About Venice
Venice is a 1500-year old city on the edge of the Adriatic Sea, in northern Italy. Its history has been full and colorful, and Venice is known throughout the world for its unique character and circumstances.
Founded out of the weeds by those escaping the barbarian hordes on the Italian mainland, Venice humbly began its existence as a collection of wooden huts on islands in the Venetian lagoon. The early Venetians, finding that they had to flee in increasing frequency to their temporary lodgings, began constructing more permanent shelter on the islands.
Over time, communities evolved on each of the inhabited islands, each with its own church, fields (campi) for producing food, and organizational structure. As land became scarce, island borders were expanded.
Inevitably, islands that had once been separated by significant channels grew closer together until it was practical (and convenient) to build bridges between them. Venice began to take on its modern shape, with the bodies of water that once separated islands shrinking into mere canals, some wide enough only for a single vessel to pass at a time.
Individual islands, having existed as somewhat isolated communities for lengthy periods of time before amalgamating into modern Venice, developed their own cultures and traditions. Each would have had its own church (hence the seemingly excessive number of churches in modern Venice), its own patrician families, and its own folklore.