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Venice

capital city of Veneto, Italy

81 dated entries naming Venice, drawn from 77 separate years between 300 CE and 2019 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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3rd century

  • 300The Tetrarchs are probably made in Egypt. After 330 they are moved to Constantinople and in 1204 they are installed at the corner of the facade of the St Mark's Basilica, Venice (approximate date).source

5th century

  • 421March 25 – Venice is founded at twelve o'clock noon (according to legend) with the dedication of the first church, San Giacomo, at the islet of Rialto (Italy).source
  • 452The city of Venice is founded by fugitives from Attila's army who flee to small islands in the Venetian Lagoon.source
  • 466A council of twelve townships emerges on the islands in the Venetian lagoon, to form a basic system of governance (approximate date).source

6th century

  • 551Gothic War: Narses arrives in Venetia and discovers that a powerful Gothic-Frank army (50,000 men), under joint command of the kings Totila and Theudebald, has blocked the principal route to the Po Valley. Not wishing to engage such a formidable force and confident that the Franks would avoid a direct confrontation, Narses skirts the lagoons along the Adriatic shore, by using vessels to leapfrog his army from point to point along the coast. In this way he arrives at the capital Ravenna without encountering any opposition. He attacks and crushes a small Gothic force at Ariminum (modern Rimini).source
  • 568Spring – The Lombards, led by King Alboin, cross the Julian Alps. Their invasion of Northern Italy is almost unopposed; withered Byzantine forces, that remain in the Po Valley and are based at Ravenna, are no match for the overwhelming Lombard incursion. Residents of the Italian countryside flee at the Lombards' approach. Some retreat to the barrier islands along the shore of the Northern Adriatic Sea, where they establish permanent settlements: the nascent city of Venice.source
  • 600Venice continues as an independent realm, having been built up from fishing villages and settled by fugitives.source

7th century

  • 639The First Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta is founded by the exarch Isaac of Ravenna on Torcello, confirming the island's importance as a centre of population in Venice at this date.source
  • 697Paolo Lucio Anafesto is elected the first Doge of Venice, which begins its rise as a major power in the Mediterranean Sea. Built up from fishing villages settled by fugitives from the Huns (see 452), the city of Venice occupies some 60 marshy islands (Venetian Lagoon).source

9th century

  • 803Emperors Nikephoros I and Charlemagne settle their imperial boundaries in the Adriatic Sea, and sign the Pax Nicephori ("Peace of Nikephoros"). The Byzantines retain control of the coastal cities and islands in Dalmatian Croatia, while Frankish rule is accepted over Istria and the Dalmatian hinterland. Venice is recognized as independent by the Byzantine Empire.source
  • 804Summer – Emperor Charlemagne finishes the conquest of Saxony. The Carolingian administration in the north is restored and the diocese of Bremen is re-established. Venice, torn by infighting, switches allegiance from Constantinople to King Pepin of Italy, son of Charlemagne.source
  • 810Spring – The Venetian dukes change sides again, submitting to King Pepin, under the authority of his father Charlemagne, who then proceeds to take Venice. Emperor Nikephoros I sends a Byzantine fleet to Dalmatia, prompting Pepin to withdraw to the mainland. A legate is dispatched to Venice, where he deposes the turncoat dukes, before continuing on to Aachen, to negotiate a peace with Charlemagne. Charlemagne recognises Byzantine dominance over Venice and Dalmatia in the Adriatic Sea.source
  • 812Emperor Michael I re-opens peace negotiations with the Franks, and recognizes Charlemagne as emperor (basileus) of the Frankish Empire. In exchange for this recognition, Venice is returned to the Byzantine Empire.source
  • 828Relics of Mark the Evangelist are stolen from Alexandria (controlled by the Abbasid Caliphate) by two Venetian merchants, and brought to Venice.source
  • 828Siege of Syracuse: The Muslims under Asad ibn al-Furat defeat a Byzantine relief army sent from Palermo, and backed by a Venetian fleet led by Giustiniano Participazio. Al-Furat decides to break off the siege at Syracuse, as his forces suffer greatly from lack of food. Later he dies during an outbreak of an epidemic.source
  • 832The second St. Mark's Basilica in Venice (replacing an older church at a different location) is built, and becomes one of the best known examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture.source

10th century

  • 991Pietro II Orseolo becomes the 26th Doge of Venice. Venice establishes a protectorate on the coast of the Dalmatian Islands.source

11th century

  • 1063Doge Domenico I orders the construction of the present building of St Mark's Basilica at Venice (approximate date).source
  • 1094October 8 – Doge Vitale Faliero consecrates the new Basilica of San Marco in Venice.source
  • 1100Genoa, Venice and Pisa gain trading privileges from the Crusader states, in return for their service during the conquest of the coastal cities.source

