The region of Venetia, far from having been defined solely by the experience of the Republic of Venice, has been a recurring, coherent reality for the last three millennia - due to geographical, ethnocultural and historical factors.
In this first part of a series on the geography of Venetia, we will explore its territorial continuity as a coherent historical region through a chronological account of its existence in various forms.
Introduction
Geographically, Venetia extends from the Alps in the north to the Po River in the south, encompassing Veneto, Friuli, Trentino, parts of Lombardy (such as Bergamo and Brescia), and reaching into the Istrian peninsula through the Adriatic coastline to the east, forming a direct outlet for trade and maritime connections. To the West, consecutive rivers act as discrete borders, alternatively controlled from the Venetian core through its millennia-long history.
Its natural borders and strategic positioning have made it a critical crossroads, connecting the Italian peninsula with Central Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. This geographic framework has shaped Venetia’s role as a counduit: a hub of commerce when independent and a defensive chokepoint when part of larger empires.
Beyond its physical boundaries, the concept of Venetia as a historical region has persisted for over three millennia, even during periods of foreign domination or political division. This awareness of its strategic and cultural significance has always been deeply ingrained in the local elites and communities hailing from its geographic core, characterized by a cohesive ethnocultural identity ever since the region was settled by the Ancient Veneti.
Ancient Times (1600 BC - 558 AD)
We can begin to talk about Venetia as an ethnogeographical concept with the arrival of the Veneti in the region, bringing with them their eminently Indo-European customs, genetics and language, as well as being responsible for the spread of the Urnfeld Culture of Central Europe, characterized by cremation as opposed to the local customs of inhumation present in the italian peninsula.
Locally, the Urnfeld Culture quickly developed in the Proto-Villanovan Culture, who expanded to the rest of the italian peninsula. In Venetia, however, the Veneti would express the Este Culture, spreading their influence over parts of modern-day Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna.
The Veneti managed to maintain control over their borders for nearly four centuries, protected by natural barriers, until the invasion of the Cenomani Gauls forced them to retreat to the Adige River. Two hundred years later, the boundary was breached again by the Carni, who entered from the northeastern Alps, restricting the Veneti to their core ethnic territory.
Although relations with the Cenomani would be friendly - as they joined the Veneti in helping Rome against the Insubres and Boii Celts - the relationship with the Carni was characterized by conflict until their conquest by the Julius Caesar in 50 B.C.
The survival of Venetian civilization was likely ensured by their alliance with Rome, which gradually became a pact of subordination. In the following centuries, this led to a slow integration of the Veneti into Roman civilization.
Through this alliance, the Veneti reclaimed the lands lost to the Celts, as the region was reorganized by Augustus as Regio X, Venetia et Histria.
It is likely that the decision of Augustus of extending the Regio X to the old areas settled by the Ancient Veneti was not just a way of rewarding their loyalty, but also a strategic reorganization that mirrored the natural borders of Venetia, allowing for a better defense of the region as a whole.
In the following centuries, with the spread of Christianity, the establishment of episcopal dioceses in the territories of the Roman Empire followed the administrative structure of the latter. This gave rise to the Patriarchate of Aquileia, a metropolitan province that comprised Venetia and the surrounding territories of western Illyria, Noricum, Rhaetia, and in later centuries extending its influence from Como to the West to lake Balaton to the East.
Venetia as Austrasia (558 - 1077)
Five centuries later, the end of Rome in the West didn’t mean the end of Venetia as a cultural and geographical region: although the Gothic War and the subsequent invasion of the Lombards would ravage the region and cause a mass exodus of Venetians to the lagoon where Venice would be founded, the territory of Venetia would persist as a distinct region of the Lombard Kingdom.
This is significant, as the Lombard conquest was - unlike the other Germanic conquests of Roman regions - characterized by a complete disregard of pre-existing institutions like the church or the civil administration.
With their arrival, the Lombards organized their possessions in semi-autonomous duchies, which subsequently organized themselves in wider geographical spheres of influence that, interestingly, followed pre-existing ethnic boundaries:
The areas formerly inhabited by Venetians became known as Austrasia;
The areas settled by Celts in preroman times would constitute Neustrasia;
Tuscany, the region of old Etruscan civilization, was organized as the Duchy of Tuscia.
Thus, Langobardia Maior (the northern Lombard dominions) would, in the following decades, be characterized by an internal subdivision between Austrasia (East) and Neustrasia (West). These were not administrative subdivisions, but rather cultural and political partitions that developed during the VII century that represented the shared interests of the local aristocracies.
