Republic of Venice

The Republic of Venice was an Italian maritime republic that existed for roughly 1,100 years, traditionally dated from 697, when Paolo Lucio Anafesto is said to have become its first doge, though the earliest doge confirmed by contemporary records is Orso Ipato in 726. Its capital moved from Eraclea to Malamocco and finally, in 810, to the city of Venice itself, which remained its seat of government for the rest of its history. Governed as an oligarchic republic headed by an elected doge, the state was administered through the Great Council, the Senate, the Council of Forty and the judicial Council of Ten. At its height between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, Venice controlled northeastern Italy, Istria, the Dalmatian, Montenegrin and Albanian coasts, and territories including Crete, Cyprus, the Peloponnese and numerous Adriatic and Ionian islands, and it stood as one of Europe's major commercial and naval powers with dominance over eastern Mediterranean trade routes. The republic ended when Napoleon's forces occupied Venetian territory and the last doge, Ludovico Manin, abdicated on 12 May 1797; the Treaty of Campo Formio that October divided its territory between France and Austria.