Venice

By the end of the century, Venice was famous for the splendor of its music, as exemplified in the "colossal style" of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, which used multiple choruses and instrumental groups. However, during its lifespan, Wings underwent numerous personnel changes. Venice was the early center of music printing; Ottaviano Petrucci began publishing music almost as soon as this technology was available, and his publishing enterprise helped to attract composers from all over Europe, especially from France and Flanders. Wings was ostensibly a true band, and in fact several members besides McCartney contributed songs and occasional vocals, but McCartney was unquestionably the group's leader and star. During the 16th century, Venice became one of the most important musical centers of Europe, with the development of the Venetian polychoral style under composers such as Adrian Willaert, who worked at San Marco. Wings' 1977 single, "Mull of Kintyre"/"Girls School" is still the biggest-selling non-charity single in the UK (although Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" sold more, its sales include a reissue in aid of the Terence Higgins Trust) and it ranked fourth in the official list of best selling singles in the UK issued in 2002. Dull garments were worn over colorful ones, which then were cut to show the hidden colors -- which resulted in the wide spread of men's "slashed" fashions in the 15th century. As leader of Wings, McCartney however was rising to a new peak of success and he became the only one of the four Beatles who continued to tour and record regularly in the years after their split.

The Senate passed sumptuary laws, but these merely resulted in changes in fashion in order to circumvent the law. But by the mid-Seventies Lennon's solo career had run out of steam and he had stopped recording; Harrison too was fading from view by this time as by 1976 he had all but retired from recording and performing. In the 14th century, many young Venetian men began wearing tight-fitting multicolored hose, the designs on which indicated the Compagnie della Calza ("Trouser Club") to which they belonged. Though McCartney was the first Beatle to release a solo album after the official break-up of the band, it was John Lennon's early solo output which initially gained the lead in both critical opinion and commercial success, and George Harrison had scored a huge success with his 1971 triple-album solo debut All Things Must Pass. This challenging engineering work is due to be completed by 2011. The longevity and success of Wings can be seen as something of a vindication for McCartney, whose early home-grown solo output, which frequently featured simplistic nursery-rhyme styled lyrics and sketchy arrangements and production, sometimes led to critical dismissal of his work as "lightweight" next to the more serious nature of his former bandmates' solo output. When tides are predicted to rise above 110 centimetres, the pontoons will be filled with air and block the incoming water from the Adriatic sea. Wings continued to demo some more tunes during 1980/1981 but following a disastrous aborted Japanese tour they fell apart.

In May 2003, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, inaugurated the "Moses" project, which will lay a series of 79 inflatable pontoons across the sea bed at the three entrances to the lagoon. During this tour the live version of "Coming Up" was recodred, this being their final US number one the following year. Some recent studies have suggested that the city is no longer sinking, but this is not yet certain; therefore, a state of alert has not been revoked. In November and December of 1979 Wings performed their final tour of the UK, climaxing with a massive 'Rockestra' all-star collection of musicians in London in aid of UNICEF and Kampuchean refugees. This final version of the band included guitarist Lawrence Juber and drummer Steve Holly, who had joined the group in 1978. In many old houses the ground floor is unoccupied due to the periodic floods, but people continue to live and work in the upper stories. McCartney was also honoured by The Guinness Book Of Records with a unique rhodium disc, recognising his achievement as the most successful popular music composer of all time. However, the city is still threatened by more frequent low-level floods (so-called Acqua alta, "high water") that creep to a height of several centimeters over its quays, regularly following certain tides. During that year, Wings joined Buddy Holly's band, The Crickets onstage in London at the annual Buddy Holly Week party.

This sinking process has slowed markedly since artesian wells were banned in the 1960s. In 1979 Wings released the singles "Goodnight Tonight", "Getting Closer" and "Wonderful Christmastime" and the album Back to the Egg, a critical and commercial failure and the last McCartney project released under the Wings moniker, with McCartney returning to solo billing on future recordings. It was realised that extraction of the aquifer was the cause. The album was a major commercial success, reaching #2 on the charts, but featured a markedly softer-rock, synth-based sound and yielded only minor UK hits in "With a Little Luck" and "Girlfriend" (the former was a big hit in the US). During the 20th century, when many artesian wells were sunk into the periphery of the lagoon to draw water for local industry, Venice began to sink. Though still released as a Wings album, the band was now reduced to Paul, Linda, Laine, and a host of studio players. The buildings are often threatened by flood tides pushing in from the Adriatic between autumn and early spring. During the recording of the album in May, 1977, both Joe English and Jimmy McCullough parted ways with Wings (McCulloch died of a heroin overdose in 1979.).

