1.
Venice
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Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and these are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2014,264,579 people resided in Comune di Venezia, together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is a metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC, the city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the La Dominante, Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, City of Water, City of Masks, City of Bridges, The Floating City, and City of Canals. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century and this made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period, Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Venice has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world as of 2016, the name Venetia, however, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, and called by the Greeks Eneti. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti, Baltic Veneti, and the Slavic Wends. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean beloved, lovable, a connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color sea-blue, is also possible. The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia, some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae, the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto — said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD166 to 168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the center in the area. The Roman defences were again overthrown in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, the traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was actually Exarch Paul, and his successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Pauls magister militum. In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the Exarchate rose in a rebellion over the controversy at the urging of Pope Gregory II
2.
Republic of Venice
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It was based in the lagoon communities of the historically prosperous city of Venice. It was a leading European economic and trading power during the Middle Ages, the Venetian city state was founded as a safe haven for people escaping persecution in mainland Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In its early years, it prospered on the salt trade, in subsequent centuries, the city state established a thalassocracy. It dominated trade on the Mediterranean Sea, including commerce between Asia, Europe and North Africa, the Venetian navy was used in the Crusades. Venice achieved territorial conquests along the Adriatic Sea, the city became home to an extremely wealthy merchant class, who patronized renowned art and architecture along the citys lagoons. Venetian merchants were influential financiers in Europe, the city was also the birthplace of great European explorers, including Marco Polo, as well as the classical music composer Vivaldi. The republic was ruled by the Doge, who was elected by members of the Great Council of Venice, the ruling class was an oligarchy of merchants and aristocrats. Venice and other Italian maritime republics played a key role in fostering capitalism, Venetian citizens generally supported the system of governance. The city-state enforced strict laws and employed ruthless tactics in its prisons, the opening of new trade routes to the Americas and the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean marked the beginning of Venices decline as a maritime republic. The city state suffered defeats from the navy of the Ottoman Empire, in 1797, the country was colonized by Austria and France, following an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. Venice became a part of a unified Italy in the 19th century and it was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in reference to its title as one of the Most Serene Republics. He was the first historical Doge of Venice, whichever the case, the first doges had their power base in Heraclea. Ursuss successor, Deusdedit, moved his seat from Heraclea to Malamocco in the 740s and he was the son of Ursus and represented the attempt of his father to establish a dynasty. Such attempts were more commonplace among the doges of the first few centuries of Venetian history. They desired to remain well-connected to the Empire, another faction, republican in nature, believed in continuing along a course towards practical independence. The other main faction was pro-Frankish, supported mostly by clergy, they looked towards the new Carolingian king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, as the best provider of defence against the Lombards. A minor, pro-Lombard faction was opposed to close ties with any of these further-off powers, the successors of Obelerio inherited a united Venice. By the Pax Nicephori, the two emperors had recognised that Venice belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence, many centuries later, the Venetians claimed that the treaty had recognised Venetian de facto independence, but the truth of this claim is doubted by modern scholars
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
4.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
5.
Venetian school (art)
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From the later part of the 15th century, Venice had a distinctive, thriving and influential art scene. Beginning with the work of Giorgione, and the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, major artists of the Venetian school included Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and the Bassano. During the early-15th century, Venetian art was dominated by the earlier styles arising from its Byzantine links, another external factor was the visit by Leonardo da Vinci, who was particularly influential on Giorgione. During his long career, Bellini has been credited with creating the Venetian style, with such works he has been described as reaching the High Renaissance ideals, and certainly expresses the key distinctive factors of the Venetian school. Giorgione and Titian were both apprentices at Bellinis workshop and they collaborated on numerous paintings, and their styles could be so similar that it is difficult to conclusively assign authorship. This emphasis on nature as a setting was a contribution of the Venetian School. Titian, through his long and productive life, with a variety of themes and subjects was the most influential. His early Pesaro Madonna shows a new composition for such a traditional religious subject, putting the focal point of the Madonna off from the centre. Although pre-figured by the Sleeping Venus Titian is credited with establishing the female nude as an important subgenre in art. Using mythological subjects, works such as the Venus of Urbino richly depict the fabrics and other textures, and use a composition that is carefully controlled by organising colours. As an example, in painting the diagonal of the nude is matched by the opposite diagonal between the red of the cushions in the front with the red skirts of the woman in the background. With such paintings, readily transported by virtue of being oils on canvas, Titian became famous, although Tintoretto is sometimes classified as a Mannerist artist, he also incorporates Venetian and individualistic aspects. In his Miracle of the Slave, the Mannerist features include the scene, the twisting linking of figures. Following Tintoretto, were Veronese, and the Bassano and these are a few of the most outstanding in the great number of artists in the Venetian tradition, many originally from outside the Republics territory. List of painters and architects of Venice References Sources Gardners, Art Through the Ages—International Edition, Brace Harcourt Jovanovich, maria Dolores Jimenez-Blanco, Museo National Del Prado, English 2nd revised edition,2009. Federico Zeri, Elizabeth E. Gardner, Italian Paintings, Venetian School, A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Italians
