It’s every couple’s and Instagram influencer’s dream destination: Venice, Italy.
The stunning architecture, incredible food, the picturesque gondolas on the canals.
The “Floating City” on the water captivates the world’s imagination.
But of the millions of tourists that crowd Venice every year, how many stop and think,
“wait...why build a city on the water to begin with?”
Wouldn’t something like…[pause]...I don’t know, land [emphasis] be a better option?
That’s an excellent question, and one our team of experts and researchers immediately
set out to answer.
Picture this: It’s the 5th century AD, and the Western Roman Empire has just epically
fallen, all while the Byzantine Empire firmly keeps its Airpods in, refusing to hear Rome’s
cries for help.
To be fair to the Byzantines, centuries of lead consumption via the drinking water was
never gonna end well for Rome.
With the empire’s defenses and army destroyed and disbanded, the path is open for invading
forces to work their way across Italy.
Numerous barbarian armies, including the famed forces of Attila the Hun, attack the major
Italian cities.
Even though the Veneti people still technically belong to the Eastern Roman Empire, they’re
right on the border, and their distance from the capital makes it hard for Constantinople
to defend them.
In the midst of this chaos, the future of a little chain of nearby marshy islands is
about to change forever..
The group of 118 or 124 islands - sources differ on the exact number - that existed
where present-day Venice now sits were thought of as little more than small plots of useless
soil in marshland.
A few poor fishermen lived there, and almost no one else.
On the mainland however, along the coast across from these islands, lived a Celtic group known
as the Veneti.
The first foreign attack comes from the Visigoths, in the early 5th century.
As the Visigoths approach the city on foot and horseback, terrifying the population,
the residents have a lightbulb moment: an army of horses and men can’t cross the water.
Thus, the Veneti pack up their things into boats and move across the Canal del Giudecca,
which separates the island chain from the mainland, to the marsh they had so looked
down on before.
Specifically, they settle on the sandy stretches of Torcello, Iesolo, and Malamocco.
In 421 AD, the Veneti officially establish a city on the island, which they call, unimaginatively,
Venice, or Venezia [pronounced Ve-ne-tsi-a] in Italian, or Venessia in Venetian, because
each town, street, and house in Italy has its own dialect.
Some mainland residents hold out, preferring to face the onslaught of repeated military
campaigns against them instead of abandoning their homes and relocating to a marsh.
Like the usual Florida residents on the news who refuse to leave their living room while
a hurricane is barreling towards them, their stubbornness is somewhat admirable, but also
turns out to be a very bad idea.
Then, after an attack by one of the most famous and feared generals of all time, Attila the
Hun, followed by repeated threats from Franks and Turks, most residents end up deciding
that maybe fleeing across the water isn’t such a bad idea.
However, this sudden influx of people to a place that had previously housed just a handful
of fishermen overwhelmed and overcrowded the small Venetian islands, much like most photo-snapping
tourists do today.
That’s when the Veneti came up with a solution.
In order to expand and solidify the city, they would dig up and construct canals, and
build Venice…on the water itself.
This would create more space, but it also meant that they would have to build incredibly
strong foundations in order to support the weight of an entire city.
And, in a move that would make Venice the iconic city it is today, they would have to
create canals rather than roads.
The first step was to dig the canals and make sure they held their shape.
Without modern machinery, the digging was a long, painstaking process.
In order to make sure their work wasn’t immediately destroyed, as soon as builders
carved out the canals, they hammered in closely stacked stakes on the sides of the waterways.
This stopped water from seeping back into the dirt walls and stopped the dirt walls
from falling down.
Here, the Veneti also got a little lucky.
The wood they used for the stakes was alder wood, which is mostly water-resistant.
In addition, the bottom of the canals had a layer of solid clay, which helped the waterways
naturally keep their shape, and helped hold the stakes in place.
All the builders had to do is drive the stakes through the top layers of mud and sand to
get to the solid clay bottom.
The locals then needed some kind of platform on which to place the city’s buildings.
Surprisingly, the settlers decided the best material to use for the platforms was wood.
They built wooden platforms on top of which they would place stone to serve as the new
buildings’ foundations.
This is where they ran into problem number two.
Being a marshland, Venice didn’t have much in the way of forests and trees.
So, the Venetians started importing wood from Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, and other nearby
destinations accessible by ship.
One would think that a city built on wood, moreover, wood submerged in water, would quickly
devolve into an Atlantis-like situation.
However, this is where, once again, for every seeming setback they had, the Venetians also
managed to get lucky.
Wood usually rots because of a combination of oxygen, moisture, and fungi.
However, the water in Venice is saltwater.
This means, not only is it almost completely deprived of oxygen; it also doesn’t allow
the microorganisms which would induce rotting – most of which are found in freshwater
– to form.
Because the wood in Venice is constantly submerged and never really comes into contact with oxygen,
it also prevents rotting.
After 1500 years, we can confidently say the wood has held out pretty well so far and managed
to avoid collapsing.
In fact, the silt and salt in the canal waters have had a bit of an opposite effect.
Thanks to these small particles interacting with Venice’s foundations over centuries,
the wood has ossified into the density and consistency of stone over time.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as the rest of Europe lived through endless
wars and invasions, Venice was allowed to prosper in a way few could have imagined when
they first settled on the small islands.
The city’s location, isolated from mainland Italy, protected it from many potentially
destructive attacks, and furthermore, encouraged the region’s independence as well as the
development of a massive naval force, mostly used for commerce.
While Venice was initially overseen by the Exarch of Ravenna, appointed by the Byzantine
Empire, the city was connected to Ravenna only by a shipping route, and increasingly
sought autonomy.