The foundations rest on the pilings, and buildings of brick or stone sit above these footings. McCartney released the album London Town in 1978. Most of these pilings are intact after centuries of submersion. Its broad appeal was maximised by a pre-Christmas release and it became a massive international hit, dominating the charts in Britain, Australia and many other countries over the Christmas/New Year period and becoming one of the biggest selling UK singles of all time. The buildings of Venice are constructed on closely spaced poles (made of a wood specially chosen because it strengthens with age), or pilings, which penetrate alternating layers of clay and sand. At the end of 1977 McCartney released the ballad "Mull of Kintyre", an ode to the Scottish coastal region he had made his home in the early Seventies. The sestieri are the primary traditional divisions of Venice. The city is divided into the six districts of Cannaregio, San Polo, Dorsoduro (including the Giudecca), Santa Croce, San Marco and Castello (including San Pietro di Castello and Santa Elena). Later in the year the band recorded their next album in the Virgin Islands.

. During 1977 he released the peculiar, unpromoted and little-known album Thrillington -- an orchestral re-make of the earlier Ram album, issued under the pseudonym 'Percy "Thrills" Thrillington', followed by single version of a live recording of "Maybe I'm Amazed". The airport is on the mainland and was rebuilt away from the coast so that visitors now need to get a bus to the pier, from which watertaxi or Aliliguna waterbus can be used. After the world tour McCartney took a break, but this period produced both the most obscure and the most successful records he has made. Venice is served by the newly rebuilt Marco Polo International Airport, or Aeroporto di Venezia Marco Polo, named in honor of its famous citizen. Ever the astute businessman, McCartney also cannily bought the rights to an off-Broadway musical he had seen in America, and this investment reaped huge returns when the musical was adapted into the smash-hit feature film Grease. The only unmotorized gondolas still in common use by Venetians are the traghetti, foot passenger ferries crossing the Grand Canal at certain points without bridges. Also in 1976, McCartney inaugurated Buddy Holly Week in London, founded on what would have been Holly's 40th birthday and marked with an annual celebrity party; his lifelong passion for the music of this rock'n'roll pioneer was also reflected in his aquisition of Holly's publishing catalogue.

The city also has many private boats. Further hits followed with the singles "Silly Love Songs" and "Let 'Em In". Most Venetians now travel by motorised waterbuses ("vaporetti") which ply regular routes along the major canals and between the city's islands. One of the Seattle concerts from the American leg of the '75-'76 world tour was filmed and later released as the concert feature Rockshow (1980). The classical Venetian boat is the gondola, although it is now mostly used for tourists, or for weddings, funerals, or other ceremonies, due to its cost. McCartney still mostly shied away from the Beatles catalogue; only five such numbers were typically included in the American shows. Beyond these land entrances at the northern edge of the city, transportation within the city remains, as it was in centuries past, entirely on water or on foot. Venice is Europe's largest carfree area, unique in Europe in remaining a sizable functioning city in the 21st century entirely without motorcars or trucks. Also during this period, Wings embarked on a hugely successful and theatrical world tour, documented in the triple-live LP set Wings Over America, which included a late 1975 tour of Australia, McCartney's first visit there since the Beatles' epoch-making Antipodean tour in June, 1964.

In the 19th century a causeway to the mainland brought a railroad station to Venice, and an automobile causeway and parking lot was added in the 20th century. Band on the Run was followed by similarly successful albums Venus and Mars (1975), which was recorded in New Orleans, and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976), recorded in Nashville, both of which took top chart positions. In the old center, the canals serve the function of roads, and every form of transport is on water or on foot. It also included two songs, "Let Me Roll It" and "Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five", thought to be answer songs to "How Do You Sleep?", John Lennon's earlier scathing attack on McCartney. It is built on an archipelago of more than 100 islands in a shallow lagoon. Moreover Band on the Run enjoyed a very positive critical reception, and did much to restore McCartney's somewhat damaged post-Beatles image. Venice is famous for its canals. The album went to #1 and spawned a half-dozen hit singles including the rockers "Jet" and "Helen Wheels", the acoustic ballad "Bluebird", the title track -- a suite of movements recalling side 2 of Abbey Road -- and the rocky non-album single "Junior's Farm".