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Italians are a nation and ethnic group native to Italy who share a common culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a native tongue. The majority of Italian nationals are speakers of Standard Italian. Italians have greatly influenced and contributed to the arts and music, science, technology, cuisine, sports, fashion, jurisprudence, banking, Italian people are generally known for their localism and their attention to clothing and family values. The term Italian is at least 3,000 years old and has a history that goes back to pre-Roman Italy. According to one of the common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The Etruscan civilization reached its peak about the 7th century BC, but by 509 BC, when the Romans overthrew their Etruscan monarchs, its control in Italy was on the wane. By 350 BC, after a series of wars between Greeks and Etruscans, the Latins, with Rome as their capital, gained the ascendancy by 272 BC, and they managed to unite the entire Italian peninsula. This period of unification was followed by one of conquest in the Mediterranean, in the course of the century-long struggle against Carthage, the Romans conquered Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Finally, in 146 BC, at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, with Carthage completely destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved, octavian, the final victor, was accorded the title of Augustus by the Senate and thereby became the first Roman emperor. After two centuries of rule, in the 3rd century AD, Rome was threatened by internal discord and menaced by Germanic and Asian invaders. Emperor Diocletians administrative division of the empire into two parts in 285 provided only temporary relief, it became permanent in 395, in 313, Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity, and churches thereafter rose throughout the empire. However, he moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople. The last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 by a Germanic foederati general in Italy and his defeat marked the end of the western part of the Roman Empire. During most of the period from the fall of Rome until the Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861, Odoacer ruled well for 13 years after gaining control of Italy in 476. Then he was attacked and defeated by Theodoric, the king of another Germanic tribe, Theodoric and Odoacer ruled jointly until 493, when Theodoric murdered Odoacer. Theodoric continued to rule Italy with an army of Ostrogoths and a government that was mostly Italian, after the death of Theodoric in 526, the kingdom began to grow weak
7.
Veduta
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A veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or, more often print, of a cityscape or some other vista. The painters of vedute are referred to as vedutisti and this genre of landscape originated in Flanders, where artists such as Paul Bril painted vedute as early as the 16th century. In the 17th century Dutch painters made a specialty of detailed and accurate recognizable city, an archetypal example is Johannes Vermeers View of Delft. The Ghent architect, draughtsman and engraver Lieven Cruyl contributed to the development of the vedute during his residence in Rome in the late 17th century, cruyl’s drawings reproduce the topographical aspects of the urban landscape. By the mid-18th century, Venice became renowned as the centre of the vedutisti, the genres greatest practitioners belonged to the Canal and Guardi families of Venice. Some of them went to work as painters in major capitals of Europe, e. g. Canaletto in London and his nephew Bernardo Bellotto in Dresden, in other parts of 18th-century Italy, idiosyncratic varieties of the genre evolved. Giovanni Paolo Pannini was the first veduta artist to concentrate on painting ruins and his collaborators included Hendrik Frans van Lint, who would become one of the leading vedute painters in the first half of the 18th century. In later developments of the vedute, Panninis veduta morphed into the scenes partly or completely imaginary elements, known as capricci, giambattista Piranesi was the foremost master of vedute ideate etchings. His topographical series, Vedute di Roma, went through many printings, in the later 19th century, more personal impressions of cityscapes replaced the desire for topographical accuracy, which was satisfied instead by painted, and later photographed, panoramas. These artists responded to the international market for their city views of Venice and they made such big names for themselves through this genre that they painted nothing. Demand for Federico del Campos views, particularly from English tourists, was so strong, I pittori di vedute in Italia, 1580-1830. Canaletto, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has material on Canalettos contributions to the genre
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Giovanni Antonio Guardi
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Giovanni Antonio Guardi, also known as Gianantonio Guardi, was an Italian painter and nobleman. Guardi was one of the founders of the Venetian Academy in 1756, born in Vienna into a family of nobility from Trentino. His father Domenico a Baroque painter, and his brothers Niccolò and Gian Antonio and they probably all contributed as a team to some of the larger commissions later attributed to his brother Francesco Guardi. His sister Maria Cecilia married the pre-eminent Veneto-European painter of his epoch and he may have received his artistic training in Vienna, where he is first recorded in 1719, but had established a workshop in Venice by 1730. Among his first important clients was the connoisseur and collector Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg and he produced copies after the work of other artists, as well as a series of originals with Turkish-inspired interiors as easel pictures for private decorations. Antonio Guardi trained his younger brothers Nicolò and Francesco in his workshop, Francesco Casanova was among his pupils. He died in Venice in 1760, media related to Giovanni Antonio Guardi at Wikimedia Commons
9.
