Veneto
Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the north-east of the country. It is the 4th most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is the region's capital while Verona is the largest city.
Veneto was part of the Roman Empire until the 5th century AD. Later, after a feudal period, it was part of the Republic of Venice until 1797. Venice ruled for centuries over one of the largest and richest maritime republics and trade empires in the world. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the former Republic was combined with Lombardy and re-annexed to the Austrian Empire as the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, until that was merged with the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence and of a plebiscite.
Besides Italian, most inhabitants also speak Venetian. Since 1971, the Statute of Veneto has referred to the region's citizens as "the Venetian people". Article 1 defines Veneto as an "autonomous Region", "constituted by the Venetian people and the lands of the provinces of Belluno, Padua, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona and Vicenza", while maintaining "bonds with Venetians in the world". Article 2 sets forth the principle of the "self-government of the Venetian people" and mandates the Region to "promote the historical identity of the Venetian people and civilisation". Despite these affirmations, approved by the Italian Parliament, Veneto is not among the autonomous regions with special statute, unlike its north-eastern and north-western neighbours, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol respectively.
Veneto is home to a notable nationalist movement, known as Venetian nationalism or Venetism. The region's largest party is Liga Veneta, a founding component of Lega Nord. The current President of Veneto is Luca Zaia, re-elected in 2020 with 76.8% of the vote. An autonomy referendum took place in 2017: 57.2% of Venetians turned out, 98.1% voting "yes" to "further forms and special conditions of autonomy".
Having been for a long period in history a land of mass emigration, Veneto is today one of the greatest immigrant-receiving regions in the country, with 655,026 foreigners, notably including Romanians, Moldovans, Moroccans, Albanians and Chinese.
History
Venetic period
Between the 2nd and 1st millennium BC, the region was inhabited by the Euganei. According to ancient historians, who perhaps wanted to link Venetic origins to legend of Roman origins in Troy, the Veneti came from Paphlagonia in Anatolia at the time of the Fall of Troy, led by prince Antenor, a comrade of Aeneas. Other historians link Venetic origins with Celts.In the 7th–6th centuries BC the local populations of Veneto entered into contact with the Etruscans and the Greeks. Venetic culture reached a high point during the 4th century BC. These ancient Veneti spoke Venetic, an Indo-European language akin to, but distinct from Latin and the other Italic languages. Meanwhile, the Veneti prospered through their trade in amber and breeding of horses. Este, Padua, Oderzo, Adria, Vicenza, Verona, and Altino became centres of Venetic culture. Over time, the Veneti began to adopt the dress and certain other customs of their Celtic neighbours.
File:Venice – The Tetrarchs 03.jpg|thumb|The Tetrarchs were the four co-rulers who governed the Roman Empire as long as Diocletian's reform lasted. Here they are portrayed embracing, in a posture of harmony, in a porphyry sculpture dating from the 4th century, produced in Anatolia, located today on a corner of St Mark's Basilica in Venice.
Roman period
During the 3rd century BC, the Veneti, together with the Cenomani Celts on their western border, sided with the Romans, as Rome expanded and struggled against the Insubres and Boii. During the Second Punic War, the Veneti even sent a contingent of soldiers to fight alongside the Romans against Hannibal and the invading Carthaginians. These Venetians were among those slaughtered at the Battle of Cannae.In 181 BC a Roman triumvirate of Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, Caius Flaminius, and Lucius Manlius Acidinus founded a Latin colony at Aquileia as a base to protect the territory of the Veneti from incursions of the hostile Carni and Histri. From then on, Roman influence over the area increased. In 169 BC 1,500 more colonising families were sent by Rome to Aquileia. In 148 BC the Via Postumia was completed connecting Aquileia to Genoa. In 131 BC, the Via Annia joined Adria to Patavium to Altinum to Concordia to Aquileia.
The Roman Republic gradually transformed its alliance with the Veneti into a relationship of dominance. After the 91 BC Italic rebellion, the cities of the Veneti, together with the rest of Transpadania, were granted partial rights of Roman citizenship according to the Lex Pompeia de Transpadanis. Later in 49 BC, by the Lex Roscia granted full Roman citizenship to the Veneti. The Via Claudia would be completed in AD 46 to connected Altinum, Tarvisium, Feltria, and Tridentum. From Tridentum it continued northwards to Pons Drusus and further to Augusta Vindelicorum, and southwards from Trento to Verona and Mutina.
