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• History
of Christianization of Europe
• Soviet
Union, Communist influence
• Map
of European ethnic groups
• Map of Fascism
in Europe (1922-75)
• History
of Islamic conquest in Europe
• Religions
& ethnic groups in Russia
• Detailed
map of French colonization
• Detailed
map of British colonization
• Napoleon's
conquests & legacy
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• Muhammad cartoon crisis in pictures
• Stalin's private summer home
• Ravenna: capital of Gothic empire
• Czar Nicholas II's Ukrainian palace
• European traditional costumes/dress
• Inside the Vatican, house of all wealth
--MORE
& NON-ENGLISH--

• Islamic Mujahidin
vs. Spain & El Cid
• Poland-Lithuania vs. Teutonic Order
• Nevskiy's Russia vs. German Crusaders
• Mussolini vs. Libyan Islamic fighters
• Qadafi: Europe will soon be Islamic
• Ivan the Terrible vs. Muslim Tatars
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• The Gypsies in history and today,
Europe's public enemy
• History of Jihad in Chechnya & Caucasus vs. Russians
• History of the Muslim Tatars in Russia
• Ethnic & religious history of Serbs, Croats, & Bosnians
• Breakaway
states and independence movements in Europe
• The ancient Germanic Runic alphabet and
Runestones
• Inside Bulgaria, 1st Slavic nation, land of Thracian masters of gold
• Visual history of Yugoslavia
• 4,000-year-old white mummies of China,
bringers of Buddhism
--MORE
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Gallery & history
of Venice, golden capital of the seas
by James Mayfield (Chairman, European Heritage Library)
Print
this Article • About
the Author • Bibliography/Sources
This article offers my personal
photos and observations from my vacation to Venice, as well
as a complete historical background ofVenice from 1000 until
today. Northern Italy's Venice (Veneto or Venezia) is revered
as one of the most unique and popular cities in the world,
praised for its intricate mazes of canals, dense medieval
buildings, and romanticized gondola boat rides. It is one
of only a few cities of the world -- along with Tallinn in
Estonia, Dubrovnik in Croatia, and tiny San Marino -- that
allows a visitor to step back in time in a city virtually
preserved as it was in its golden age some 400 years ago.
The extreme density of the old original island of Venice has
prevented the use of vehicles, and has prevented any dramatic
expansion or construction for nearly a century.

The flag and standard of Venice, with the Venetian lion at
center. (from atlasgeo.net)
For a brief historical background,
Venice has an impressive history that few of its tiny size
can match. Before 1870, there had been no unified Italy under
native Italian authority ever since the collapse and conquest
of the Roman Empire by Germanic kingdoms in the 5th century.
The boot of the Mediterranean was divided into a number of
thriving merchant city-states such as the nations of Naples,
Milan, Modena, Toscagne (Tuscany), Genoa, Piedmonte, and to
the northeast, the tiny coastal trade nation of Venice. Gradually
growing into importance from as early as the 9th century,
the loss of northern Italy from the German Empire in the 12th
century allowed Venice to advance into an explosive maritime
trading state without interference. Its position between the
Hungarian, Croatian, Byzantine, and German/Austrian empires
contributed to the status of Venice as one of the wealthiest
states in the world, and no larger than Los Angeles County
or New York City in Venice proper; an impressive feat that
attracted the merchants of every European nation for several
centuries. It developed a powerful military naval fleet aside
from its peaceful trade endeavors that allowed this tiny coastal
state to colonize and conquer territory from all across Eurasia,
again making such a tiny territory a threat to major empires
throughout its history. From 1300 until 1600, Venice had repeatedly
besieged and claimed Cyprus, Crete, the Dalmatian coastline
of western Croatia, Dubrovnik (Ragusa), Greek city-states
established by the Crusaders whom had temporarily destroyed
by the Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade (13th century).
It virtually monopolized trade in the region, benefiting from
goods from the Islamic, Greek, Italic, and Germanic worlds.
Venice was unique for the medieval era in that it did not
have a hereditary kingship office; instead, it is today referred
to as a republican government, but by no means was it the
tolerant and weak government of modern liberalism in the United
States and elsewhere; rather, an ultra-wealthy elite council
elected the appropriate Doge (equivalent of a duke or count)
who was often on occasion elected for life, though a number
of the state's politicians were involved in government and
social affairs during each Doge's reign. Venice was also by
no means a tolerant society even whilst it traded with nations
across the world, as the anti-Semitism of the Merchant of
Venice by Shakespeare depicts. The latter end of Venetian
hegemony in Europe involved Venice in dozens of coalition
wars against the Islamic conquests of the Ottoman Turks, against
Russian expansionist efforts, and against both France and
Germany/Austria (generally the latter).

