Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Arts
By the 13th century, Venice had already accomplished the impossible: building a
maritime empire on a shallow lagoon, with trading-houses and palaces rising
majestically from mud banks. But its dominance didn't last. Plague repeatedly decim-
ated the city in the 14th century, new trade routes to the New World bypassed Venice
and its tax collectors, and the Ottoman Empire dominated the Adriatic by the middle
of the 15th century. Yet when Venice could no longer prevail by wealth or force, it tri-
umphed with new forms of art, music, theatre and poetry.
