A Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797

VENETIAN ARCHITECTURE

Deborah Howard

This city, amidst the billowing waves of the sea, stands on the crest of the

main, almost like a queen restraining its force. It is situated in salt water,

and built there, because before there were just lagoons, and then, wanting to

expand, firm ground was needed for the building of palaces and houses.1

Sited on a series of marshy islands in a shallow lagoon, Venice developed
unique architectural characteristics in direct response to the peculiar
needs of the amphibious terrain. Its architecture therefore reflects the
complex interaction of physical and human forces. After the inhabitation
of the first few islands of the archipelago before the year 1000, even the
land itself was mainly reclaimed artificially.2 Land for building was an
expensive, hard-won commodity, and the structures themselves were a
technological feat on the poorly consolidated sandy ground battered by
the tides. Through legislation and the constant monitoring of the size and
position of infills, the Republic had the power to determine the overall
shape of the city.3 This is the stage upon which the spectacle of the
Republic’s last four centuries was played out.

Architectural Fabric

The most eloquent source for the study of Venetian architecture of the
early modern period is the fabric of the city itself. Free from the impact
of traffic, Venice has changed far less than most of the historic cities of
Europe, at least in terms of its physical materiality. Many of the spaces
and structures depicted in Jacopo de’ Barbari’s huge bird’s-eye view of the

1 Marin Sanudo, De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis Venetae, ovvero la città di Venetia
(1493–1530), ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò (Milan, 1980; rev. edn, 2011), p. 20. Translation from
David Chambers and Brian Pullan, eds., Venice: A Documentary History (Oxford, 1992), p. 4.
2 Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, “Sopra le acque salse”: Espaces, Pouvoir et Société à Venise à
la fin du moyen âge, 2 vols (Rome, 1992); Wladimiro Dorigo, Venezia origini: Fondamenti,
ipotesi, metodi, 3 vols (Milan, 1993); idem, Venezia romanica: La formazione della città
medioevale fino all’età gotica, 2 vols + map folder (Verona/Venice, 2003).
3 Crouzet-Pavan, “Sopra le acque salse,” pp. 72–96; Richard J. Goy, Building Renaissance
Venice: Patrons, Architects and Builders, c.1430–1500 (New Haven/London, 2006), pp. 36–37.