A rough map of the plethora of city-states that were modern
Italy. (from cityofsound.com)

My photo of the canals of Venice. (click to enlarge)
By the late 1700s, the importance
of Venice wavered. The Jihad of Islam had annexed Crete and
Cyprus. The Germans (Austria) had conquered Venice's Croatian
claims to save it from the Mujahidin's conquest from the east.
Economic supremacy in the region faltered as the British,
French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires began to exert authority
over trade all across 6 continents. The final blow to Venetian
power was ended with the conquest of Napoleon Bonaparte I
in 1792, bringing his version of liberalism to the inhabitants
of this most culturally and economically rich coastal gem.
After Napoleon's defeat and the end of French supremacy in
Europe at the hands of the Germans and British, Venice and
northern Italy were given to the unified nation of Germany
after the Congress of Wien from 1817 onward. Piedmonte-Sardinia
quickly thrust its unification movement into northern Italy
in a series of small wars after merging with the Italian mainland
(collectively the "Kingdom of Two Sicilies"). A
native Italian unifying war against the Germans of Austria
saw the seizure of Venice and Lombardy into the first-time
unified Italian state since the Roman Empire.

A rough map of the Napoleonic Empire. The pink hue denotes
states either allied with Napoleon or nearly in submission.
(click to enlarge)
Today, the city is virtually
as it was at its peak. "Old Venice" is an island
reached exclusively by either a near-suffocating and claustrophobic
public transportation ferry or for nearly 60 Euros on a private
boat ride that only requires some 15 minutes. The mainland
of Venice is generally modern expansion from after unification.
The Old City remains a historical and visual jewel, though
post-WWII immigration by West African black Muslims and Arabs
has caused an explosion in graffiti, drug use, crime, illegal
product sale, and theft, as the local Italians protest with
anger and irritation towards this unworkable integration.
A trip on a gondola boat can reveal a massive 600-year-old
church on one side of the canal and massive spray-painted
Arabic-script graffiti on the other. As is famous in the Italian
canal cities, the water is a shade of unclean brown, reeks
intensely in parts, and is rife with trash, cigarette butts,
and broken planks of wood. Locals and especially boatmen freely
dispose of trash and discarded cigarettes into the canal waters.
The Old City is extremely dense and crowded with foreigners
on vacation, generally from the United States, and in some
portions of the city movement even becomes constrained or
impossible at all times of the day. The exclusivity of the
city is exploited with great wisdom, as leather bags sold
in the Old City may cost twice as much as on the mainland
probably to pay the high rent of the small island. In the
few hotels that monopolize the island, food and alcohol are
price-gouged several thousand percent above their worth; a
single shot of a nice Vodka like France's lovely Grey Goose
may cost some 18 Euros or more (more than $20USD per shot).
English is commonly spoken by nearly all of the inhabitants
in Venice due to the expectation of tourism from England and
America.

My photo of the traditional Venetian housing style. (click
to enlarge)

My photo of a house covered in full gold leaf mosaics. (click
to enlarge)

My photo of another set of wealthy homes on the canal shore.
(click to enlarge)

My photo of a massive glorious church undergoing reconstruction.
(click to enlarge)

