The Origins and Rise of Venice
Tides of History
Audible / Patrick Wyman
4.7 • 6.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2019
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A swampy lagoon on the Adriatic coast of Italy was not a promising place for a city, but Venice grew from a collection of huts on spits of land to a glittering center of commerce and the heart of a maritime empire. Today, we explore the beginnings and rise of this fascinating city from late antiquity to the Black Death.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Tides of History, add free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:04.2 | Download the app today. |
| 0:05.2 | The soft, wushing of the wind filled the ship's sails. |
| 0:21.0 | Its ores dipped into the water with a tiny, practiced splash, only barely audible over |
| 0:26.4 | the cacophonous squawking of sea birds. |
| 0:30.2 | The sailing master called out precise instructions to the man holding the rudder. |
| 0:34.6 | A bit to port now to Starbird to get around that hidden sand bar. |
| 0:39.0 | He had done this a hundred times before now. |
| 0:41.9 | October of the year 1290, navigating the complex routes into the lagoon of Venice. |
| 0:48.8 | There, ahead, the city rose up out of the morning glue. |
| 0:54.5 | The sailing master breathed deep, filling his nose with the salt tang of the sea. |
| 0:59.4 | Soon, he'd be able to smell the thousand competing scents of a city packed with tens of thousands |
| 1:04.7 | of his fellow Venetians. |
| 1:07.5 | Six months away from home, thought the sailing master, another long voyage to the distant |
| 1:11.9 | ports of the east. |
| 1:13.9 | Alexandria and Egypt, Candia and Crete, the Greek stop-overs of Morden, Cora and Negroponte. |
| 1:21.4 | He called out a few more instructions, marking out more sand bars and channels in a watery |
| 1:25.9 | landscape he'd known since childhood. |
| 1:30.0 | Slowly, carefully, the merchant Gellie made its way toward its wharf in the port of San |
| 1:34.7 | Nicolom. |
| 1:36.4 | The sailing master heard the noise rising from the city as they approached. |
| 1:40.0 | Brick houses and wooden warehouses rising up from the edge of the water, whorves projecting |
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