Venice
Venice names 6 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Venice ven'is, a city of northern Italy
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
ven'is, a city of northern Italy. It is situated on 117 small islands about two and one-half miles from the mainland, in a shallow bay of the Adriatic. It is called "The Queen of the Adriatic." It looks like a city afloat. There are about 15,000 buildings, resting chiefly on piles driven into the soft mud of the islands. In lieu of streets there are about 150 canals, many of them so narrow that they are passable by small boats only. Along some of the canals the buildings rise sheer from the water's edge; along others there are narrow footpaths. The doors of many houses open directly on the water. Seaweed clings to the doorsteps. Boys dive from windows directly into the canal. Several hundred narrow lanes, paved with stone, brick, and asphalt, wind like network between the buildings and cross the canals, by means of nearly four hundred, chiefly stone, bridges. "White phantom city," says Longfellow, "whose untrodden streets are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting shadows of palaces and strips of sky." The group of islands is about six miles and one-half in circumference. It is defended from the sea by a long breakwater, partly of sand and partly of masonwork, through which there are four openings. A long railway bridge of 222 arches connects the city with the mainland. The population of 150,000 people is engaged in commerce, manufacturing, and trade. There are manufactures of glass, lace, beads, silks, cottons, woolens, tobacco, soap, wax, jewelry, silverware, watches, artificial flowers, and furniture. The shipping of the city is second only to that of Genoa. Over 3,000 ships register annually. Water is brought from the mainland by means of an aqueduct. The climate of the city is delightful. The average temperature for January, the coldest month, is 32 degree; for July, the warmest month, is 76 degree. A wretched village from which the present "City of Marble" has grown, was founded in the fifth century by refugees fleeing from Attila the Hun. As early as the thirteenth century Venice was an independent republic, holding considerable territory on the coasts of the Adriatic and in the Levant. Its chief commercial rival was Genoa. Venice, at that time the greatest shipowner in the world, was the chief point of departure for the Crusaders. An immense trade was carried on. The productions of Europe were exchanged for those of Asia. In the fifteenth century Venice was commercially the most important city in the world. As a center of trade it was the successor of Athens and Carthage. The profits of the merchants were reckoned at 4,000,000 ducats annually. It was with this money that the great marble palaces of the city were erected. Though nominally a republic, the government was, as a matter of fact, in the hands of a few nobles whose presiding officer was known as the doge. The Turks, who took Constantinople in 1453, shut off the caravans of the East from bringing the merchandise to the Mediterranean coast, thus cutting off much of the trade on which the prosperity of Venice was based. The discovery of America and of a new route to India by way of Cape of Good Hope transferred the commercial center of Europe to Portugal and later to London, leaving Venice hopelessly at one side. It retained its independence until the days of Napoleon. For a time the city was under the domination of Austria, but in 1866 it was recovered and became a part of the modern kingdom of Italy. No small part of the present population depends for revenue upon visitors who flock from America and Europe in great numbers to see the treasures of art for which Venice is noted. Many of the old palaces have been converted into hotels and lodging houses. The arcades are lined with shops displaying Venetian manufactures, jewelry, and knickknacks to tempt the purses of tourists. Travelers may arrive at the city either by rail or by steamer. Instead of cabs at the stations a fleet of gondolas is in wait to convey passengers and baggage to hotels and boarding places. The gondoliers are not permitted to solicit business. As soon, however, as the traveler selects his gondola, the owner appears ready to bargain and to serve. We may add in passing that the gondola is the ordinary means of conveyance, taking the place of cabs, street cars, etc., in other cities. Walking is precarious. In time of high eastern winter winds the tide, which ordinarily rises a foot or two, swells to eight feet and inundates a considerable part of the city, rendering a gondola necessary even to cross a public square. The gondolier aims to earn about twenty cents an hour. The key to the plan of the city is the Grand Canal which passes entirely through the group of islands. It is two miles in length, seventy-five yards wide, and sixteen feet deep. Seen from a gondola it is a lane of water passing between rows of marble palaces. The gondolier has the names of over one hundred palaces, churches, and edifices at his tongue's end. The canal is spanned by the Rialto, a magnificent bridge, 158 feet long and 90 feet wide. The abutments rest on 12,000 piles. It leaps the canal in a single marble arch 74 feet in span and 32 feet in height. There are also other bridges. Descriptions of the city start with the Piazza or Place of St. Mark, a square paved with trachyte and marble. The noted buildings of the city face it or are in the immediate vicinity. "The Place of St. Marks," says Howells, "is the heart of Venice." It is equivalent to about two ordinary city blocks in size. On a summer evening it is filled with a gay throng. The military band plays usually each day. The most notable building is the Church of St. Mark. It shelters the remains of the bones of the apostle of that name, said to have been brought by the Venetians from Alexandria in 829. The building has the form of a Greek cross, that is to say, it has four equal arms. A Byzantine dome rises from