Their good Bishop Paul climbed the tower, and to his gaze the very stars of the firmament seemed to set themselves in a constellation that figured forth the fateful group of islands in the lagoon before him. His flock, following this warning from heaven, went forth, headed by their bishop and clergy bearing the sacred vessels and relics, and passed to an island high and fertile, which they called Torcello, from one of the twelve towers of their old city.

The very hierarchy of heaven, from Our Lord and His Blessed Mother to St Peter and the Baptist — even to Giustina, the martyred little maid of Padua — appeared to Mauro, the priest, in a vision as he paced the seashore. In sweet voices they bade him build here a church and there a church in their honour.

The immigrants therefore came to make the lagoons their permanent home. Their new city was organised. In process of time, churches were built; trade guilds were formed; painters and mosaicists enriched the buildings.

The marble seat on the grass-grown piazza of Torcello, to this day called Attila’s Chair, was probably the official seat of the tribune when he administered justice to the people.

The Foundation Legend of Venice

No definite date can be assigned to the foundation of Venice, though Sanudo is very sure it was:

“In the year CCCCXXI, on the 25th of March, which was a Friday — that day on which our father Adam was created — when about the hour of nones the first stone of St Giacomo di Rivoalto was laid by the Paduans.”

The great diarist gives a charming picture of the earliest Venetians trading in fish and salt with their small barks along the neighbouring shores:

“They were a lowly people, who esteemed mercy and innocency, and, above all, religion rather than riches. They affected not to clothe themselves with ornaments, nor to seek honours; but when need was, they answered to the call.”

Early Political Organisation

There is little doubt that the earliest settlers were subject to the Consuls at Padua, but in 466 they had grown strong enough to meet at Grado and elect their own tribunes, one for each of the twelve communities.

The first historical glimpse of the lagoon people appears in a letter written in 523 by Cassiodorus to the Tribuni Maritimi. As secretary to Theodoric the Great, he urges them not to fail in transporting tribute — oil, honey, and wine — from Istria to Ravenna.

He marvels at their security and their remarkable dwellings:

• Like sea-birds’ nests, half on land and half on sea
• Like the Cyclades, scattered over the broad bosom of the waters

Their land, he says, is made not by nature but by man, strengthened by flexible withy bands, and defended by frail dykes against the waves. Their boats are tied to posts before their doors as horses are on the mainland.

Rich and poor live in equality.
They flee from the vice of envy, to which the whole world is enslaved.
In salt, they produce a merchandise more desired than gold.

Byzantine Influence and Lombard Threats

Around 530, during the campaign of Narses the Eunuch against the Goths, the Venetians aided him by transporting Lombard mercenaries from Aquileia to Ravenna.

As a reward, Byzantine masters were sent to Venice and built the Church of St Theodore at Rivoalto, on the site later occupied by the Basilica of St Mark.

Yet peace was short-lived. In 568, Alboin and his Lombards threatened Italy. When Longinus, Exarch of Ravenna, appealed to Venice for aid as an imperial subject, the Venetians firmly refused:

They declared that the Venice they had made in the waters was their own by right of creation, and that no prince or emperor could reach them.

They agreed only to a nominal suzerainty, without oath, in exchange for valuable trading privileges.

The Rise of the Dogeship

By 584, population growth led to the creation of additional tribunes. A federal council of Tribuni Majores emerged, while the original tribunes governed local affairs.

Internal strife soon followed. Family feuds, political ambition, and popular jealousy plunged the lagoons into violence. Churches were plundered. Anarchy threatened the state.

The crisis was met by the wisdom of the Church. A general assembly (Arengo) was convened at Heraclea, where it was proposed that:

• All tribunes be reduced to local authority
• A single Capo, elected for life, rule the state

In 697, Pauluccio Anafesto was chosen as the first Doge of Venice, invested with sovereign authority.

Thus began the Dogeship of Venice, which — with only one brief interruption — would endure for more than eleven centuries.

Authority and Ceremony of the Doge

The Doge possessed vast powers:

• Control over public officers
• Authority over foreign affairs
• Power to levy taxes
• Veto over ecclesiastical appointments

His state was regal. When he appeared in public, he was surrounded by guards, shaded by a ceremonial umbrella, accompanied by trumpets, banners, and lighted tapers.

He wore:

• A silk mantle fringed with gold
• A jewelled red biretta, evolving into the famous horned cap
• Red hose and a tunic trimmed with ermine

Yet he was no figure of idleness. Rising before dawn, he attended mass, judged disputes, and conducted the affairs of state daily.

Internal Struggles and Survival

Venice lay precariously between rival powers:

• Lombards, Franks, and the Pope in the West
• The Byzantine Emperor in the East

Factional tensions ran deep between:

• Heraclea, aristocratic and pro-Byzantine
• Malamocco and Jesolo, democratic and pro-Western

Despite treaties and reforms, civil conflict persisted. Doges were murdered; families exiled or blinded. Stability returned only in 764, with the election of Maurizio Galbaio:

“Noble by race, nobler in deeds.”

Under his firm and wise rule, faction was silenced — at least for a time.