Republic of Venice

State · 705–1796 CE · at its largest around 1687 CE

A maritime republic on the Venetian lagoon led by an elected doge, which built a trading empire across the Adriatic and eastern Mediterranean. Napoleon ended it in 1797.

Its battles, in Battle View

Battle of Lepanto (1571 CE)

On its lands while it lasted

Coronation of Charlemagne (800 CE): Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor in St Peter's Basilica on Christmas Day, reviving the imperial title in the West.
Founding of the Holy Roman Empire (962 CE): Pope John XII crowned Otto I emperor in Rome, the conventional start of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806.
Francis of Assisi (c. 1181 CE – 1226 CE): Italian friar who embraced radical poverty and founded the Franciscan Order; one of the most venerated saints of Christianity.
Thomas Aquinas (1225 CE – 1274 CE): Dominican friar and theologian whose Summa Theologica synthesised Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrine.
Dante Alighieri (1265 CE – 1321 CE): Florentine poet whose Divine Comedy, written in the Tuscan vernacular, is a masterpiece of world literature and helped establish the Italian language.
Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel frescoes (1305 CE): Giotto covered the walls of a Padua chapel with the lives of the Virgin and Christ under a starry blue vault. His solid, feeling figures broke with Byzantine stiffness and began the road to the Renaissance.
Black Death (1346–1353 CE): Bubonic plague pandemic that reached Europe through Mediterranean ports such as Messina in 1347 and killed an estimated third to half of Europe's population.
Dome of Florence Cathedral (1436 CE): Brunelleschi's dome, completed in 1436, was the largest built since antiquity and a landmark of Renaissance architecture.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 CE – 1519 CE): Italian Renaissance polymath born in Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, whose notebooks record studies in anatomy, engineering and flight.
Michelangelo (1475 CE – 1564 CE): Florentine sculptor, painter and architect of the High Renaissance. He carved the Pietà and David, painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Last Judgement, and designed the dome of St Peter's.
Pietà (1499 CE): Michelangelo’s marble sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the body of Christ, finished around 1499 in Rome when he was in his early twenties. It stands in St Peter’s Basilica and is the only work he signed.
Mona Lisa (c. 1503 CE): Leonardo da Vinci began this portrait of Lisa Gherardini in Florence around 1503 and kept working on it for years. It hangs in the Louvre and is among the most famous paintings in the world.
St. Peter's Basilica (1506 CE): Pope Julius II laid the foundation stone of the new basilica in Vatican City in 1506; it was consecrated in 1626. Bramante, Michelangelo and Bernini all shaped its design.
Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508–1512 CE): Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican between 1508 and 1512, including the Creation of Adam. It is a cornerstone of High Renaissance art.
Galileo Galilei (1564 CE – 1642 CE): Italian astronomer and physicist born in Pisa who pioneered experimental science and telescopic astronomy. Condemned by the Inquisition in 1633, he spent his last years under house arrest near Florence.