I have written a short History of Venice — an Unreasonably short History of Venice, in fact.
During my walks in Venice, I very often explain the same bits of the History of Venice again and again.
When I decided to make a podcast of some of the many stories I tell during my history walks — the Venetian Stories Podcast — it became clear that I had to fill in the holes between all the various bits and pieces.
Without a basic chronological narrative, the stories would be hanging in the air, without sufficient context to make sense.
I therefore wrote the scripts for an initial series of podcast episodes to tell the story of Venice as succinctly as possible.
This ended up as seven episodes of about thirty minutes each.
Having written the scripts for the podcast, it was obvious to rework them into a reasonably coherent text.
This has become an Unreasonably short History of Venice, available for online reading or for download as either a PDF or an e-book.
In seven chapters it recounts the origins, and the rise and fall of the Republic of Venice, and what has happened to Venice since.
Each chapter is about 3000 words, so most readers should be able to read the booklet front to back in a couple of hours. This is just about the time most visitors to Venice have on the flight and waiting in the airport.
Roughly the same material is available as audio on the podcast, as episodes 3–9 of the Venetian Stories podcast.
A chicchetto
It is not possible to cover everything of two millennia of Venetian history in such a short text, and that is not the purpose.
The average History of Venice is a tome of 3–400 pages, and often double that. They’re that long because Venice has a complex and unusual history, full of dramatic and intriguing events.
To keep this text short, numerous interesting events have necessarily been left out.
In the selection of events and developments, I have focused on a few basic themes, such as how Venice became a state, how that state functioned and interacted with other states, Venetian culture and economy, how the republic came to an end, and what has happened since.
Some choices are based on the questions I most often get asked on the history walks in Venice.
There is therefore no pretence of completeness in this booklet. The Unreasonably short History of Venice is intended as a snack or an appetiser, or in Venetian, as a chicchetto.
Where to get it
- For online reading: historyofvenice.com
- For offline reading: PDF or EPUB for download
- For listening: venetianstories.com
Distribution
The booklet is published under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 4.0), so feel free to download, share and copy it, as long as the attribution and copyright notice remain.
The website and the downloadable files use the Atkinson Hyperlegible Next font from the Braille Institute of America, which is especially designed for improved readability for all, including people with dyslexia or reduced eyesight.
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