This is the essay for the 16th week of the 7th Grade Ron Paul Curriculum. It’s about the history and culture of Venice.

Venice

The shortest essay i can give you about Venice is this. Venice is a city in Italy. But If you want a longer explanation here it is.

 

Nobody really knows when Venice was founded, but Venetian tradition tells us that the city was founded on March 25, 421 AD because that’s when the first church was dedicated to Venice. Venice was formed by Romans who were fleeing from the Huns and Germans. These Romans decided to build a city on 118 small islands. The city was connected with waterways. Due to Venice’s location, Venice was quite a special city. Instead of using trains or cars for transport, Venice has gondolas. Gondolas are flat-bottomed boats which are rowed in the waterways, by gondoliers.

Venice became such a good city that at one point Charlemagne wanted to capture it. What miraculous was that in Pepin’s siege of Venice the French lost and the Venetians won. Venice fought with many other countries, like the Byzantine Empire, Milan and Genoa, to name a few.

In 814 AD Venice was recognized as a territory of the Byzantine Empire. This gave Venice special trading rights. Even before this, Venice was a wealthy trading city. It was in the perfect trading place for mediterranean sea trade routes. Due to this Venice became a major trading hub.

Venice also popular for its art, music and architecture. The Venetian Gothic architecture had parts of Byzantine, Ottoman and Phoenician architecture blended in. Venice’s art was the strongest during the Renaissance. Venice made several improvements in art during the Renaissance, because of their focus on it. For example, using canvases in paintings was first done in Venice. The Venetians were also great at music, they had a few great musicians, like Antonio Vivaldi. In Venice, during the Renaissance, you could always hear somebody singing or playing an instrument. Venetians improved opera, church music and instrument music quite a lot.

Even with all these things Venice had even more secrets up its sleeves. Marco Polo the great traveler was born in Venice. Venice was one of the first places with a printing press and a publishing business. Venice also has a carnival called the Carnival of Venice one day before Ash Wednesday. If you don’t know when Ash Wednesday is, then the Carnival is on February 13th in 2018. The best part of the carnival is that there is a mask contest where the person with the best mask wins. The carnival has been held in Venice since the 12th century.

Due to all of these things, Venice is rich in culture and a very interesting and popular city. If you want to go to Italy someday, go to Venice!