Chapter 7 — Subject city
The war that led to the fall of the Republic of Venice finished, but other wars followed. After the several wars of the French Revolution came the Napoleonic wars.
All in all, Europe was at war almost continuously for twenty-five years, until 1815.
The sack of Venice
Venice was under Austrian rule from 1798 to 1805, when Napoleon returned to Venice — this time as emperor.
Napoleon annexed Venice to his Kingdom of Italy, and he formally took over the Doge’s Palace as his royal palace. He made wide-ranging changes and reforms in all parts of society, but more than anything, he had wars to fight and wars cost money.
Venice was still a place full of riches, so Napoleon started extracting as much as he could.
Despite all the upheavals of ceasing to be a state, there were still many very wealthy families in Venice, including many from the old Venetian aristocracy.
Napoleon mostly let them be.
His victims were foremost churches, monasteries and the Venetian schools.
Of some two hundred churches, Napoleon had about seventy deconsecrated and stripped of everything of value. Many of the church buildings were later demolished, others reverted to secular uses, and some still stand empty and abandoned to this day.
The vast majority of monasteries were closed, and their buildings, land and properties sold.
The part of Venetian society which was worst hit by Napoleon’s sackings, were the schools, which is Venice meant charities, guilds and various confraternities. Many of these institutions had accumulated substantial fortunes over the centuries. Napoleon had them all shut down and their wealth confiscated. Of some three hundred such institutions, only a couple were allowed to reform with some of their wealth remaining.
Paintings, statues, tapestries, furniture were taken to France, or simply sold off to raise money for the wars.
Austrian takeover
The wars ended when Napoleon lost at Waterloo in 1815.
The peace was organised at the Congress of Vienna, where the victorious European powers tried to restore almost everything as it had been before the French Revolution.
Almost everything.
The Republic of Venice had always been a thorn in the side of the European monarchies, and the Venetian state was not restored.
Any immediate hope of returning independent died in 1815.
Venice was now simply a pawn in the game of the great powers, and what the Venetians wanted was of little importance to them.
The city and the Venetian mainland territories all went to Austria, which had a strategic interest in getting naval access to the Mediterranean.
After over a thousand years of independence, Venice was now ruled by one of its old arch enemies. The city was run by foreigners who spoke another language.
The Austrian-Hungarian Empire organised the Northern Italian territories into a Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, in a personal union with Austria-Hungary, and capital in Milan.
The Austrian rulers made France return many identifiable works of art, which had been looted during the reign of Napoleon. Most of these objects had belonged to legal entities, which no longer existed, such as the numerous schools, monasteries and churches Napoleon had shut down. Many of these artworks were put in the Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts — the Galleria dell’Accademia.
The shape of the city
Venice had always been a boating city, where the canals were more important than the alleyways. The canals were there first, and Venetian culture was predominantly a boating culture. The city therefore had rather few bridges.
The Austrians came from a mostly landlocked empire, and they didn’t have the experience needed to run a place like Venice.
They were, however, in a position of power, so rather than try to adjust themselves to the city as it was, they set out adapting the city to themselves.
They filled in canals, sometimes simply to save money on maintenance, and built bridges all over the city. Some thirty to forty canals disappeared over the 1800s, and the number of bridges in the city went from around a hundred, to near four hundred.
Venice gradually became a pedestrian city during the Austrian period, something it had never been before.
The process accelerated when the Austrians built a railroad between Milan and Venice, which brought in numerous visitors. To get them from the station towards the Rialto and St Mark areas, many canals were filled in, and buildings demolished to create the Strada Nova — a road only outsiders would ever need.
The Republic of San Marco
The years 1848 and 1849 were a period of revolutions and major change, in almost every European nation.
In early 1848, there were two dominant factions in Venice. One, mostly consisting of descendants of the old nobility and the wealthiest citizens, wanted to use the upheavals to extract concessions from the Austrians, in terms of a constitution and more self-rule. The other faction wanted the Austrians gone and the creation of an independent democratic republic. The dream of independence wasn’t dead yet.
