Excerpts

Venice -- a romantic, melancholy city, this we know. But insatiable? and yet this latter characteristic defines Venice more aptly than anything else. For it was in this spirit that Venice emerged. In was the spirit of merchants dedicated to exploring any way of buying the best goods at the best price, who undertook arduous and perilous journeys so that they could offer for sale the most exquisite, precious objects and who risked everything for the chance of amassing even more gold. Only against this background is it possible to understand why the lagoon city was able to develop into the trading city of the Mediterranean and how it became a cosmopolitan city whose wealth was the envy of princes throughout the world. Excerpted from Venice - the Insatiable City-State: Sites of the World's Cultures: D4821 All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.