No city in the world appeals more strongly to the
poetic imagination than Venice. Her site, her people,
her history, her institutions, her art, are all alike unique.
Appearing first as a little group of fishermen's huts on
a sand-bank in the midst of a waste of waters, her soli-
tude and her humility afforded protection to successive
bands of exiles flying from ancient cities of the main-
land to escape from the scourge of the Northern bar-
barians, who thronged through the passes of the East-
ern Alps to share in the spoils of the ruined empire of
Rome. Secure within her broad moat of waves, her
foundations were firmly set. ^★ Rising in the dawn of
modern Europe, she linked the tradition of the old
civilization to the fresh conditions of the new. In-
dependent from the first, her people framed and ad-
ministered their own institutions. The destiny that
ruled her beginnings seemed, as she grew, to have
had no element of chance, but to have been de-
termined by foresight and wise counsel. Her posi-

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