that?