The second faction was initially victorious. They forced the Austrians to leave without a fight, and declared an independent democratic Republic of San Marco. The president was Daniele Manin, who had the same surname as the last Doge of Venice, even though they were not related.
The Austrians, however, quickly got their act together. They regrouped their troops at Trieste, and they were already on the offensive in the spring of 1848.
The leadership of the Republic of San Marco hadn’t prioritised the military organisation, and they weren’t ready. Many of the mainland cities — the subject cities of the Republic of Venice — didn’t really trust the Venetians, and several opted for annexation to Piedmont as the best alternative to Austrian rule.
Throughout the summer of 1848, the Austrians reconquered most of the mainland.
The Republic of San Marco also sought help from Piedmont, and even decided that annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont was acceptable, but the king didn’t send much help. The interests of Sardinia-Piedmont were more in Lombardy than in the Veneto.
The Venetian republicans defended the city and the lagoon — the ancient dogado — but overwhelming Austrian force and the spread of cholera in the city forced them to surrender.
A famous poem, written at the time, goes:
Il morbo infuria
Il pan ci manca
Sul ponte sventola
Bandiera bianca!
which in my quick translation is:
Disease all around
We’re out of bread
On the bridge it flies
The white banner!
The bridge mentioned is the railroad bridge the Austrians had built shortly before. At the middle of the bridge it crosses a small island, where two cannons stand, pointing towards the mainland. That is a little known monument to the defenders of Venice of 1849.
In Italy, the movements in Milan and Venice — together with a war between the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont and Austria — was, in hindsight, called the First War of Independence.
If the Austrian iron hand over Venice had worn a velvet glove before 1848, that glove came off after 1849. The period following the rebellion were not happy years in Venice.
The opposition to the Austrians — mostly in exile in Turin and Paris after 1849 — gave up on Venetian independence and put their hopes in Italian unification under the leadership of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont.
Becoming Italian
The Second War of Independence in 1859–60 led to a united Italy under Sardinia-Piedmont — soon after renamed the Kingdom of Italy — but without Venice.
The Austrian ruled Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was broken up. Lombardy became a part of the Kingdom of Italy, while Venice remained under the Austrians.
Venice and the mainland only became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866. The Kingdom of Italy joined a war between Prussia and Austria, managed to lose every battle, but Prussia won, and Italy got Venice.
Austria had wanted Venice for the Arsenale and the navy traditions. The Austrian navy in the Adriatic was created based on the Venetian navy. All the Austrian navy officers were educated in Venice, and large parts of the crews of the navy ships came from Venice and old Venetian dominions in the Adriatic.
Ironically, the last battle of a “Venetian” navy — sailing under the Austrian flag at the Battle of Lissa in 1866 — was against Italy.
Modernisation
The Venetian economy had languished under Austrian rule, and especially after 1849.
Under Italian rule, there were several attempts at modernisation.
An aqueduct brought fresh water from the Dolomites to Venice for the first time ever, which was an enormous improvement over the ancient rain water cisterns which can still be seen all over the city.
The first motorised public transport is from the same time. They’re called vaporetti — which means little steamships — because that was what they were in the beginning.
Several industrial projects started in Venice proper. The building of an industrial grain mill on the Giudecca island is now a hotel, while the metalworks behind the Frari church are all gone, leaving just a few place names behind.
The first Biennale, in 1895, was another — more successful — attempt at putting Venice back on the map.
The city of Venice hadn’t really grown since the late 1500s, but around the turn of the 1900s, several lagoon areas near the city were reclaimed. The quarter of Sant’Elena to the east, and a large area at San Gerolamo in the north-west, were added to the city.
Many of the abandoned gardens of ancient palaces and suppressed monasteries were built up, with modern housing, educational institutions and whatnot.
Fascism
The Great War didn’t do much to Venice.
