We trace Venice's remarkable flowering between the 1300s and 1500s, in which it astonished Europe as a center of commercial and imperial power, learning, and art, as well as its repeated struggles -- with the bubonic plague, the Ottoman Turks, the rival Italian states, and the Catholic Church -- that forced Venice to give up its empire, and to transform into a pleasure-ground of music, theater, sex, and revelry -- arguably becoming the world's first tourist attraction -- before finally losing its long-treasured independence and becoming a pawn of modern powers. Image: Painting by Canaletto, 1730s, showing the Sensa festival fleet and the Bucintoro returning to San Marco after the marriage to the sea ceremony. Thank you to Sarai Cole for permitting use of an exceprt of her rendition of Vivaldi's "Filiae Maestae Jerusalem" / "Sileant Zephyri" -- https://soundcloud.com/sarai-cole-freericks/sileant-zephyri-from-filiae-maestae-jerusalem-vivaldi Suggested further reading: Ferrarro, "Venice: History of the Floating City"; Madden, "Venice: A New History"; Morris, "The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage" Please sign up as a patron to help keep the pod coming, and to hear patron-only lectures, including the recent series on the Epic of Gilgamesh -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632