Why is there no History of Venice podcast?
There’s a History of Rome podcast, even if the Roman Empire doesn’t exist any more. There is a History of Byzantium podcast, even though the Byzantine Empire isn’t with us any more.
Yet, there is no History of Venice podcast.
That can’t be right? Right? No! It isn’t right!
The Serenissima existed as an independent state for over a millennium. For much of the Middle Ages, the city of Venice was one of the largest, most populous in Europe. For much longer, it was one of the wealthiest.
And nobody has made a podcast about it.
Be the change, you want to see, they say, so I’m starting a History of Venice podcast.
It’s going to be different from the podcasts cited before because it will not be a chronological narrative.
Why not chronological?
The chronological approach seems to be the dominant form of history podcasts. You start at the beginning, and slowly work your way towards the end, hoping you don’t die before you get there.
I won’t do that, except for some initial episodes.
The reason for the choice of an episodic form, rather than a serial, lies with my other work.
I do history walks in Venice — the website is historywalksvenice.com.
For these tours, I need to cover the entire period of Venetian history, from the start to today.
My tours are not pre-planned or scripted. They’re guided by what interests my guests, and where we happen to be. I need to have interesting stories to tell, from all periods, related to what we happen to focus on along the way.
The time for doing the tours, researching and writing for the History Walks site, sending out occasional Venetian Stories newsletters, and handling the bureaucracy of being self-employed, will come from the same twenty-four hours a day as researching, writing and recording podcast episodes.
There must necessarily be some overlap, and that rules out a chronological approach.
This podcast will, to some extent, be an audio side to all the other things I already do.
The initial schedule
The first episodes will be chronological, however, but won’t go very deep.
I will do one cursory “two thousand years in thirty minutes” episode, which will draw the wide arc of the entire timeframe of the podcast.
The following episodes will redo the same two millennia, in slightly more depth. The planned initial outline is this:
- Introduction
- Brief overview of 2000 years
- Roman and Byzantine period — circa 1–750
- Becoming a state — circa 750–1000
- Ascendancy — circa 1000–1200
- Wealth, power and empire — circa 1200–1400
- Changing geography — circa 1400–1600
- Decline and fall — circa 1600–1797
- Subject city — circa 1798–now
This might change as I write and plan the episodes, but this is the working schedule.
Later episodes
After the initial chronological episodes, the podcast will be episodic, not chronological.
The stories might be about single individuals or families, or about some specific event, or some wider theme, like the relationship between Venice and Constantinople, or the printing industry in Venice during the Renaissance.
It will be a little bit all over, just as my walking tours are.
The Venetian Stories newsletter at History Walks Venice works the same way, and some of those stories might find their way over here. In fact, I’d expect some synergy between the podcast and the newsletter.
Episode length and schedule
The plan is to do episodes of 25–30 minutes at most.
I will try to do a couple of episodes each month, but it is unlikely that I’ll find time to do more.
The Venetian Stories newsletter sometimes slip if I have many tours booked. It is likely that the podcast will do the same, occasionally.
The tours are what pays my rent, so they come first.
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