Venice elected its first “doge” – the Doge’s Palace remains one of the city’s
main attractions today – in 697, Paolo Lucio Anafesto.
“Doge” meant “leader” in the Venetian dialect.
After a Lombard King conquered Ravenna in 751, but left Venice untouched, the city became
almost fully autonomous; at this point, it was a Byzantine territory in name only.
Constantinople had almost no real control over the Venetian region; thus, by the 9th
century, Venice would become its own city-state.
At its peak, Venice had acquired multiple territories on the eastern Adriatic coast,
many Greek islands, including Crete, and the entire territory of Cyprus.
However, this was more for commercial rather than military reasons.
Venetians were merchants, first and foremost.
Their primary goal was to establish and maintain peaceful trade routes throughout the Adriatic
and Mediterranean region.
Wherever they encountered pirates, such as in the aforementioned territories, they would
take over in order to secure those particular trade routes and drive the pirates out.
It was at this point of Venice’s power that none other than Charlemagne himself decided
to invade the jewel of the Adriatic.
His son, Pepin of Italy, laid siege to the city of Venice.
This would turn out to be a horrendously expensive and embarrassing mistake.
For six months, while Venetians curiously looked on Pepin’s adorable attempts at a
siege while going about their daily lives, Pepin’s forces were completely subdued by
the diseases found in the local marshes.
Presumably, the local Venetians had learned to prevent, treat them, or had adapted to
them, and were relatively unaffected.
In 810 AD, with his army devastated by swampland and no sign of anything approximating surrender
from Venice, Pepin tucked his tail between his legs and headed home.
After countless effortless victories against outside invaders, plus multiple trade routes
and territorial acquisitions, Venice became one of the most prosperous city-states in
Europe.
However, starting in 1453, when the Ottoman Empire defeated the Byzantine Empire and seized
most of Venice’s lands, the city started to decline from its former heights, though
it continued to maintain some level of influence and importance, as even in the mid-1500s,
the city’s population numbered 170,000.
Most of Venice’s meteoric rise and development would have been almost impossible without
the benefit of the city’s unique construction and location, which enabled it to avoid too
much unwanted interference from the outside world.
However, in an ironic turn of events – feel free to argue in the comments about whether
this is the correct use of “ironic” or not – the source of Venice’s rise and
prosperity may prove to be the source of its downfall.
Today, Venice does quite well for itself as one of the most sought-after tourist destinations
in the world.
However, there is a very real danger that the “Floating City” is quickly becoming
the “Sinking City”.
In the last century, scientists estimate that Venice has sunk by nine inches.
This may not seem like a lot - talking about the sea level, gentlemen - but for a city
built on the water, it’s concerning.
The problem has partly existed from the start.
The weight of the city always has, and now continues to push the foundations downwards
into the ground, submerging the city little by little.
However, other factors have compounded the city’s submersion.
One was the genius idea in the 1960s to drill artisanal wells in order to gain better access
to drinking water, which has historically been a problem for this saltwater-surrounded
area.
Engineers drilled way past the wooden piles the city rested on into the hard clay bottom
of the canals.
This weakened the structural integrity and stability of the wood, which had the effect
of making the city sink even faster.
Once they realized the problems the wells were causing, they stopped drilling immediately.
Wells are now banned in Venice.
However, the damage was already done.
In addition, the buildings lining the canals themselves are being affected by the startling
increase in water traffic.
The amount of motorized traffic in the Venetian canals has almost doubled in the last ten
years alone.
The massive increase in tourism has been a big driver of that traffic.
Though the greater Venice area is home to around 262,000 people, the historic city of
Venice which sits on the water is home to only around 60,000.
And yet in 2019, the famous city recorded 4.78 million inbound tourists.
That’s almost 80 times [emphasis] the Venetian population!
Lastly, the big problem putting Venice on high alert is something most of the world
is also worried about: climate change.
Though Venice has slowly been sinking for centuries, the accelerating rise in sea levels
threatens to make the city unlivable much sooner than previously thought.
In addition, anyone who has spent a number of days in Venice can attest to the city’s
propensity to unexpectedly become a wading pool at times.
Especially in the winter, strong winds and storm surges cause flooding throughout the
city, a phenomenon known as aqua alta – or, high water.
However, climate change has affected weather patterns and increased the sea level, which
has led to much more frequent flooding throughout the year, damaging and eroding the city at
a much faster rate.
Some scientists and engineers have proposed possible solutions to prevent Venice from
being lost to the sea.
One of these is called the Mo.S.E. – the acronym for Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico
– an ambitious project that involves the construction of 79 mobile floodgates.
When the tide rises more than one meter - approximately 3.3 feet - above the high-water mark, these
floodgates will kick into operation and keep the Venetian lagoon separated from the Adriatic
sea.
Some have suggested even more extreme plans, such as stopping and reversing climate change
so hopefully there are still humans on Earth to worry about Venice sinking from the weight
of its structures.
However, this has been deemed an “unrealistic” goal by a whole lot of important people who
have, at best, 15 years left on this Earth.
Though we may not know Venice’s eventual fate, we know that this unique city was built
in the most ingenious of ways, and that it’s construction and location led it to thrive
and prosper for over a millennium.
Famous Russian writer Alexander Herzen had this to say about Venice: “To build a city
where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one
of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.”
Now that you’ve learned all about why humans in the 400s wanted to build a city on the
water, do you want to go see Venice - presumably before it sinks?
While you’re deciding on whether to book your ticket, you can keep watching more fun
videos by clicking here, or perhaps here instead!