This process was also evident in Merovingian Gaul, where the Frankish Kingdom was similarly internally divided between Neustria and Austria. In the case of the Lombard Kingdom however, the division mirrored the older ethnic split between Venetians and Celts so precisely that we believe it was the result of a process of ethnogenesis that was likely caused by many factors:
The integration of the new Lombard elite with the pre-existing native population, which formed an ethnic sub-stratum that, in the case of Venetia, would have comprised the Venetians that did not flee to the lagoon and instead contributed further to the ethnogenesis of Venetia;
The diverging geopolitical priorities of the Eastern and Western duchies, distinct in their cultural and political stance, with Austrasia often opposing Neustrasia’s pro-Catholic stance and its pacification policies, instead favouring local autonomy and armed defense against external threats from the Avars, Byzantines, and Slavs;
The heavier settlement of Lombard civilians in the Duchy of Friuli during the first wave expansion in the italian peninsula, which maintained the original Lombard’s traditions and identity.
While inland Venetia became Austrasia, the coastal areas would survive as the Ducatus Venetus, which later evolved into the Republic of Venice. The split between an inland Venetia (Austrasia) and a maritime one (Ducatus Venetus) would not mean the end of the concept of Venetia as a coherent historical region, but rather the beginning of parallel - yet clearly Venetian - institutional developments.
Charlemagne’s counquest of the Lombard Kingdom in 774 and a subsequent revolt led by Hrodgaud of Friuli led to a substitution of the local Lombard aristocracy with Frankish counts, but this ultimately did not impact Venetia’s extent as a region, as it retained its territories and was again established as the March of Friuli, mirroring the ancient borders of Venetia.
In the following decades, areas of Trentino and Histria would be added to the March of Friuli, which for a time included areas of Carniola and Pannonia.
With the dissolution of carolingian power and the increasing anarchy, public authority slowly crumbled in all Western Europe and was transferred to local magnates and the clerical administration.
In Venetia, this was evident in the figure of Berengar I, Marquis of Friuli and King of Italy after the death of Charles the Fat in 888. He would, after mere days of being crowned King of Italy, initiate a series of transfers of public rights and assets of public significance (especially fortifications and state-owned properties) to benefit his large Venetian clientele, who would serve as his power-base in his bid for the imperial title.
As a result, Austrasia would come to be known as the March of Verona - a change in name that reflected the rising influence of the eponymous city under the rule of Berengar. This change in nomenclature was already underway since the carolingian conquest, as the titles of Duke of Friuli and Duke of Verona came to be held by the same figure, and eventually began to coincide and supersede the concept of Austrasia as a way to define Venetia.
Still, Venetia as a region - whether it was called Austrasia or March of Verona and Friuli - would often re-emerge as a coherent geographic unit and sub-division of the Holy Roman Empire during the anarchy that followed the death of Charles the Fat.
The Hungarian invasions had profound effects on the position of Venetia withing the Holy Roman Empire. After repeatedly fighting the Hungarians in the early X century, the Duke of Bavaria took control of the March of Verona and Friuli to prevent further incursions. This would lead to a separation of Venetia from the Kingdom of Italy, officially sanctioned by Emperor Otto I upon his first descent into the Italian Peninsula, a decision ratified at the Diet of Augsburg in 952, in which Otto I, King of Germany, redistributed the fiefs:
The Kingdom of Italy was granted as a fief to Berengar II, King of Italy.
The March of Verona and Friuli (up to the Adda River), and the crucial Alpine passes, were made subject to the Duchy of Bavaria.
The Duchy of Carinthia was given to Otto’s brother, Henry I of Saxony, Duke of Bavaria, who also received Carantania (now raised to a duchy) and Istria.
Records from Verona confirm that these decisions modified previous structures, allowing the imperial aristocracy to exert even more direct control over Venetia, likely a measure intended to safeguard the Empire from eastern threats.
From this point, the March of Verona and Friuli was governed by a highly prestigious figure of the imperial family, the Duke of Bavaria. Through this move, Otto I gained control of the Julian Alps passes, ensuring access into the italian peninsula.
This key change temporarily weakened the authority of the Margrave of Verona and limited the regional ambitions pursued by the Patriarchs of Aquileia, by then an established local authority. The relationship between central authority and the high clergy in Venetia remained strong, likely due to the predominantly German origins of bishops in these dioceses.
