Excerpt from Venice as an Art City<br><br>How it soars aloft! Slender and yet imposing in solitary grandeur, unsupported by any other building an island like Venice herself.<br><br>It was commenced in the tenth century, when Venice had already been for six generations a sea power under her Doges. We ascend, and stand amazed at the be wilderingly beautiful and, at the same time, quaint panorama of the Island City. Gradually we begin to perceive how this pile-supported city and sea-fortress, inaccessible to the mail-clad land-rats of the Lombard, Frankish, and German hordes, was marked by destiny to become a bridge between the lands of the North and the South - the most renowned trade-centre, as well as the headquarters Of shipping and finance, in the Middle Ages; how she also became the treasure-house into which the riches Of three continents poured, and became converted into springs of luxury and wealth.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.