However, in its wake, the liberal democracy of the Kingdom of Italy gave way to fascism, and the modernisation of Venice went into overdrive.
The railroad bridge was flanked by a car bridge, and an entire Venetian neighbourhood was razed to the ground to create the modern marvel which is the Piazzale Roma — cars, buses, giant parking houses and everything which is alien to Venice. The neighbourhood church is now a warehouse for the public transport company.
Motorboats replaced the traditional rowed boats, but the city canals were too narrow and winding for fast modern traffic. More ancient houses were demolished to create new, straighter, wider, faster canals. The results of these “improvements” should be evident to anybody who has visited the city.
What happened to the people who once lived there? Fascism doesn’t appreciate dissent, so if people didn’t shut up and obey, the regime had some very nice thugs to teach them to shut up and obey.
Most of these people ended up in modern housing on the mainland, whether they wanted to or not.
If industrialisation hadn’t worked in Venice — for the obvious reasons of transport costs — it would have to work on the mainland. The harbour of Venice had to follow.
Consequently, in the 1920s, plans were drawn up to create several large industrial areas on the edge of the lagoon, with a huge modern harbour. This is what today is known as Marghera.
Along with these extensions of Venice, as an economic entity, onto the mainland, half a dozen small municipalities in the lagoon, and another half a dozen on the mainland were adjoined to the municipality of Venice. The municipality, which in the 1800s had been just the city of Venice, now covered half the lagoon and extended over ten kilometres into the mainland, including the new industrial expansion zones.
Work started on these projects in the 1930s, but the second world war stalled much of it, and the full effect of the changes would only become evident after the war.
The rise of the mainland
Like with the first world war, the second didn’t change much in Venice.
Afterwards, Italy became a republic — the monarchy was too tainted by fascism to survive — and it became a part of the West.
Italy was one of the founding members of the European Coal and Steel Union, and later of the European Economic Community, the forerunners of the European Union of today.
Marshall aid and European economic integration made the industrial projects on the mainland interesting again. Venice once more had an advantageous geographical position, but now the infrastructure would be on the mainland.
The first parts of the industrial area of Marghera started working in the 1950s, and in the 1960s, the mainland harbour was connected to the Adriatic by a deep artificial canal which cut across the Venetian lagoon.
This canal, made for short term economic gain without any proper understanding of the hydrology of the lagoon, is the main cause of the many floodings Venice has suffered since.
The current airport opened in 1961.
The Dream of Suburbia
A large industrial area with a major harbour needed plenty of workers.
Many of them came from Venice.
As the autarchy of fascism and the deprivations of the war were replaced by economic growth and a hope for a better future, the dream for many young men and women became one of Suburbia.
For a young man, it was to get a good paying, stable job, so he could get a mortgage, buy a house, marry and start a family. If there was room in the budget for a small car, so much the better. And, of course, an annual family holiday somewhere.
This dream of stability and relative affluence wasn’t just Venetian. It was common in much of Western Europe.
For Venetian young men, that dream often started with a job in industry in Marghera, and in the 1950s and -60s, most of a generation moved to the mainland where housing was more affordable and more modern, where you could have a car and send your kids to play football.
The Venetian children of the 1960s and -70s largely grew up on the mainland, in Marghera, Mestre and surroundings. Unable to imagine a life without a car, Venice offered them few attractions, beyond a night out occasionally, or a photo opportunity at their wedding.
“Venice is beautiful, but I couldn’t live there,” became the common refrain.
The grandparents and great-grandparents of this generation were still in Venice, in their old homes. As they got older, moved to retirement homes, or died, their flats passed on to their descendants, who often lived on the mainland, whose car-centred lifestyle was no longer compatible with Venice, who didn’t want to live in Venice.
“Venice is beautiful, but I couldn’t live there.”
As working-class people in much of Western Europe became homeowners, car owners, holidaymakers, mass tourism became a thing.