Canaletto
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Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, was an Italian painter of city views or vedute, of Venice. He also painted views, although the demarcation in his works between the real and the imaginary is never quite clearcut. He was further an important printmaker using the etching technique, in the period from 1746 to 1756 he worked in England where he created many sights of London. He was highly successful in England, thanks to the British merchant and connoisseur Joseph Smith and he was born in Venice as the son of the painter Bernardo Canal, hence his mononym Canaletto, and Artemisia Barbieri. Canaletto served his apprenticeship with his father and his brother and he began in his fathers occupation, that of a theatrical scene painter. Canaletto was inspired by the Roman vedutista Giovanni Paolo Pannini, and started painting the life of the city. After returning from Rome in 1719, he began painting in his topographical style and his first known signed and dated work is Architectural Capriccio. Studying with the older Luca Carlevarijs, a painter of urban cityscapes. It is like Carlevaris, but you can see the sun shining in it, much of Canalettos early artwork was painted from nature, differing from the then customary practice of completing paintings in the studio. However, his paintings are notable for their accuracy, he recorded the seasonal submerging of Venice in water. Canalettos early works remain his most coveted and, according to many authorities, one of his early pieces is The Stonemasons Yard which depicts a humble working area of the city. It is regarded one of his finest works and was presented by Sir George Beaumont in 1823/8, later Canaletto painted grand scenes of the canals of Venice and the Doges Palace. His large-scale landscapes portrayed the citys pageantry and waning traditions, making use of atmospheric effects. For these qualities, his works may be said to have anticipated Impressionism and his graphic print S. A Giustina in Prà della Vale was found in the 2012 Nazi loot discovery. Many of his pictures were sold to Englishmen on their Grand Tour and it was Smith who acted as an agent for Canaletto, first in requesting paintings of Venice from the painter in the early 1720s and helping him to sell his paintings to other Englishmen. In the 1740s Canalettos market was disrupted when the War of the Austrian Succession led to a reduction in the number of British visitors to Venice and he remained in England until 1755, producing views of London and of his patrons castles and houses. His 1754 painting of Old Walton Bridge includes an image of Canaletto himself and he was often expected to paint England in the fashion with which he had painted his native city. Historian Michael Levey described his work from this period as inhibited, the artist was compelled to give public painting demonstrations in order to refute this claim, however, his reputation never fully recovered in his lifetime
10.
Trentino
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Trentino, officially the Autonomous Province of Trento, is an autonomous province of Italy, in the countrys far north. Trentino is, along with South Tyrol, one of the two provinces making up the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which is designated a region under the constitution. The province is divided into 178 comuni and its capital is the city of Trento. The province covers an area of more than 6,000 km2, Trentino is renowned for its mountains, such as the Dolomites, which are part of the Alps. The province is known as Trentino. The name derives from Trento, the city of the province. Originally, the term was used by the population only to refer to the city. In its wider sense, Trentino was first used around 1848 in an article by a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, since the new 1972 autonomous status, the administrative name of the province is Autonomous Province of Trento. The history of Trentino begins in the mid-Stone Age, the valleys of what is now Trentino were already inhabited by man, the main settlements being in the valley of the Adige River, thanks to its milder climate. In the early Middle Ages, this area was included within the Kingdom of Italy, in 1027, the Bishopric of Trent was established as a State of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Conrad II. It was a territory, roughly corresponding to the present-day Trentino. The Council of Trent, held in three sessions from 1545 to 1563, with the first at Trento, was one of the important councils in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. It was an articulation of Roman Catholic doctrine in response to the Protestant Reformation, and specified doctrine on salvation, the sacraments, after the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, the bishopric was secularized and absorbed into the Austrian County of Tyrol. It was governed by the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, the region was the location of heavy fighting during World War I, as it was directly on the front lines between Austria-Hungary and Italy. Trentino remained a part of Austria-Hungary until after the end of the war in 1919, since this treaty, Trentino enjoys considerable autonomy from the Italian central government in Rome. It has its own elected government and legislative assembly, in 1996, the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino was formed between the Austrian state of Tyrol and the Italian provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino. The boundaries of the association correspond to the old County of Tyrol, the aim is to promote regional peace, understanding and cooperation in many areas. The regions assemblies meet together as one on various occasions and have set up a liaison office to the European Union in Brussels
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Guardi, Francesco". Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 656.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