This direct control would not last long, as the March of Verona and Friuli would be annexed to the newly-established Duchy of Carinthia in 976. At the same time, the temporal power of the Patriarchs of Aquileia was fostered by the imperial authority, loosening Venetia’s dependence on the Kingdom of Germany.
The Venetian Interregnum (1077 - 1420)
In the XI century, in the context of the Investiture Controversy, the German Emperor Henry IV deposed the Duke of Carinthia and Veronese margrave Berthold II of Carinthia, as he had sided with antiking Rudolf of Rheinfelden. On 3 April 1077 Henry IV, vested the Patriarch of Aquileia Sieghard of Beilstein with comital rights in the Friulian lands of the March of Verona, raising him to the status of a Prince-Bishop. The remaining margraviate would remain tied to the Duchy of Carinthia.
Despite being still part of the Holy Roman Empire, this division was significant, as it constituted a clear point from which Venetia would come to be divided and ruled by different local powers, an epoch described by historians as the Venetian Interregnum. During these three centuries, no single authority emerged as powerful enough to dominate Venetia, leading to a prolonged power balance between competing local powers.
For the following 350 years, the different regions of Venetia would develop in parallel, each in its own unique - although eminently Venetian - way.
The area of Friuli would come to be known as the Patrie dal Friûl, which despite being governed by the Patriarch of Aquileia as an ecclesiatical principate, would gradually develop a more decentralized governance and parliamentary institutions.
During the XII century, after its consolidation, patriarchal power began a gradual process of decentralization. The formation of the ecclesiastical principality initially led to a concentration of authority, followed by a “redistribution” of power to lay figures involved in governance. This shift created a network of institutional relationships among bishops, churches and monasteries, feudal lords, and local communities.
To manage these interests, the Parliament of the Patrie dal Friûl, one of Europe’s earliest parliamentary assemblies, was established in the early XIII century. It included representatives from towns, nobility, and the clergy, and convened to address legal, military, and financial matters within the Patrie, creating a rare model of collective governance.
Another noteworthy development were the Vicinie, village communities that managed local resources, communal lands, and internal regulations, allowing for considerable local autonomy and showcasing a governance model where communities had significant control over their own affairs.
While this governance model was a source of strength for the Patriarchate, over time it became its weakness, as each part of the body politic represented a potential source of conflict and competing interests.
The March of Verona would gradually emancipate itself from the Holy Roman Empire, being separated from the Duchy of Carinthia in 1151 and seeing its most important cities forming the Veronese League, an association of free Communes - self-governing cities - aimed at protecting their independence against the Italian policies of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
The League was led by Venice, with other members being Verona, Padua, Vicenza, and Treviso. In 1167, the Veronese League would join the Lombard League against the Emperor and win its own independence at the Battle of Legnano in 1176.
This constituted the de facto end of the March, as even if the Emperors of Germany continued to name vicars, the office was purely nominal, and from the 13th century onwards the actual powers in Verona were the podestàs from the Scaliger (della Scala) dynasty, who at their peak came to control vast areas from Treviso to Brescia.
The coastal areas of Venetia would, by the end of the XIV century, come under the control of the Republic of Venice, who also controlled areas of Histria and Dalmatia and had already established a mercantile empire in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Venetia Reunited (1420-1797)
At the beginning of the XV century, the Republic of Venice - direct heir to the ancient Roman region of Venetia et Histria and long desiring to reclaim its historical territories - seized an opportune moment to expand. Venice exploited two succession wars: the War of Padua, which erupted following the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1402, and the Friulian War of Succession in 1411, which saw the Patriarchate of Aquileia collapse into a brutal ethnic conflict that had flared up a generation prior.
As Venice sought to regain its lost territories, the Patrie dal Friûl, pressured by the geopolitical impact of the personal union between Hungary and Croatia, was incentivized to aligne itself with Venice for strategic reasons. Following the victory of the pro-Venetian faction led by the Savorgnan family in the Friulian War of Succession, Friuli’s subsequent dedition to Venice ensured that its unique institutions were preserved and integrated in the Venetian administration of the region, with the Venetian provveditors acting as dukes of the region.
In the following decades, Venice would extend its authority over almost all of Venetia, with a system of spontaneous deditions that allowed the subject cities to retain their own autonomy and customs.
This sudden expansion sparked discontent among neighboring powers, which soon escalated in the formation of a coalition against Venice and the outbreak of the War of the League of Cambrai, as various states sought to ultimately partition Venetia among themselves.