Tourism offered a market for all those homes in Venice whose owners didn’t want to live there. The flats of their grandparents and great-grandparents often became tourist accommodation.
A large part of the housing in Venice — owned by Venetians who don’t live in Venice, never have, never will and who don’t want to live in Venice — is now unavailable for those who would like to live there, whether Venetian by birth or not.
A dying city
In the census from the 1950s, the city of Venice had around 175,000 inhabitants.
Today, it has just over 48,000.
That is a population decline of over seventy percent in seventy years.
Seventy percent in seventy years.
The population of Venice has not been so low for over a thousand years. Not even the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages reduced the population to what it is now.
Venice is — demographically — a dying city.
Every year, there are fewer people living here.
Economically, the city is doing fine, or better than fine. Every year sees visitor numbers rise, and lots of money is made.
However, money made by whom?
Mostly by people who don’t live in Venice, and very often, people who don’t want to live in Venice.
Venice is today a cash cow to be milked, but those who benefit, only care about the money, and not about the city. To continue the metaphor, everybody wants part of the milk of the cow, but nobody wants to take it to the vet, or even just feed it.
The direction in which the marketplace is taking Venice, is a slow death.
The failure of politics
Why don’t the politicians do something about it?
They’re elected to represent the people, right?
The relevant question here is: which people?
The enlarged Municipality of Venice has over 250,000 inhabitants, but less than 50,000 live in Venice. There are some 25-30,000 people living in other communities around the lagoon, such as the Lido, Murano, Burano, Sant’Erasmo, etc.
This means some 175,000 inhabitants live on the mainland.
So, in local elections, for each vote in Venice, there are at least three votes on the mainland.
The ancient city of Venice is pedestrian, with many bridges, and public transport and most logistics on water, with the added costs which follows.
The cities on the mainland are modern Italian cities, mostly built after the second world war. Asphalted roads full of cars, high-rise office buildings, declining high streets, shopping malls in the periphery where you can only go by car.
They’re physically separated by the lagoon, and they’re very different places with very different needs.
Consequently, they vote very differently.
For many years, the residents of the city of Venice have tended to vote leftish, while the people on the mainland lean more to the right.
The current electoral system gives a guaranteed fifty-five percent majority in the city council for the party which wins the direct election of the mayor, so the city council has a right-wing majority.
Furthermore, the right-wing parties are dominated by people from the mainland, so in the city executive — the giunta — of sixteen full-time politicians, fifteen are from the mainland. Only one member of the giunta actually lives in Venice.
The bottom line is, that the residents of Venice — understood as the ancient city in the lagoon, not the entire municipality — have practically no political representation.
With the voices of the people who actually live in the city mostly excluded, local politics is predominantly about what matters to the majority on the mainland, many of whom own flats in Venice they rent to tourists.
The view of Venice as a means to easy profit is therefore dominant, also within the local administration.
Venice, which historically dominated its periphery on the mainland, is now itself the periphery of the dominant mainland.
Venice — la dominante — is now a subject city of the mainland, which it once dominated.
Tourism
In this rather long discussion about the fundamental causes of the woes of Venice, tourism hasn’t played a large part.
That is because tourism is not the cause of the problems of Venice.
Tourism is a symptom.
The overwhelming number of tourists in Venice is a result of an economic monoculture, which again is a consequence of how the governance of the municipality is structured.
Catch-22
Venice of today is trapped in an abusive relationship with the outside forces which control the city now, and there is no obvious way out.
The residents of Venice cannot elect another local administration because they’re too few.
They cannot leave the Municipality of Venice — this has been tried several times — because it requires the consent of the entire municipality, but the mainland consistently votes against a split of the municipality. Again, the residents of the city are too few.
A reversal of the demographic decline requires policies favouring more affordable housing. That won’t happen because that would require flats to be moved from tourist rentals to residential rentals, but that is less profitable for the owners of the flats.
Without more affordable house, even more people will leave the city.
There’s no way out, but if Venice stays on the current trajectory, it will die.