After the Battle of Philippi ended the Roman Civil War, the lands of the Veneti, together with the rest of Cisalpine Gaul, ceased to be a province. Between 8 and 6 BC, Augustus reorganized Italia into 11 regions. The territory of modern Veneto along with Istria, modern Friuli and Trentino-Alto Adige and eastern Lombardy became Region X. Aquileia, although not officially the capital was the chief municipium of the region. Meanwhile, under the Pax Romana, Patavium developed into one of the most important cities of northern Italy. Other Venetic cities such as Opitergium, Tarvisium, Feltria, Vicetia, Ateste, and Altinum adopted the Latin language and the culture of Rome. By the end of the 1st century AD Latin had displaced the original Venetic language.
In 166 AD the Quadi and Marcomanni invaded Venetia. It was the beginning of many barbarian invasions. Marcus Aurelius retaining the regions of Italia, superimposed another layer of administration by ascribing Regions X and XI to the district of Transpadana under a iuridicus. The end of the 3rd c. brought further administrative changes when Diocletian abolished the regions and districts and established provinciae. Thus, Region X became Province VIII, being enlarged in the west up to the Adda River governed by a corrector until 363 and from 368 to 373 by a consularius seated at Aquileia. Venetia et Histria remained one of the 16 Provinces of Italy in the 5th century when both Alaric the Goth and then Attila and the Huns devastated the area. Attila laid siege to Aquileia and turned it into a ruin in 452 AD. Many of the mainland inhabitants sought protection in the nearby lagoons which would become Grado in the east and Venice more to the west. On the heels of the Huns came the Ostrogoths who not only invaded, but also settled down in the region, especially near Treviso where the penultimate king Totila was born.
During the mid-6th century, Justinian reconquered Venetia for the Eastern Roman Empire. An Exarch was established at Ravenna while a military tribune was set up in Oderzo. Greek-Byzantine rule did not last long. Starting in 568 AD, the Lombards crossed the Julian Alps. These invaders subdivided the territory of Venetia into numerous feuds ruled by Germanic dukes and counts, essentially creating the division of Veneto from Friuli.
The invasion provoked another wave of migration from the mainland to the Byzantine controlled coast and islands. In 643 AD the Lombards conquered the Byzantine base at Oderzo and took possession of practically all of Veneto except for Venice and Grado. The 36 Lombard duchies included the Venetian cities of Ceneda, Treviso, Verona, and Vicenza. A reminder of Lombard rule can be seen in the place names beginning with the word Farra.
File:San Marco horses.jpg|thumb|The Horses of Saint Mark, brought as loot from Constantinople in 1204
Middle Ages
By the middle of the 8th century, the Franks had assumed political control of the region and the mainland of Veneto became part of the Carolingian Empire. Though politically dominant, these Germanic invaders were gradually absorbed into the Venetian population over the centuries.In the late 9th century, Berengar, Margrave of the March of Friuli was elected king of Italy. Under his tumultuous reign, the March of Friuli was absorbed into the March of Verona so that Verona's territory contained a large portion of Roman Venetia.
In the 10th century, the mainland of Veneto, after suffering raids from the Magyars and the Slavs, was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire. Gradually, the communes of the mainland grew in power and wealth. In 1167 an alliance was formed among the Venetian cities such as Padua, Treviso, Vicenza, and Verona with other cities of Northern Italy to assert their rights against the Holy Roman Emperor.
The emperor Frederick I, Barbarossa conducted six military campaigns in Italy, which was under his Holy Roman Empire. Originally he wanted to confront the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in the south. However, his intervention in Italy was opposed by several Italian cities, particularly Milan, which he had partially destroyed during his second campaign. A dispute with Pope Alexander III developed because Frederick endorsed antipope Victor IV, who had been elected in opposition to Alexander. Opposition against Frederick in northern Italy grew and the Lombard League, a league formed by several cities, fought him. Frederick was defeated at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. Preliminary peace negotiations took place at Anagni in 1176. Negotiations involving all the concerned parties to reach a formal peace treaty took place in Venice where a conference was scheduled for July 1177. The doge Sebastiano Ziani was to act as an intermediary.
The Second Treaty of Constance in 1183 confirmed the Peace of Venice of 1177 in which the cities agreed to remain part of the Empire as long as their jurisdiction over their own territories was not infringed upon. The league was dissolved at the death of Emperor Frederick II in 1250. This period also witnessed the founding of the second oldest university in Italy, the University of Padua founded in 1222. Around this time, Padua also served as home to St. Anthony, the beloved Saint called simply "il Santo" by the inhabitants of the town.