Despite facing a continental-sized coalition, The Republic of Venice managed to maintain its control over the whole of Venetia, and the war itself demonstrated the loyalty of the local Venetian population to the relatively recent regime of Venice.
For the next centuries, almost all of Venetia would be united and free under the rule of a true Venetian Res Publica.
Venetia during the Revolution (1797 - 1815)
Contrary to popular belief, Napoleon did not dissolve the Republic outright nor force the Venetian Senate to vote on annexation. Instead, after briefly occupying the territory during the War of the First Coalition, the French withdrew, leaving Venice under Austrian control per the Campoformio agreement.
With the dissolution of the Venetian government in 1797, Venetia would actually survive in both its territorial extent and its administrative structure. In fact, the last Doge of Venice was not Ludovico Manin, but rather the Emperor Francis II of Austria.
In the eight years between the Treaty of Campo Formio and the Treaty of Pressburg, the Venetian Republic was not fully integrated into the Holy Roman Empire, but instead remained largely intact, with most institutions left in place, the legal code unchanged, and the Venetian currency still in circulation.
This period is known, in historiography, as the Venetian Province (1797-1805), in which Francis II governed Venice as Duke through his representative, the Margrave of Strassoldo, who resided in the Doge’s Palace for those six years. Despite this, the structures and traditions of the Serenìsima persisted until it was annexed to Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy after the War of the Third Coalition.
As a consequence, Venetia’s territorial administration - the product of centuries of local development that was carefully respected by the Serenìsima - was wiped out by the new italian bureaucracy: the kingdom was divided into administrative departments designed to purposefully ignore traditional ethnic or historical boundaries, reinforcing a more centralized and uniform governance.
It it not surprising that, between 1806 and 1815, Venetians rose up in an anti-Napoleonic uprising, larger and more significant than earlier Venetian revolts against the revolutionary armies - such as the Pasque Veronesi or the Liberateur d'Italie incident during the First Coalition War. This history is rarely discussed, partly because it challenges the dominant narratives of both Venetian nationalism and Italian unification.
The uprising began with the Crespino incident, sparking a wave of resistance throughout Venetia. Venetian rebels, rallying under banners bearing “Viva San Marco”, aimed to restore their “Doge,” though the figure they supported was actually Emperor Francis II of Austria. Central to this movement was Giuseppina Negrelli, a symbolic leader and figure akin to a “Venetian Joan of Arc”.
Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia (1815-1866)
After the Napoleonic interval, Venetia would come to be ruled by the Austrian Empire, this time as part of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, created as a dependent state of the Austrian Empire, with a unique status compared to other territories. It retained a degree of autonomy as a kingdom, with its own government, legal system and administration - albeit under Austrian supervision.
The attitude of the Habsburgs towards Venetia was characterized by respect of both the legacy of the Republic of Venice and of the Venetian Nation itself.
From Venetia to Veneto (1866 - present)
We have already covered the catastrophe that was the Annexation of Venetia to the Kingdom of Italy, but its consequences go even further when one considers the impact of the new administration on the very concept of Venetia as a historical region.
First of all, the italian administration was intentionally centralist, as it excluded the previous local bureaucracy. This, along with the tax-induced famine, mass exodus and genocide, contributed to widespread anti-italian revolts in the following years.
The territorial administration of the Kingdom of Italy was characterized by a strongly centralized structure that limited regional autonomy. Upon unification, the new italian state adopted a unitary system based on the French administrative model, concentrating authority in the central government and subordinating local regions and municipalities.
Regions were formally acknowledged but held no autonomous administrative powers, and their role was primarily geographic rather than political. Regional identities continued to exist culturally, but they had minimal formal influence under the unitary system.
The Kingdom divided the country into provinces (similar to departments), each governed by a prefect appointed by the central government. While provinces had councils with limited self-government, they were heavily supervised by the prefects.
The annexed regions of Venetia would only gain formal recognition in 1870, when they would be organized as “Venezia Euganea”, a region that came to include both present-day Veneto and Friuli. However, the conceptualization of Venetia during this period would diverge from its true historical and territorial coherence, primarily due to the vision of Risorgimento-era figures like Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, who divided Venetia into three distinct regions, collectively named Triveneto:
“Venezia Euganea”, including modern-day Veneto and Friuli;
“Venezia Tridentina”, comprising Trentino and Sudtirol;
“Venezia Giulia”, which included the Austrian Littoral and Istria.
This tripartite division implied that 'Venetia' was indeed recognized as a historical and territorial entity by the ruling Savoyard elites, who sought to delineate it with the aim of affirming their irredentist ambitions.
