El final de la Serenísima

At the end of the 18th century, Venice was a city that seemed to exist outside of time. Those who arrived there beheld the same silhouette of domes and bell towers that Renaissance travelers had described. The palaces still stood, gondolas thronged the canals, and the Lion of Saint Mark presided over every corner. The Venetians cultivated the myth of a Republic with over a thousand years of uninterrupted independence, which, unlike other Italian principalities, remained stable. This splendid facade concealed a long decline. Trade was no longer as important as it had been in the past. Atlantic powers such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and England had long since replaced Venetian docks as the ports of entry for goods from the East. The arsenal languished, and the merchant fleet had shrunk to a fraction of its former size. The city thrived on aristocratic tourism from the Grand Tour, carnival, gambling, the arts, and whatever it could extract from its Italian territories. All the intellectuals who frequented the city agreed that it was a republic in decline. The Venetian political system was extraordinarily sophisticated. The Doge, its most visible figure, was an elected monarch, but his powers were severely limited by a series of councils that kept watch over one another. The Great Council, or "Maggior Consiglio," comprised the patricians registered in the Golden Book; the Senate handled foreign policy; and the feared Council of Ten, along with the Three State Inquisitors, controlled the republic. But this system had led to paralyzing rigidity. No one wanted to challenge their vested interests, so any reform was unthinkable. When the French Revolution erupted, the Venetian patriciate reacted with its usual caution, trusting in the neutrality that had saved them throughout the century. It was a colossal mistake. The Revolution bore no resemblance to anything that had come before. Revolutionary France was everything the Most Serene Republic stood for, and that is what they failed to see. In 1796, the Directory sent Napoleon Bonaparte, a young and ambitious general, to the Italian front. He spoke Italian, knew the terrain, and immediately grasped the strategic value of the Terraferma, the Venetian territories in northern Italy. The Republic allowed Napoleon to station troops there in the war against Austria, hoping it would be short-lived. But the French had other plans. They occupied the cities of the Terraferma and began to exploit them, spreading revolutionary rhetoric. Brescia and Bergamo revolted in March 1797. In April, a revolt broke out in Verona against the French army. This, coupled with an attack on a French ship at the Lido, gave Napoleon the pretext to intervene. He sent an ultimatum to the Council: either they abolished the Republic as it had existed until then, or he would occupy the city by force. The Council chose the former, but that did not prevent the occupation. The last Doge, Ludovico Manin, removed his ducal horn, and the French entered on May 15th without firing a single shot. They then looted the city's riches and took them to Paris. The Most Serene Republic had ceased to exist, but not the city, which remains, as it has for more than two centuries, suspended in time. In The Counter Seal: 0:00 Introduction 3:43 The End of the Most Serene Republic 1:19:37 Venezuela and Castro's Guerrilla War Bibliography: “History of Venice” by John Julius Norwich - https://amzn.to/3RAPUZV “Venice, City of Fortune” by Roger Crowley - https://amzn.to/4nR781n “Venice: A New History” by Thomas F. Madden - https://amzn.to/4dzGbf5 “The Republic of the Lion” by Alvise Zorzi - https://amzn.to/4u2CVOh · Telegram Channel: https://t.me/lacontracronica · “Against Pessimism”… https://amzn.to/4m1RX2R · “Hispanics: A Brief History of the Spanish-Speaking Peoples”… https://amzn.to/428js1G • “The Counter-History of Communism”… https://amzn.to/39QP2KE • “The Counter-History of Spain: Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of a Country in 28 Episodes”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i • “Against the French Revolution”… https://amzn.to/4aF0LpZ • “Luther, Calvin, and Trent: The Reformation That Never Was”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK Support La Contra on: • Patreon…   / diazvillanueva   • iVoox… https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-contrac... • Paypal… https://www.paypal.me/diazvillanueva #FernandoDiazVillanueva #Venice #Napoleon