Pax tibi Marce Evangelista meus, hic requiescat corpus tuum. That is the phrase that, according to legend, an angel spoke to St. Mark the Evangelist as he was traveling across a swampy lagoon in the Veneto region. It became the motto of the Republic of Venice, and a quite fitting one at that. The Republic was masterful at deploying myths and legends to serve its very worldly political ends, and it did so very successfully for over a thousand years.

In his history of Venice, John Julius Norwich most likely reached the pinnacle of his storytelling skills, as of the histories I have read by him, this one was by far the most engaging. Norwich tells the story, not of the city per se, but of the Republic of Venice, that political entity that began as an ad hoc means of resolving disputes among various sets of refugees who had fled to the Venetian lagoon in the face of successive waves of barbarian invasions (the Goths, the Huns, the Lombards and the Magyars, among others) and grew into a powerful commercial trading empire. He describes in quite lively tones the paradox that Venice became, and the combination of a wonderful writing style and a quite unique history work their magic on the reader.

We learn both the Venetians' own, glorified account of their origins as well as the more likely story. We hear how St. Theodore, the original patron saint of the city, was unceremoniously swept aside after a merchant ship claimed to have stolen the body of St. Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria, Egypt. We see Venice in her moments of glory, such as at the siege of Candia, which lasted over 22 years, as well as in her moments of infamy, none of which can compare with the perfidy she inflicted upon the Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade.

What is perhaps most amazing, however, is how Venice was able to remain separate from the rest of Italy throughout war after war after war, and through the entire period of time remained a republic. Yes, it was an oligarchic republic, where only the old families of the Venetian nobility (most of whom, it should be pointed out, had no land in the first place, as Venice was never involved in the feudal system) could vote for the Doge or hold the high offices, from serving in the Grand Consiglio to the Council of Ten to the Signoria. Even so, at no time in its history did a power-hungry tyrant rule over Venice or her possessions, which at one time or other included Cyprus, Crete, "a quarter and a half a quarter of the Roman Empire" (i.e., 3/8 of the Byzantium that the Crusaders dismembered in 1204), the Peloponnese, Euboea (Negropont), Chios, Corfu, Zante, Zacynthos, Ithaca, Zara, Fiume, Istria, Dalmatia, the Veneto, Brescia, Verona, Bergamo, and other towns of Eastern Lombardy.

Norwich, in his introduction, warns the reader that, toward the end of the book, the reader will find that an entire century receives less attention than some decades earlier in the book, and that, lest the reader believe that the author has become as weary writing the book as he has of reading it, he should know that Venetian history falls into a decline after the War of the Spanish Succession because Venice turned in on herself and, essentially, celebrated her eclipse with ever more lavish parties until the whole thing came to a quick and ignominious end when Napoleon invaded Italy. I have to confess that, when I reached that point in the book, I was not weary of the read.

In summary, Norwich's book is a fascinating history of a fascinating Republic, filled with romance and the pomp of countless feasts, masques and debauches. As Norwich put it, the Republic was small enough that it is possible to learn almost everything there is to know about it, yet rich enough in history that the process is endlessly rewarding.

In short, I believe that this is Norwich's finest history (of the ones I have read; I have only read his three-volume history of Byzantium, which was quite good, and his history of the Papacy, which was a disappointment). It ranks among the best histories I have read, alongside classics such as Massie's Peter the Great, Wedgwood's The Thirty Years' War, and Shelby Foote's imposing Civil War trilogy. I highly recommend it.