After WWI, as Italy acquired additional territories from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they were kept separated from the rest of Venetia, and dubbed “Venezia Tridentina” and “Venezia Giulia”.
This selective naming, however, did not reflect Venetia's historical borders, as some areas within these newly minted regions had never belonged to Venetia but were included to solidify italian nationalist claims.
This semantic reshaping further distanced Venetia from its historical identity, gradually narrowing it to a modern 'Veneto' stripped of the broader territorial coherence it once represented. Yet, throughout its history under foreign occupation—from the fall of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia to the rise of modern Venetian nationalism—Venetia retained a latent identity rooted in the concept of the “Republic of San Marco” when conceptualized as an independent territory. Contemporary sources and early independence advocates referred to it explicitly as such, underscoring Venetia's persistent legacy as a cohesive territory across the ages.
The experience of World War I saw Venetia sacrificed, and thousands of Venetians sent to the frontlines without genuine political representation. This radicalized even the most moderate factions in Venetia, as movements demanding full autonomy or even independence began to emerge. In the tumultous years after the war, unrest in Venetia would lead to the region being called "the Ireland of Italy".
However, these demands for self-determination would be fiercely repressed by the fascist regime, which pursued a policy of forced italianization and administrative centralization, as it made the municipalities and provinces directly dependent on the central government.
The tides began to shift during World War II, as Italy suffered severe defeats. German leaders, in planning Operation Achse (Fall Achse), considered establishing not only a puppet Italian state under German influence but also recognized the strategic advantage of occupying and eventually annexing Venetia, an idea that is also evident in the Goebbels and Himmler's diaries, which revealed the region’s paramount value to the Reich.
When Germany entered Italy in September 1943, forming the Italian Social Republic, they chose to occupy much of Venetia directly while leaving the Venetian ethnic heartland to the Republic of Salò to ensure its loyalty. Northern Venetia was split into two administrative zones, the OZAV (Operationszone Alpenvorland) and the OZAK (Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland), which cautiously respected local identities, allowing them varying degrees of autonomy.
In 1944, the Reich’s leadership made contact with Venetian paramilitary groups—heirs of suppressed political movements fighting in the anti-fascist resistance. Although Germany did not promise a unified Venetia, these factions likely preferred the prospect of a "Venetian Interregnum" to the continued subjugation under a regime that denied Venetians their identity. These groups thus allied with Germany until the end of the war.
As the German lines disintegrated, these collaborators were left vulnerable. A pivotal event, the Porzus Massacre, proved decisive in shaping their future. In this massacre, communist partisans, seeking to annex Venetia to Yugoslavia, attacked Catholic-aligned white partisans. Outraged by this atrocity, those who survived regrouped under Aldo Specogna, who forged an alliance between Venetians, Friulians, and former fascist collaborators to repel the communist forces and the Yugoslav IX Korpus, which had advanced as far as Udine.
With the war’s end, this paramilitary alliance formed the "Organization O", an underground force that, with Anglo-American support, evolved into a parallel state structure in Venetia. In 1945, this force was twice the size of the liberated Italian army, making it invaluable in preventing both a Yugoslav invasion and potential civil conflict with communists.
Venetia thus operated as a semi-autonomous satrapy within Italy, lasting from 1945 until 1963. As the Italian Republic stabilized, this militarized government’s purpose faded, leading to growing friction between the two.
To avoid an independence war or conflict with Yugoslavia, negotiations were held, resulting in the establishment of Veneto and Friuli as separate regions, with only Friuli gaining autonomous status (similarly to Trentino and Sudtirol). Thus, Venetia was reduced to its core territories - not because of any consideration of ethnic recognition, but for mere political and administrative convenience.
Veneto would remain directly controlled by the central government until 1970, when the provision for ordinary regional autonomy of the Constitution of 1946 would actually be implemented.
Conclusion
As this chronological account demonstrated, the persistence of Venetia as a historical region across millennia is grounded both in its natural geography and in the ethnocutural coherence of its inhabitants.
These factors, more than mere political unification, have formed the foundation of Venetia’s identity and of the awareness in its local elites of its role as a vital gateway between the Mediterranean regions and Central Europe. This perspective makes Venetia not just a collection of cities and territories but a coherent historical region with a legacy that endures to the present day.
As we will see in the next article in this series, this continuity has allowed for a continuous geopolitical perspective and identity to develop in the local Venetian elite, a self-awareness that persists to this day and that might inform present and future Venetian geopolitical thought.