Foundation Myths

Myths have always been a creative means of fostering civic pride and projectingcivic identity. The story of Venice’s birth inspired mythmaking from itsvery beginnings. Some two hundred years after the Roman Empire had separatedinto eastern (Byzantine) and western (European) spheres, Cassiodorus(537–38), a Roman official stationed in the Byzantine capital of Ravenna,constructed an ideal template of the boat peoples on the Venetian lagoon. Hisdescription of a humble fishing population far removed from the official centersof political power inspired learned writers nearly a thousand years later tocreate a lasting image of a free people bathing in peace and prosperity. In thefifteenth and sixteenth centuries, an age when intellectuals emulated Greek andRoman ideals, humanist writers generously elaborated on Venetian origins. Amongthe most popular stories was the one linking Venetians with the free-spirited,noble warriors of Troy, who reputedly fathered the inhabitants ofVenetia, the present-day Veneto, Friuli, and Trentinoregions. Some mythmakers endowed the mainland peoples that colonized the lagoonwith Gallic bloodlines, while still others situated both Trojans and Gauls inVenetia in order to infuse Venetians with the noble ancestry of classicalantiquity, the most coveted of genealogies in Renaissance elite circles.