The Venetian military tradition also was notably cautious; they were more interested in achieving success with a minimum expense of lives and money than in the pursuit of glory. Following the release of Speedway, Denny Seiwell and Henry McCullough left the band, leaving the McCartneys and Denny Laine to cut their next album at EMI's recording studio in Lagos, Nigeria, recording what turned out to be their breakthrough album, Band on the Run. A civilian commissioner (not unlike a commissar) accompanied each army to keep an eye on things, especially the mercenaries. Over the years this has remained one of the most memorable of all Bond songs, and is always an exciting part of McCartney's concert performances (often played to fireworks). Not only was efficiency not degraded, this policy saved Venice from the military takeovers that other Italian city states so often experienced. Wings also recorded the hit theme song to the James Bond film Live and Let Die, which reunited McCartney with producer George Martin. By ancient law, no nobleman could command more than twenty-five men (to prevent against sedition by private armies), and while the position of Captain General was introduced in the mid-14th century, he still had to answer to a civilian panel of twenty "wise men". That same year, McCartney filmed his first American TV special James Paul McCartney, which was savagely criticised by noted rock journalist Lillian Roxon.

The command structure in the army was different from that in the fleet. In early 1973, McCartney repeated this pattern, adding ex-Spooky Tooth guitarist Henry McCullough, and re-christening the band "Paul McCartney and Wings" for the album Red Rose Speedway which yielded the first big Wings hit, the romantic ballad "My Love". Later in that century, uniforms were adopted that featured red-and-white stripes, and a system of honors and pensions developed. Throughout the 15th century, Venetian land forces were almost always on the offensive and were regarded as the most effective in Italy, largely because of the tradition of all classes carrying arms in defense of the city and official encouragement of general military training. He scored hits with the relatively light singles "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Hi Hi Hi" (the latter getting in trouble with the BBC for alleged drug references). In its alliance with Florence in 1426, Venice agreed to supply 8,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry in time of war, and 3,000 and 1,000 in peacetime. In 1972 McCartney returned to touring, mounting an impromptu tour of UK universities and small European venues (with the group literally driving around in a van), playing no Beatles numbers. Early in the 15th century, as new mainland territories were expanded, the first standing army was organized, consisting of condottieri on contract. (The band name is said to have come to McCartney as he was praying in the hospital while Linda was giving birth to their eldest child Stella McCartney.).

As in other Italian cities, aristocrats and other wealthy men were cavalrymen while the city's conscripts fought as infantry. The result was Wild Life, the first project to credit "Wings". The register of 1338 estimated that 30,000 Venetian men were capable of bearing arms; many of these were skilled crossbowmen. Late in 1971, drummer Denny Seiwell, and ex-Moody Blues guitarist and singer Denny Laine, joined Paul McCartney and wife Linda McCartney to record Paul's third post-Beatles project. In times of emergency, all males between seventeen and sixty years were registered and their weapons were surveyed, with those called to actually fight being organized into companies of twelve. See Paul McCartney. In the 13th century, most Italian city states already were hiring mercenaries, but Venetian troops were still recruited from the lagoon, plus feudal levies from Dalmatia and Istria. Wings was a pop-rock band led by Paul McCartney, formed after the dissolution of the Beatles.

Though Venice was famous for its navy, its army was equally effective. Back to the Egg (1979). The company of "Noble Bowmen" was recruited in the later 14th century from among the younger aristocracy and served aboard both war-galleys and armed merchantmen, with the privilege of sharing the captain's cabin. London Town (1978). As weapons became more expensive and complex to operate, professional soldiers were assigned to help work merchant sailing ships and as rowers in galleys. Wings Over America (1976). By 1303, crossbow practice had become compulsory in the city, with citizens training in groups. Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976).

Rowing skills were encouraged through races and regattas. Venus and Mars (1975). Debtors generally worked off their obligations rowing the galleys. Band on the Run (1973). Those from the city were chosen by lot from each parish, their families being supported by the remainder of the parish while the rowers were away. Red Rose Speedway (1973). Galley slaves did not exist in medieval Venice, the oarsmen coming from the city itself or from its possessions, especially Dalmatia. Wild Life (1971).

A reserve of some 25 (later 100) war-galleys was maintained in the Arsenal. The government required each merchant ship to carry a specified number of weapons (mostly crossbows and javelins) and armor; merchant passengers were also expected to be armed and to fight when necessary. By 1450, more than 3,000 Venetian merchant ships were in operation, and most of these could be converted when necessary into either warships or transports. After 1797, the city fell into a serious decline, with many of the old palaces and other buildings abandoned and falling into disrepair, although the Lido became a popular beach resort in the late 19th century.

In 1866, along with the rest of Venetia, Venice became part of Italy. It was taken from Austria by the Treaty of Pressburg in 1805 and became part of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy, but was returned to Austria following Napoleon's defeat in 1814. The Austrians took control of the city on January 18, 1798. Venice became part of the Austrian-held Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia when Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio on October 12 1797.

He removed the gates of the Ghetto and ended the restrictions on when and where Jews could live and travel in the city. Napoleon was seen as something of a liberator by the city's Jewish population. The French conqueror brought to an end the most fascinating century of its history: It was during the "Settecento" that Venice became perhaps the most elegant and refined city in Europe, greatly influencing art, architecture, and literature. After 1070 years, the Republic lost its independence when Napoleon Bonaparte on May 12, 1797, conquered Venice during the First Coalition.

