CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF VENICE

N.B. This class is organised by the Ca' Foscari School for International Education (SIE). Students cannot attend classes or take exams if they are not officially enrolled in the course. For further information on the SIE semester courses in English, please visit this webpage: https://www.unive.it/courses-exchange

The course focuses on Venice’s history during the XIX, XX, and XXI centuries. Venice will be the main focus of the course; however, since the city’s history cannot be studied in isolation, it will be placed into its broader historical frame in Italian and European history.

The course will cover a wide time frame and touch on multiple topics to give students a solid understanding of Venice’s specificities and how they interacted with the wider Italian and European context. Students will enhance their abilities to discuss and present topics in a scholarly manner.

This course has no prerequisites.

The first part of the course will focus on Venice before its inclusion in the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, analysing the role of the city in the Austrian Empire, its relationship with the idea of the Risorgimento, and its ties to the broader European dimension especially as an idealised visiting spot for artists.
After 1866, the course will focus on the integration of the city and its surroundings in the networks (cultural and economic) of the Kingdom of Italy, also focusing on the Italian aspirations of reclaiming Trento, Trieste, and the Dalmatian coastline and the role that Venice played in them. The course will also examine the period before the First World War in Venice, as Venetian irredentism coalesced into political movements and pushed Italy into the war.
The war will be covered in the central part of the programme, with particular attention given to both the material effects of the conflict and its ideological ones. Starting with the delegitimisation of the parliamentary process before and during the war, the economic devastations, the trauma of Caporetto, and finally, victory.
The course will then move to the afterwar years, analysing the aftermath of the First World War and its political repercussions. The Italians frustrated expectations at the Paris Peace Conference and the birth of the myth of a “mutilated victory”. Venice will also be analysed in the context of the “red biennium” of 1919-1920, as social tensions ramped up in the country, while the city saw the birth of the far-right para-military formation, the Cavalieri della Morte, which will be explored in relation with Italian nationalism and the newborn Fascist movement.
The course will then touch on the Fascist takeover of the country and analyse the ways the regime perceived and imagined Venice as an Italian city. The programme will then move to the Second World War, the effects of the Allied bombings, the fall of Mussolini and the Resistance. Moreover, the course will also focus on the role of Venice and its harbour in the Allies’ plans to liberate the North of Italy and how the peculiar position of the city conditioned their efforts.
After the end of the war, the course will touch on the economic rebirth of the city and the boom which affected the whole region (and the country), which turned the Veneto from one of the poorest to one of the wealthiest regions of Italy, also altering the relationship between Venice and the mainland.
In the final part of the programme, students will examine the increasingly large Venetian tourism industry and its long-lasting effects on the city’s life. The idea of Venice as a museum of the world, but also the one of Venice as a museum rather than a city, will be analysed with special attention given to issues such as depopulation, privatisation, and environmental problems.

Bosworth R.J.B., Italian Venice a history, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014.
Romano Dennis, Venice. The remarkable history of the lagoon city, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024 (only pp. 485-607).

As a final assignment, students will be asked to produce two pieces of writing:
1. A source analysis using one of the sources examined during class. The analysis shall include what the source is, who produced it, why, where, how, on which support, what the goals of those who produced it were, and under what conditions it was produced. (Max 1,000 words).
2. A short essay (1,500 words) answering one of the questions in the table at the end of this syllabus.

Both assignments must be submitted before 12:00 on 30th April 2026. Students will then discuss their writing during an oral exam to demonstrate their knowledge of the topic.

written and oral

Grades will be awarded on an ascending scale starting from a pass mark (18) up to the maximum of 30 e lode (30L), according to the following criteria:

18–20: The student demonstrates knowledge of the topic covered during the course, though with some gaps, in both written and oral presentation.
21–24: The student demonstrates a good knowledge of the topic covered, but without particular in-depth engagement with the sources.
25–28: The student demonstrates an in-depth knowledge of the topic covered, but is not fully convincing in their argumentation, despite drawing on additional sources beyond the core readings.
29–30L: The student demonstrates complete mastery of the topic and is able to produce a solid and persuasive argument, with precise references to additional sources.

Classes will include two sections:

1. A lecture on the class topic, framing the issue in the broader national and European context (naturally allowing for students’ questions).
2. A class discussion on a primary source relevant to the class’s topic (a diary page, a snippet from a newspaper article, or a photograph…). This exercise will allow students to start thinking about primary sources and the way historians use them to understand the past, giving them a tangible example of a cultural product from the time period they are examining in class and providing a “tangible” example of the issues covered by the class topic.

Materials will be available online. If needed, translations will be provided.