Introduction:
Venice is located on a lagoon of the Adriatic in north-eastern of Italy, The city is built on 118 island disconnected by canals and linked by bridges. The city has portal trading between Greek and Turkey and one of the best tourist attraction cities in the world (2014 Oxford University Press).
In the early fifth century after the fallen of Roman Empire, Italy became vulnerable to attack by the Goths from the West and the Huns from the East. During this era there were several attacks by the invasion from the north across the Alps which drove refugees from surrounding town to migrate to a safer place. In the lagoons were a series of scattered island and sand bars where the invaders had no intention of attacking from the waters (Goy, 1999, P14).
The settlers managed to survive by trading fish and salt for water. Venice's location was lacking basic materials to create buildings, for example, the salty clay was not suitable to produce neither brick nor growing tree and the island did not have stones. Venice was first built using timber as a primary material for their houses both in substructure: hammering piles of wood into the ground for solid foundation; and superstructure: building houses with timber hut-like timber framed construction. Due to population growth brick became the main material of construction which was brought from nearby towns (Goy, 1999, P46-47).
Thereafter, architectural improved by using decorative solid material (some imported overseas). As a result Venice was created and evolved into one of the most astonishing cities in the world to be a unique showcase for its art and architecture.
In this essay I will be travelling back in time from mid sixth century to present Venice, waving through a var...
... middle of paper ...
...nice. London: Thames & Hudson.
DaMosto, F. (2010). Francesco's Venice. London: BBC Books.
Force, T.U.T. (2003). Towards an Urban Renaissance: Mission Statement. London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
French, H. (2006). New Urban Housing. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Goy, R. (1999). Venice: The City and Its Architecture. London: Phaidon Press.
Howard, D. (2000). Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Pullan, B. (1968). Chrisis and Change in the Venetian Economy. London: Methuen & Co Ltd.
Segantini, M.A. (2008). Contemporary Housing. Milano: Skira.
Media Reference DVD
Francesco's Venice, 2005. [DVD] Edward Bazalgette, Sam Hobkinson, United Kingdom: BBC Sam Hobkinson.
List of websites References: www.aviewoncities.com www.bbc.co.uk/news/world www.oxforddictionaries.com www.unesco.org
Many people today don’t stop to think about some of the basic city infrastructure we have in place today and where it originated. In more developed regions of the world, people are accustomed to running water, sewage systems, trash sites and other basic necessities required for comfortable, disease free living. In the late fourteenth century Milan was ravaged by the plague and almost one third of the city’s population was killed. During this time most of what’s considered a basic necessity for a well-built, disease free city was unheard of. Leonardo believed that the spread of the plague was due to the cramped design of the city. He began to design a city to prevent the future spread of such diseases.
Crivellari, Domenico, and Maria Da Villa Urbani, eds. Basilica di San Marco. Procuratoria di San Marco Venezia. 2003.
City officials found very few people alive on these ships when they ported Messina. Dead bodies littered the decks and the ships reeked of decaying flesh. On the deceased, they found large black swellings covering the bodies. These officials who inspected these ships feared that the disease that had slaughtered the sailors would spread to Messina. This fear led to the decree that no one, or any piece of merchandise was to leave the ships. They would not even allow the sick sailors to leave the ships or even get medical treatment. It is thought that the people of the ships, who we...
The Italian Renaissance is appropriately known as a period of such dynamic change within cultural innovations amongst European civilization that it is seen as a major turning point in European history. This age of rebirth abnormally broke the bonds of earlier cultural restraint and unleashed an outbreak of innovations that would forever change the course of history. Despite the common misunderstanding of the Italian Renaissance being a period of originality or of a reawakening of older cultures, it generated fundamental modernizations that accelerated growth in a vast number of forever impacting ways. Lasting from about 1350-1550, this age of modernized technology conveyed a sense of distinctive themes in art, which globalized the unification of a diverse culture. Within the Italian Renaissance, artistic innovations accelerated a new and centralized life and culture in Western European history.
Florence was the city of creativity and art with the greatest artists such as Michael Angelo, Leonardo DaVinci, Brunelleschi, Galileo and many others.
...ts of the Italian Renaissance." ThinkQuest : Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2011. .
Analysing in depth, the Renaissance period in architecture stamps the retrospective regain of compositional principals of classic architecture and a return to a more canonica...
Baxandall, Michael. “Conditions of Trade.” Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-century Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Baxandall, Michael. “Conditions of Trade.” Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-century Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
... it dispels all doubts about its greatness and converts former disbelievers to the truth” (27a). There are obviously many reasons why Florence is a wonderful city, but according to Pitti and Dati there is nothing about the city as amazing as Bruni makes it out to be. Bruni never truly speaks of the “combination of misfortunes--wars, internal upheavals, pestilence, famine--which seriously damaged the economy” (Brucker 13). Pitti and Dati were not writing for the sole reason of praising Florence, but they also do not go out of their way to mention its many qualities. Unfortunately, Bruni never writes directly about money or business, whereas most of what Pitti and Dati write about are only those subjects. Overall, Bruni offers a much different perspective of Florence in his Panegyric to the City of Florence, than the views Pitti and Dati offer in their diaries.
When walking around a city, you may notice that the architecture and art look similar to other works. Many of these designs have changed along the course of history and time whilst others have not. The designs that many people still see in society and day to day living is from two of the many cultures of the old civilizations, Roman and Islamic. The art and architecture forms from the Islamic and Roman cultures have many comparisons and contrasts between them. They, the Islamic and Roman nations, have both adopted from other cultures and have made their own discoveries in the art and architecture worlds. The Roman and Islamic architecture and art vary drastically from each other and yet have varying comparisons between the two.
Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in Sicily: The Normans in the South 1016-1130 And, The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194. London: Penguin, 1992.
Blanchard, Jane. "Contesting Constancy in The Merchant of Venice", Renascence 61, vol 4 (2009), pp 209-220
One can take a stroll through the themed shopping malls which resembles the city of Venice. The second largest hotel of the world comes with Venetian landmarks like the Lion of Venice, the Palazzo Ducale, the Piazza San Marco, the Piazetta di San Marco and of course the Rialto Bridge. The Gondola Rides offered are an amusing way to see the entire complex.
Sider, Sandra. Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe. New York: Facts on File, 2005. Print.