Venetian ambassadors sent home still-extant secret reports of the politics and rumours of European courts, providing fascinating information to modern historians. The second, more famous, occasion was on April 27, 1509, by order of Pope Julius II (see League of Cambrai). Venice was threatened with the interdict on a number of occasions and twice suffered its imposition. This apparent lack of zeal contributed to its frequently coming into conflict with the Papacy.

Though the people of Venice generally remained orthodox Roman Catholics, the state of Venice was notable for its freedom from religious fanaticism and it enacted not a single execution for religious heresy during the Counter-Reformation. In practice, a number of Doges were forced by pressure from their oligarchical peers to resign the office and retire into monastic seclusion when they were felt to have been discredited by perceived political failure. The chief executive was the Doge (duke), who, theoretically, held his elective office for life. War was regarded as a continuation of commerce by other means (hence, the city's early production of large numbers of mercenaries for service elsewhere).

Venice remained a republic throughout its independent period and politics and the military were kept completely separate. The Cavalieri di San Marco was the only order of chivalry ever instituted in Venice, and no citizen could accept or join a foreign order without the government’s consent. Church and various private properties were tied to military service, though there was no knight tenure within the city itself. The Venetian governmental structure was a mix of Byzantine and Islamic systems, but the social order was entirely feudal.

Only Venetian ships could efficiently transport the men, supplies, and (especially) war horses. Mark, symbol of Venice. Considerable plunder was brought back to Venice, including the Winged Lion of St. Venice became an imperial power following the Fourth Crusade, which (with Venetian aid) seized Constantinople in 1204 and established the Latin Empire.

By the standards of the time, Venice's stewardship of its mainland territories was relatively enlightened and the citizens of such towns as Bergamo, Brescia, and Verona rallied to the defence of Venetian sovereignty when it was threatened by invaders. In building its maritime commercial empire, the Republic acquired control of most of the islands in the Aegean, including Cyprus and Crete, and became a major power-broker in the Near East. Later mainland possessions, which extended across Lake Garda as far west as the River Adda, were known as "Terrafirma", and were acquired partly as a buffer against beligerent neighbors, partly to guarantee Alpine trade routes, and partly to ensure the supply of mainland wheat, on which the city depended. The Doge already carried the titles Duke of Dalmatia and Duke of Istria.

The Republic of Venice seized the eastern shores of the Adriatic before 1200, mostly for commercial reasons, because pirates based there were a menace to trade. In the 12th century the essentials for the power of Venice were laid: the Arsenal was under construction in 1104; Venice wrested control of the Brenner pass from Veronia in 1178, opening a lifeline to silver from Germany; the last autocratic doge, Vitale Michiele, died in 1172. Its strategic position at head of the Adriatic made Venetian naval and commercial power almost invulnerable. Venice was a city state (an Italian thalassocracy or Repubblica Marinara, the other three being Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi).

As the community continued to develop and as Byzantine power waned, however, an increasingly anti-Eastern character emerged, leading to the growth of autonomy and eventual independence. In the mid-8th century, the Venetians resisted the empire-building efforts of Pepin III and remained subject to the Byzantine Empire, at least theoretically. The city was founded as a result of the influx of refugees into the marshes of the Po estuary following the invasion of northern Italy by the Lombards in 568. See also Veneti..

The Venetian Republic was a major sea power and a staging area for the Crusades, as well as a very important center of commerce (especially the spice trade) and art in the Renaissance. The saltwater lagoon stretches along the shoreline between the mouths of the Po (south) and the Piave (north) Rivers. The city stretches across numerous small islands in a marshy lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in northeast Italy. Venice (Italian Venezia), the city of canals, is the capital of the region of Veneto, population 274,000 (2003).

"Venezuela" means "small Venice". arsenal, ciao, ghetto, gondola, lagoon, lido, Montenegro. Hugo Pratt (1927-1995), cartoonist and creator of Corto Maltese. Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), legendary womanizer.

Canaletto (1697-1768), painter. Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), composer, musician. Titian (1477–1576), painter. Marco Polo (1254-1324), traveller.

Venice and its lagoon are listed as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Venice is also famous world-wide for its unique Carnival. Mark the Evangelist. The city's patron is St.

Nicolas Roeg's 1973 film Don't Look Now, based on a story by Daphne du Maurier. Death in Venice, a 1912 novel by Thomas Mann. William Shakespeare's Othello and The Merchant of Venice. Giudecca.

Lido. Isola Di San Michele. Torcello. Burano.

Murano. Islands: