Spolia and Memory in Nineteenth-Century Venice

this ChaPter rePresents preliminary research into a little recognized topic that is fundamental for the history of the city of Venice. During the nineteenth century Venice underwent changes that transformed it from a historic city to a tourist city. Commentators have always been interested in Venetian changes but have paid little or no attention to the process of revision of the medieval origins of the city by intellectu-als and building experts. This century-long process involved and cut across all levels of Venetian society, to the extent that it is difficult to pinpoint without getting lost in prosopographies and isolated events. But the revision and recovery of the past left its mark on the city and rendered it the Venice we know today, characterized by ongoing changes. For the sake of brevity, I will only outline a few exemplary, though not exhaus-tive, guidelines for the interpretation of a larger phenomenon, to be discussed elsewhere.