My photo of the intricate carvings and etchings on a Venetian
church.
The investment opportunity
in Venice for tourism makes it such that businesses in this
tiny city are often owned by immigrants from India and primarily
Asians from China or Korea. They tend to speak Italian and
even English fluently in their thriving family-owned businesses.
The low employment cost of these Asian family businesses allow
their restaurants to offer very low prices by comparison to
other businesses in the old town. Though most people walking
in Venice are non-Italian tourists, most of the native residents
remain homogeneously Italian by great majority. This money-making
potential also brings Venice's greatest social concern: a
growing presence of West African black immigrants who are
not citizens, do not live in Venice's old towns, do not speak
Italian nor English (generally Senegalese Wolof and native
Nigerian dialects), do not own stores nor business licenses,
and contribute to most of the city's abhorant graffiti and
theft (so the local Italians say angrily). The cobblestone
city streets of Venice (void of cars once again) reveal a
large number of black immigrants with large bags filled to
the brim with goods: generally toys, leather bags and purses,
and clothing. They arrive via the crowded public transportation,
and, despite being virtually homeless and rife with poverty,
are somehow able to offer anywhere from 10-50 leather purses
for sale to the tourists. Many of these if not all are stolen
from locals or from businesses, and many more are fraudulently
sold at high prices to foreigners from the United States.
At many times of the day, more than a dozen blacks can be
seen running speedily through the city's corridors with plastic
bags holding their wares. This is often due to the need for
these non-resident immigrants to rush to the ferry to return
to the mainland where they live, but is also because the Italian
police often expel them from public areas for cooperative
group harassment, theft, and impediment of the thoroughfare.
This interesting phenomenon of unlicensed immigrant sale of
goods -- along with what is perceived as their graffiti, crime,
and theft -- remains Venice's biggest social problem and irritant,
especially as the incredibly high rent and cost of living
on the island is exploited by those well below the poverty
line and entirely unable to speak Italian or English. The
social rift brought by post-WWII immigration make it blatant
that this coastal trade city was once a virtual utopia some
200 years ago, but is today socially in grave calamity and
decline due to this immigration and their disproportionate
involvement in crime and graffiti that have ruined this once-great
city. Major Italian cities with large immigrant populations
have a heavy presence of Communist youths not simply as a
political idea but as a source of actual militant assaults
on the native Italians, the wealthy elite, and the police.
In Bologna, the immigrant-dominated Communist movement has
left several police, citizens, and schoolteachers dead, and
nearly every single wall in the city is covered in Communist
graffiti. In Venice too, Communist hammers and sickles can
be seen near ghettos and poor areas next to graffiti with
words like "liberty", "freedom", "f*ck
racism", "f*ck Fascists", etc. In some areas
entire abandoned buildings can be seen spray painted from
top to bottom with murals of Vladimir Lenin and Che Guevara
to act as "headquarters" for youth gangs. Though
some of their adherents are ethnic Italian, most of the local
Italian citizens who are furious over the growth in graffiti
and Communism blame it on the poor and uneducated immigrants
from black West Africa and Arabia. Contrary to popular opinion,
immigrants from the Middle East tend to be employed except
from refugee areas. Africa is, of course, a very different
story. As is apparent in the graffiti words written above,
Communist youth rebel movements (often militant and violent)
are a social response of those not tolerated and poor; i.e.,
the non-Italian immigrant community by majority. This social
and ethnic clash is keenly noticed by the native Italian citizens.

My photo of a Muslim immigrant in Venice, a major problem
in Italy due to the incompatibility of the two cultures. (click
to enlarge)

My photo of a group of black immigrant street peddlers. They
are often expelled or arrested by the police for theft, illegal
unlicensed sale, graffiti, and crime.
The romanticized heritage
of the Venetian Italians as poets, merchants, artists, chefs,
and the pinnacle of a romantic loving experience is embraced
here in Venice. Gondola sampan boats offer cheese, wine, gold-leaf
rims and decorations, and singing. As with the rest of Venice,
price gouging is practically a virtue; a boat ride for some
15 minutes can cost nearly 100 Euros. The local red wine,
like most Italian wine bought in Italy (their exports are
reputedly poor by comparison with those endemic), is quite
rich and refined. Dozens of painters offer artwork of the
glorious city for sale in the oil and watercolor mediums,
as the memory of the lovely canal city is one to seldom stale
in the minds of its visitors. Medieval armor, guns, swords,
medieval clothing, hand-sewn rugs, and other goods are sold
in exploitation of the city's medieval heritage. The long
history of Venice -- combined with the density being so intense
that expansion is nearly impossible -- causes a great number
of the buildings to be on the verge of collapse. Some buildings
are supported by large inflated buoys or buoyant to prevent
collapse into the canals. Many buildings have large steel
beams outside them supporting the foundations. Some buildings
even have massive frescoes and mosaics of gold-leaf with Biblical
scenes on their exteriors directly facing the canal waters.
The city is, like much of Italy, sinking. Boats are required
to drive slowly to prevent waters from splashing up onto the
many buildings, restaurants, and locals standing at the shores.
Many buildings are being restored to prevent this collapse
and entropy of time. Subsidence and water damage make it such
that in one building, windows tilt blatantly in different
directions than the other. A tour of the city is truly akin
to a step back in time.
Though the old city of Venice
is rich in palaces, Catholic churches, monasteries, clocktowers,
lighthouses, castles, and markets, the world-famous St. Mark's
Square, St. Mark's Basilica, and the Doge's Palace are the
most famous the city has to offer. St. Mark is the patron
saint of the nation (now city) of Venice. A short walk through
the city's many corridors opens into a massive courtyard filled
with hundreds of thousands of pigeons in the square. These
pigeons even climb on the arms of many tourists, a rather
unclean affair. Restaurants and outside eating are also present
right in the pigeon-infested courtyard. Tourists walking in
the square may even be hit by pigeons flying by several times
in a day. In the square stands a massive obelisk with Latin,
etchings thereupon, statues, stone carvings, copper plating,
and a solid-gold leaf cross atop. In the center of the courtyard
stands one of the greatest buildings ever built in world history:
St. Mark's Basilica. The cathedral was believed to originally
house the corpse of St. Mark the Evangelist (who died during
Jesus' time). His remains, burnt in a fire in 976, are housed
in an altar in the main area of the church. This massive church
that in its exterior appears bizarrely unique (in the Byzantine
style, even Slavic-looking) and stout offers lines and crowds
that stretch multiple miles around the square at midday. As
Italians are a Catholic ethnicity, the basilica is one of
the greatest testaments of the Catholic faith the world over.
Women must wear veils or headscarves, and must cover their
shoulders. Men must cover their shoulders and remove head
coverings such as hats. This conservative tradition is strictly
enforced, and headscarves may be bought inside the church.
Visitors in the church may only stay for a short period. Entering
into this glorious cathedral reveals that this is not simply
a unique religious temple, but rather one of the greatest
buildings in the world; it rivals the basilica of the Vatican,
the Hagia Sophia, and all the cathedrals of Europe with ease.
Nearly every inch of this massive church, whose interior raises
hundreds of feet in the air, is covered entirely in fresco
or mosaic of solid gold, gem, marble, stone, jewel, and even
diamond. The exterior arches along with the five domes and
their crosses, too, are covered in solid gold leaf. The value
of this single building is easily in the billions, indeed
a gem of all time. Each wall therein offers glorious and radiant
depictions of Biblical scenes, of saints, of popes, of John
the Baptist, of Jesus, of the sacrifice of Abraham's son Isaac
(or, as Muslims demand, Ishmail), leaders of the city, and
other sequences. The seemingly endless historical wealth of
the Venetians allows this church to be such a testament to
their endurance and prestige. The foundations of the church
were built as early as the 11th century, though the glory
of the cathedral did not reach its modern grace until centuries
later when Venice grew into importance. No photography is
allowed therein, therefore only the exterior can be shown
below of the EHA's production other than by church authorities.
This is an effort to prevent the decay and entropy of the
building's treasures. This is the main church of the region's
Catholic spiritual authority, and one of the centers of Europe's
historical Catholicism excluding the the influence of the
Papal States.