12th century

  • 1104The Venetian Arsenal is founded in Venice.source
  • 1122August 8 – A Venetian fleet under Doge Domenico Michiel with well over a hundred ships sets sail from Venice, carrying an army of around 15,000 men and siege-material on the Venetian Crusade. The fleet departs for Palestine – but the Venetians pause to attack Corfu (this in retaliation for the refusal of John II to renew exclusive trading privileges). For six months, throughout the winter of 1122–23, the Venetians lay siege to the Byzantine island.source
  • 1171September – Doge Vitale II Michiel leads a Venetian fleet (120 ships) against the Byzantines, conquering the cities of Trogir and Dubrovnik. But the plague takes a heavy toll among the fleet's crewmen; half the ships have to be burned to keep them from falling into enemy hands. A plague also breaks out in Venice, when the remaining ships return.source
  • 1172May 28 – Doge Vitale II Michiel, accused at a General Assembly at the Ducal Palace, for the destruction of the Venetian fleet, is stabbed to death by an angry mob at Venice.source

13th century

  • 1250The Rialto Bridge in Venice (in modern-day Italy) is converted from a pontoon bridge to a permanent, raised wooden structure.source
  • 1254Doge Reniero Zeno sends the Horses of Saint Mark, looted from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, to Venice, where they are installed on the terrace of the façade of St. Mark's Basilica.source
  • 1266June 23 – Battle of Trapani: The Venetian fleet (24 galleys) led by Admiral Jacopo Dondulo moves to Marsala and attacks the larger Genoese fleet anchored at Trapani, capturing all its ships. Some 1,200 Genoese drown and many are killed. Dondulo is acclaimed a hero on his return to Venice in July and elected as Captain General of the Sea, Venice's highest naval command position.source
  • 1268The carnival in Venice is first recorded.source
  • 1271The 17-year-old Marco Polo departs from Venice with his father and uncle Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, to set off for Asia to meet the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan (the grandson of Genghis Khan) at his court in Beijing, China. They sail across the Mediterranean Sea and travel overland, crossing Armenia, Persia and the Pamir Mountains.source
  • 1291Venetian glass manufacture is concentrated on the island of Murano (located in the Venetian Lagoon), to prevent fires in Venice itself.source
  • 1295Marco Polo returns to Venice after 24 years of travel in China. When the Polos arrive, Venice is engaged in a naval war with the rival city of Genoa. Marco joins the war and arms a galley equipped with a trebuchet.source

14th century

  • 1328May 12 – Antipope Nicholas V is consecrated at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome by the bishop of Venice.source
  • 1355April 18 – In Venice, the Council of Ten beheads Doge Marin Falier, for conspiring to kill them.source
  • 1369Venice repels a Hungarian invasion.source
  • 1380January 1 – The Republic of Venice's Admiral Carlo Zeno returns to Venice with 18 ships, after the city is on the verge of falling to conquest by the Republic of Genoa.source

15th century

  • 1422On the Italian Peninsula, Venice has a population of 84,000, of which 200 men rule the city, while Florence has a population of 40,000, of which 600 men rule the city.source
  • 1448October 4 – Peace between Albania and Venice is established, bringing an end to the Albanian–Venetian War.source
  • 1454August 30 – The Italic League is concluded in Venice as an alliance between the Republic of Venice, the Papal States, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Florence, and the Kingdom of Naples.source
  • 1487March – Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, largely on the poor advice of his counselors, declares war on Venice, and seizes silver mines in and around the Sugana Valley.source
  • 1490Aldus Manutius moves to Venice.source
  • 1494November 10 – Fra Luca Pacioli's Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità is published in Venice, containing the first printed account of algebra in the vernacular, and the first published description of the double-entry accounting system.source
  • 1496February – Pietro Bembo's Petri Bembi de Aetna Angelum Chalabrilem liber, a description of a journey to Mount Etna, is published in Venice by Aldus Manutius, the first book printed in the old-style serif or humanist typeface cut by Francesco Griffo (known from the 20th century as Bembo) and with early adoption of the semicolon (dated 1495 according to the more veneto).source
  • 1496February 24 – King Henry VII of England signs the commercial treaty Intercursus Magnus with Venice, Florence, and the cities of the Hanseatic League and the Netherlands.source
  • 1496January 1 – In Venice, historian Marino Sanuto begins the first volume of I Diarii, a diary of the events in his own life and, more importantly, a daily record of events in the Republic of Venice and those reported to him by Venetian representatives in other parts of Europe. What is now described as "probably the largest, most comprehensive, and valuable ever written by one man",he continues his daily work for more than 37 years, ending in June 30, 1533.source
  • 1499October 26 – King Louis XII of France and his troops seize Milan, driving out Duke Ludovico Sforza, and Leonardo da Vinci flees to Venice.source

