Venice’s Struggle for Liberty: from the city to the Royal Apartments in the Correr Museum

This itinerary focuses on the Risorgimento in Venice, one of the most dramatic periods in Venetian history, from the fall of the independent Venetian Republic in 1797, to Venice’s taking part to the Italian Unification Movement in 1866. These turbulent decades saw Venice ruled by foreign powers, first by the French, and later the Austrians, a period which Venetians consider an alien occupation.

Our city walk will take us from Campo Santo Stefano towards St Mark’s Square. In Campo San Fantin we find Venice’s famous Fenice opera house, a symbol of the frivolity, opulence and decadence of Venice in the final years of the Republic. Our walk will pass the Ateneo Veneto and the Istituto Veneto di Lettere, Scienze e Arti, cultural institutions which remind us of Napoleon and his ambitious projects to modernise Venice, by creating new academies and associations to replace the traditional system of trade guilds and lay brotherhoods that had been the bedrock of Venetian society since the middle ages.

We will admire the moniments of Nicolò Tommaseo and Daniele Manin, two patriots whose action deeply influenced Venice’s struggle to shake off foreign rule and to join the new Reign of Italy.

Finally, at the Correr Museum we will guide your visit to the suite of sumptuously decorated Neoclassical rooms which were originally created as a royal apartment for the French imperial family, and which were later used by the Hapsburgs during their rule of Venice. We will also enjoy the superbly refined artworks of Antonio Canova, the celebrated neoclassical sculptor, whose sculptures seem to epitomise his age and symbolise the shifting power relations between France and Venice in the period.

After your tour, you will be able to further explore the Correr Museum fully, to enjoy its impressive archaeological, art and historical collections.