My photo of St. Mark's Square with the obelisk and the basilica
in the background. (click to enlarge)

My photo of St. Mark's Basilica, one of the greatest structures
ever built. (click to enlarge)

My photo of the interior archways of the basilica. Pure gold
mosaics. (click to enlarge)

Photo of the interior by an authorized photographer. (click
to enlarge)

A photo of the main archway in the interior. (from sights-and-culture.com)

An interior dome; its glory cannot be shown sufficiently.
(click to enlarge)
Connected to the church is
the famous Doge's Palace, the royal house of the elected duke-king
of the Venetian "Republic". This is a famous and
majestic building that epitomizes the Venetian style, though
its archways are reminiscent of the Islamic architectural
style of Alhambra (ألحمابرأ) in Spain when it was conquered
by the Jihad of Islam in the 8th century. The structure of
the Doge's Palace was built from 9th century foundations from
the 13th onward in white and pink Veronese marble in the design
style of loggias and arcades of Istrian stone, giving it a
shimmering white glow of cleanliness and virginity that survives
today (in contrast with other structures in the square which
are literally black with dirt). Inside the palace are a variety
of massive maps, globes of gold, huge corridors and hallways
with statues, cherrywood, and original furniture made of ivory
and gold. Even an original torture chamber can be entered,
used by the doge's guards to quell the city from crime or
spies. Many of the glorious paintings in this palace were
stolen by Napoleon, and many of his generals used this great
palace when staying in Venice for their expansion into German
Austria and other Italian city-states. Venice offers the ability
to experience the pinnacle of the Catholic world, the glorious
wealth of this once-mighty trading empire, the heart of the
Italian world, and the abundant history this volatile region
has experienced for the last 1,000 years.

My photo of the Doge's Palace at right and the basilica of
St. Mark in the center. (click to enlarge)

A glorious building that is part of the Doge's Palace with
a beautiful clock at center. (click to enlarge)

A view from the canals of the main square with the palace
at right. (from sights-and-culture.com)

A photo of a main room in the Doge's Palace.

Another interior of the Doge's Palace.
________________________________________
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
James Mayfield is the owner
and Chairman of the European Heritage Library. I am working
for a doctorate in history, with a specific emphasis on Islamic
and European histories. I am well versed in all world cultures,
ethnicities, religions, languages, politics, and historical
evolution in relation to and against each other.
BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES
USED:
Personal observations, photographs.
When known, the owners of
non-EHL images are written below the images.
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