Among these early settlements, Rivo Alto, its name corrupted over time to Rialto, was the most central and became the heart of Venice, linking together 118 separate islands with bridges and canals and subordinating all other settlements to the rule of its elected doge (duke). They were small islands hardly higher than the level of the water, divided by innumerable small winding canals, continually swept by the ebb and flow of the tides. The lagoon has always been crucial to the survival of Venice. Its mudbanks, shallows, and channels are a source of income from marine and bird life and from salt pans. It has served as protection (the Venetians defeated the Genoese in 1380 through their superior knowledge of the navigable channels) and as a natural sewerage system, with the tides flushing out the city’s canals twice a day. More than 200 original canals have been linked together to form a dense urban network on either side of the curving Grand Canal, which describes a great backward S more than 3-kilometer long, from the present-
57
day railway station to San Marco Basin in front of the Doge’s Palace. Its width varies from about 30 to 70 meters, and it is lined by buildings that once were the palaces of great merchant families and the public warehouses used in foreign trade.
Among these early settlements, Rivo Alto, its name corrupted over time to Rialto, was the most central and became the heart of Venice, linking together 118 separate islands with bridges and canals and subordinating all other settlements to the rule of its elected doge (duke). They were small islands hardly higher than the level of the water, divided by innumerable small winding canals, continually swept by the ebb and flow of the tides. The lagoon has always been crucial to the survival of Venice. Its mudbanks, shallows, and channels are a source of income from marine and bird life and from salt pans. It has served as protection (the Venetians defeated the Genoese in 1380 through their superior knowledge of the navigable channels) and as a natural sewerage system, with the tides flushing out the city’s canals twice a day. More than 200 original canals have been linked together to form a dense urban network on either side of the curving Grand Canal, which describes a great backward S more than 3-kilometer long, from the present-57day railway station to San Marco Basin in front of the Doge’s Palace. Its width varies from about 30 to 70 meters, and it is lined by buildings that once were the palaces of great merchant families and the public warehouses used in foreign trade.
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