Welcome on Venice Hotel
History and Information about Venice (From Wikipedia)
Venice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of region Veneto, and has
a population of 271,251. Together with Padua, the city is included in the
Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area (population 1,600,000). Venice has been known
as the "La Dominante", "Serenissima", "Queen of
the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Bridges",
and "The City of Light". It is considered by many to be one of
the most beautiful cities in the world. The city stretches across 118 small
islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in northeast
Italy. The Venetian Republic was a major maritime power during the Middle
Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle
of Lepanto, as well as a very important center of commerce (especially silk,
grain and spice trade) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the
17th century.
Venice and San Marco
Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal square of Venice, Italy. A remark often attributed to Napoleon (but perhaps more correctly to Alfred de Musset) calls the Piazza San Marco "The drawing room of Europe". It is one of the few great urban spaces in a Europe where human voices prevail over the sounds of motorized traffic, which is confined to Venice's waterways. It is the only urban space called a piazza in Venice; the others, regardless of size, are called campi.
As the central landmark and gathering place for Venice, Piazza San Marco is extremely popular with tourists, photographers, and Venetian pigeons. The Piazza has always been seen as the centre of Venice. It was the location of all the important offices of the Venetian state, and has been the seat of the archbishopric since the 19th century. It was also the focus for many of Venice's festivals. It is a greatly popular place in Italy even today.
Venice Carnival
The Carnival of Venice (in Italian: Carnevale Di Venezia) was first recorded in 1268. Masks have always been a central feature of the Venetian carnival; traditionally people were allowed to wear them between the festival of Santo Stefano (St. Stephen's Day, December 26) at the start of the carnival season and midnight of Shrove Tuesday. They have always been around Venice. As masks were also allowed during Ascension and from October 5 to Christmas, people could spend a large proportion of the year in disguise. Maskmakers (mascherari) enjoyed a special position in society, with their own laws and their own guild.
In 1797, Venice became part of the Austrian-held Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia when Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio. The Austrians took control of the city on January 18, 1798 and it fell into a decline which also effectively brought carnival celebrations to a halt for almost two centuries. Carnival was outlawed by the fascist government in the 1930s. It was not until a modern mask shop was founded in the 1980s that Carnival enjoyed a revival.
Carnival starts around two weeks before Ash Wednesday and ends on Shrove
Tuesday (Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras), the day before Ash Wednesday.