Early Venice

The history of how Venice came about is long and complicated.

The story started before the Romans, and proceeded with the Huns, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Lombards and the Franks, with the Venetians in-between.

The entire process, which ultimately led to a country called Venice, lasted several centuries, but it was far from a straight and smooth path.

For much of the time, the Venetians were much more of a pawn in the games of other, greater powers. However, as time passed, and the Venetians had to fend for themselves, they de facto acquired statehood, and then embraced it with pride and determination.

The main narrative

Ancient ruins. In the foreground an open area with broken columns and fragments of floor mosaics. In the background, a line of partially upright columns

Venetia et Histria

The name Venice comes from the ancient tribe of the Veneti, whose lands became a Roman province, the Regio X, which later got the name of Venetia et Histria.

That Roman, and later Byzantine, Venetia, through a series of complex and convoluted events, became Venice.

Part of a medieval manuscript with a Latin text which mentions Venetia

The Lombard invasion

The Lombard invasion of Byzantine Italy, and the conquests that followed, led to an increased importance of the lagoon settlements, to a slow demise of Byzantine control in north-east Italy, to the establishment of a semi-independent church in the lagoons, and ultimately to Venetian statehood.

Part of a medieval manuscript on parchment, with an extract of the Liber Pontificalis for pope John III, mentioning the Langobardi

Did Narses invite the Lombards?

Were the Lombards under Alboin invited to invade Italy by the Byzantine general Narses, just because the empress didn’t like him?

This rather dubious story of envy and misogyny can be traced back to the Book of the Popes, in the 590s.

Miniature from a medieval manuscript, showing a bearded enthroned man surrounded by soldiers an servants. Source: Codices Cavenses, Cod.4 Codex legum Langobardorum -- 15v

The conquest of Venetia

The invasion of the Lombards in 568 was only the start of their conquest of much of Italy. It was, however, not a centrally planned process, and it would take almost a century before Byzantine Venetia was under Lombard rule, and then some smaller bits still eluded them.

A marble altar in a niche, with a low marble wall in front. On the altar some flowers, and three windows behind. Naked brick walls. Very austere, with some simple geometric designs on parts of the marblework.

Venetian refugees

Following the invasion, and the subsequent conquest of Venetia, a part of the Venetian population of the mainland cities fled or left for the settlements in the nearby lagoons.

The lagoons were, by the late 600s, the only part of ancient Venetia, which remained under Byzantine rule.

The shore of a marsh canal, with several large white birds taking flignt. The marsh is covered in green and brown vegetation, while the sky is mostly cloudy.

The medieval landscape

There were more lagoons on the coast of Venetia than what exists today, and even the lagoon landscapes were different. In fact, had it been left to nature, there would have been no lagoons today.

Black and white etching of a ruined medieval church, tall walls, the apse in the background, no roof, with two small human figures standing in the middle for scale.

The lagoon settlements

The lagoon was settled in Antiquity, and in the 600s, there were numerous known towns, and several important cities. Venice, however, was not one of them.

Articles in preparation:

The early Dogado and the first doges
Too many patriarchs
Saint Mark
A national narrative

The principal sources

Pliny the Elder on Venetia

In his monumental Naturalis Historia (Natural History), Pliny the Elder wrote about the Regio X Venetia et Histria — the region of Italy instituted at the time of Augustus.

The letters of Cassiodorus

The first mention of the peoples of the lagoons of Venetia are in some letters, probably from 537, from the first minister of the Ostrogoth kings of Italy, to the Tribunes of the Maritimes.

Historia Langobardorum

The Historia Langobardorum — The History of the Lombards — by Paul the Deacon is the oldest chronicle relevant to the history of Venice. It most likely dates to the 780s or 790s.

Translatio Marci Evangelistae Venetias

The Translatio Marci Evangelistae Venetias — or Translatio Sancti Marci — by an unknown author, is the earliest description of the translation (movement) of the relics of St Mark from Alexandria in Egypt to Venice in 827–828, by two Venetian merchants.