the center, and one at the end of each arm. The walls are decorated with five hundred marble columns. The building is veneered with marble. In his Stones of Venice Ruskin speaks of the admirable color effect produced by glass, transparent alabaster, polished marble, and lustrous gold. Four gilded bronze horses taken by Constantine from Rome to Constantinople and by a warlike doge from Constantinople to Venice stand over the principal portal. There is an old jest to the effect that these horses neigh whenever they hear the hour struck in the clock tower over the way. The square Campanile, or bell-tower, 322 feet in height, also facing the Place of St. Mark, fell in 1902, but it has been rebuilt. Another noted building, in its way one of the richest specimens of architecture extant, is the ducal palace or Palace of the Doges. It faces a fine court. It is impossible in a paragraph to describe the marble stairways, colonnades, arcades, halls, courts, statues, galleries, and art treasures of this wonderful building. Some of the most eminent artists of the Middle Ages contributed to its decoration. The library of St. Mark contains 350,000 printed volumes and 10,000 manuscripts. A lofty stone bridge, known as the Bridge of Sighs , connects the palace with the prison. Mr. Howells calls it a "pathetic swindle," on the score that there is little of interest in a passageway connecting the criminal courts with the city prison. Political prisoners were confined in apartments, now closed, under the lead roof of the palace. They were put to the torture and executed in gloomy dungeons beneath. The Academy of Fine Arts contains pictures chiefly by Venetian masters. It does not rank with the great collections at Rome, Florence, Dresden, and elsewhere, but it is of importance in a study of the history of art. The picturesque crowds, the pigeons that come down in the squares to be fed, and other equally interesting features of the city fill many a volume of delightful reading. A very pleasant short excursion may be taken to the Venetian glass works, the oldest in Europe. See Gondola ; Campanile ; Rialto ; Bridge Of Sighs
Venice a prov-ference
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a prov-ference, contains about 28,000 houses, and is divided into two parts by the Grand Canal, or Canal Grande. Over this canal there are three bridges, that of the Rialto, the most magnificent bridge in Venice, consisting of a single arch 90 feet in span and 24 feet in height, built of marble in 1590. Two ranges of shops divide its upper surface into three narrow parallel streets. Venice is regarded as one of the finest cities in Europe, and was for many centuries the capital of the first maritime and commercial state in the world. It consequently contains proportionally a larger number of public buildings and palatial residences than any other city in Europe; among the most celebrated of its national edifices, first mention must be given to that stupendous building, the pride and glory of Venice, the ducal palace of St. Mark, with the catheof a square, the grandest and most imposing quarter of all the city. The square of St. Mark-with its arcades, elegant shops and cafés, the its fine and e vast grandeur of its ducal residence containing all the chambers of state, audience, and judicature, and its magnificent cathedral-presents a picture of grandeur and beauty unequaled by any eapital in Europe. The Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri) stretches across the canal called the Rio Palazzo, and communicates between prisons on the E., and the Doge's palace on the W. bank of the canal. It is a covered gallery; and prisoners, when led to execution, passed from their cells across this gallery to the palace, to hear sentence of death passed upon them, and then were conducted to the scene of death between the red columns. Few cities in Italy are richer in works of pictorial art than Venice; some of the masterpieces of Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and the other great chiefs of the Venetian school, are to be found in all the churches of this extraordinary city. The library (a fine marble structure, containing 120,000 volumes and 10,000 MSS.), the museum, and cabinet of curiosities of St. Mark's are regarded as the finest in Europe. The arsenal and dockyard are esteemed as worthy objects of attraction; the latter, in the palmy days of Venice, contained 40 line-of-battle ships, 12 of them three-deckers, with arms for 150,- 000 men, 4,000 pieces of ordnance, and an immense amount of naval and military store, with provision and every requisite to maintain its reputation as one of the first commercial and maritime states in the world. For many centuries, in the Middle Ages, Venice had the monopoly of all the glass sold to Europe; but this has long since passed away, and its chief trade is now confined to the manufacture of mirrors, jewelry, artificial pearls, silks, velvets, and porcelain. The foundation of Venice was laid in 421, as a place of refuge during the invasion of Italy by Attila. In 697 took place the establishment of an elective prince or Doge, with the appellation of Serene Highness-Paoluccio Anafesto being the first Doge or Duke of Venice. At first the power of the Doge was absolute, but in time restrictions were placed on his rule, till eventually he became a mere cipher and symbol of authority in the hands of the famous Council of Ten. The prosperity and power of Venice began with the dawn of the 9th century. In 1133, the
Venice GULF OF dral of St