16th century

  • 1501Italic type (cut by Francesco Griffo) is first used by Aldus Manutius at the Aldine Press in Venice, in an edition of Virgil.source
  • 1501May 15 – Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, the first printed collection of polyphonic music, is published by Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice.source
  • 1507October 26 – Alvise I Mocenigo, Doge of Venice (d. 1577)source
  • 1509April 17 – In Venice, the envoy of the French king Louis XII delivers the declaration of war to the Venetian doge Leonardo Loredan, thus marking the official beginning of the War of the League of Cambrai.source
  • 1514January 10 – A great fire breaks out, in the Rialto of Venice.source
  • 1518May 19 – In Venice, Renaissance artist Tiziano Vecellio, known as "Titian", unveils his painting Assumption of the Virgin, to the public.source
  • 1570Andrea Palladio publishes I quattro libri dell'architettura in Venice.source
  • 1575The bubonic plague decimates Venice.source
  • 1591The Rialto Bridge in Venice, designed by Antonio da Ponte, is completed.source

17th century

  • 1616November 16 – Marco Antonio de Dominis, Roman Catholic Archbishop of the See of Spalato and Primate of Dalmatia, having run afoul of Pope Paul V over secular matters relating to Venice, submits to King James I of England and later becomes Dean of Windsor.source
  • 1617November 17 – A naval battle between the Sicilians and Venetians ends inconclusively.source
  • 1623February 7 – France, Savoy and Venice sign the Treaty of Paris, agreeing to cooperate in removing Spanish forces from the strategic Alpine pass of Valtelline.source
  • 1630July – The Italian plague of 1629–31 reaches Venice.source
  • 1631November 21 – In Venice, a special mass celebrates the end of the two years of bubonic plague that had killed thousands of people.source
  • 1637March 6 – The world's first opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, opens in Venice with the premiere of L'Andromeda, with music by Francesco Manelli and libretto by Benedetto Ferrari.source
  • 1640The first known European coffeehouse perhaps opens in Venice.source
  • 1681The basilica of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, designed by Baldassare Longhena in 1631, is dedicated.source
  • 1683February 7 – The opera Giustino by Giovanni Legrenzi and about the life of the Byzantine Emperor Justin, premieres in Venice.source
  • 1684March 5 – Pope Innocent XI forms a Holy League with the Habsburg Empire, Venice and Poland, to end Ottoman Turkish rule in Europe.source

18th century

  • 1709December 26 – The first performance of the opera Agrippina by George Frideric Handel takes place at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice.source
  • 1711January 24 – The first performance of Francesco Gasparini's most famous opera Tamerlano takes place at the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice.source
  • 1717October 16 – Antonio Vivaldi's opera Tieteberga is performed for the first time, premiering at the Teatro San Moisè in Venicesource
  • 1720Il teatro alla moda, a satirical pamphlet by Benedetto Marcello, is published anonymously in Venice.source
  • 1752March 18 – The electors of the Republic of Venice (which includes not only a large part of northern Italy around the city of Venice, but portions of Eastern Europe along the Adriatic Sea) elect Francesco Loredan as their new executive, the Doge. Loredan's election comes 11 days after the death of the previous Doge, Pietro Grimani, but is not announced until after Easter Sunday.source
  • 1797May 12 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon Bonaparte conquers Venice, ending the city and Republic of Venice's 1,100 years of independence. The last doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, steps down. The Venetian Ghetto is thrown open.source
  • 1799November 30 – 1799–1800 Papal conclave opens in Venice at San Giorgio Monastery.source

19th century

  • 1846January 13 – The Milan–Venice railway's 3.2 km mi bridge, over the Venetian Lagoon between Mestre and Venice in Italy, opens, the world's longest since 1151.source
  • 1848March 22 – The Republic of San Marco comes into existence in Venice.source
  • 1849July 15 – The first airstrike in history: Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice.source
  • 1851March 11 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto is first performed at La Fenice in Venice.source

20th century

  • 1902July 14 – St Mark's Campanile in Venice collapses.source
  • 1954September 14 – English composer Benjamin Britten's chamber opera version of The Turn of the Screw receives its world premiere, at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Italy.source
  • 1957November 13 – Flooding in the Po Valley of Italy leads to flooding also in Venice.source
  • 1966November 4 – 1966 flood of the Arno river in Italy hits Florence, flooding it to a maximum depth of 6.7 m ft, leaving thousands homeless and destroying millions of masterpieces of art and rare books. In addition, a severe tidal flood hits Venice.source
  • 1975November 11 – The first annual Vogalonga rowing "race" is held in Venice, Italy.source

21st century

  • 2019November 14 – Italy declares a state of emergency in Venice following record flooding.source

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