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GULF OF dral of St. Marco, forming three sides Doge Sebastino received from Pope Alexander III. the title of Sovereign of the Adriatic, in consequence of a signal victory gained by the Venetian galleys over the fleet of the emperor, wh when, further to mark his joy at the victory, the Pope flung into the gulf a ring of great cost, as a mark of gratitude-a custom afterward annually followed by the Doges, who, in great state, dropped a rich ring into the sea; this ceremony was called espousing or wedding the Adriatic. In the reign of Giovanni, in 1620, gold was first coined in Venice, the coin from the ducal dignity of the prince being called a ducat. Venice at this time was at the height of its glory as the first maritime and commercial state in Europe, as the most prosperous of nations, and as a leading military and political cal power. Jealous of the rising influence of the republic of Genoa, already encroaching on the commerce of the East, which Venice considered as her exclusive monopoly, she for more than a century carried on a harrassing war with her rival, sometimes with serious loss, at others with advantage. In 1396 Genoa placed herself under the dominion of the King of France, and therefore ceased to have a separate existence as an enemy of the republic. The greatest part of the 15th century was passed in repeated wars with the Turks, who captured many of her Greek and Ionian islands, especially Cyprus, and large portions of Dalmatia. When the commerce of Venice became annihilated by the discovery of the route to India by the Cape, petty quarrels and political jealousies occupied the Venetians, instead of commerce and dominion. From this time the prestige of Venice declined, and her power gradually sank as a state till, on the occupation of Italy by the armies of the French Republic, Venice-after an independent existence of 1,300 yearswithout striking a blow became a part of Napoleon's Cisalpine republic, and afterward of the Italian kingdom. At the Congress of Vienna, 1815, Venice was annexed to Austria. The city and ceded to and incorterritory were porated with the kingdom of Italy in 1866. During the World War Venice was repeatedly bombed by hostile airplanes, and measures were taken to prevent its treasures from destruction. Pop. about 150,000.
Venice a celebrated city of northeastern Italy
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a celebrated city of northeastern Italy, capital of the above prov ince and of the former Venetian republic; near the N. extremity of the Adriatic, 70 miles W. of Trieste. The city is built entirely on piles driven into about 117 small islands situated in the shallow waters of the Bay of Venice, and known as the lagoons, a kind of lake shut out from the deeper water of the Adriatic Sea, by a ridge or long but interrupted belt of sand and earth called the Littorale, which extends about 2 miles from the shore, shutting in all the islands and lagoons from the Adriatic Sea. A modern viaduct, supported on 222 arches, part of the Verona and Venice railway, has lately united the continent with the Littorale or protecting beach of the city. The 117 islands on which the city is built are separated from each other by narrow channels, which serve the purpose of thoroughfares, being constantly traversed by gondolas, a light river boat, answering the purpose of cabs and omnibuses, and depositing passengers at any house or building at which they may desire to alight. The whole series of islands are conrected with each other by some 450 bridges. Some of the islands are large enough to have what may be regarded as two or three short streets with intersecting lanes or alleys, but in general they only present blocks of buildings, having river fronts, according to the direction of the canal, or the water frontage of the isle. The longest and most important street in Venice, the Merceria, is only 15 feet wide; carriages and horses are unknown in Venice, the gondola being the universal means of transit to those going from shop to shop or house to house. Venice is nearly 8 miles in circum-
Venice a city of California
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city of California, in Los Angeles co., on the Pacific Electric railway. It was formerly called Ocean Park and is one of the largest and most popular amusement resorts on the Pacific Coast, being frequented both in summer and winter. Its chief attraction, aside from its resemblance to Venice, Italy, based chiefly on its system of street canals, is its excellent surf bathing. Pop. (1910) 3,119; (1920) 10,385. ince of northeastern Italy; bounded S. E. and E. by the Adriatic Sea, and remarkable for its long series of lagoons, which, stretching due N. for 25 miles from the mouth of the Brenta to that of the Sile, occupy a considerable part of the old bed of the Piave; area 934 square miles; pop. about 400,000. The lagoons contain numerous small islands (on some of which the city of Venice itself stands) that are separated from the open sea by a peninsula which is partly composed of the alluvium brought down by the rivers, and partly of the sand thrown up by the waves. Being, however, intersected by both artificial and natural channels, access to the coast, as well as to the capital, is thereby obtained. Products, all kinds of cereals, with rice, maize, hemp, silk, and wine.
Venice GULF OF, an arm of the Adriatic Sea
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GULF OF, an arm of the Adriatic Sea, on the N. E. coast of Italy, bounded by the Brenta and the Piave.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's in 1910 counted 150,000 people living among the canals; the historic centre now houses fewer than 50,000, and the departure of residents in favour of hotels and short-term lets is Venice's defining modern problem. The "high eastern winter winds" that Aiton's said could raise the tide eight feet did far worse in the flood of November 1966 and again in November 2019, prompting the MOSE system of mobile barriers at the lagoon inlets, first raised against a tide in October 2020. The tourists who already crowded the arcades in 1910 now arrive in the tens of millions a year: large cruise ships were barred from the Giudecca Canal in 2021, and in 2024 the city began charging day visitors an entry fee. The 1846 railway bridge to the mainland was joined by a road bridge, the Ponte della Libert he it is, in 1933, and the city was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987.
Written for this edition, 2026.