Changes

==History==

While there are no records of the founding of the city of Venice, available evidence leads historians to agree that Venice developed out of the movement of people (that is, refugees) from Roman cities in northern Italy who fled successive waves of barbarian invasions during the latter centuries of the Western Roman Empire. What remained after the Visigoth, Hun, and Lombard invasions of the fourth to sixth centuries was a strip of coastal Italian territory under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire along the northern stretch of the Adriatic Sea. New port facilities were built in the Venetian lagoon at Malamocco and Torcello. By the middle of the eighth century, the dominance of the Eastern Empire had been eliminated, and early in the ninth century Agnello Particiaco, the local duke, had moved the ducal seat to the well-protected Rialto (from Rivolalto: ''High Shore'') island, which is the current location of Venice.

As the city prospered and grew, the [[Monastery]] of St. Zachary, the first ducal palace, and a [[basilica]] to St. Mark were built. As the strength of Venice increased and Byzantine power waned, an anti-Byzantine character emerged that led to the growth of autonomy and eventual independence of Venice as a city-state. In 828, the prestige of the city was increased by theft of the [[relics]] of St. [[Apostle Mark|Mark the Evangelist]] from Alexandria, Egypt (except the head of the saint, which remains till this day in Alexandria, Egypt—the story is that the Venetian smugglers told the [[Islam|Muslims]] that they were just taking pickled pork out of the country). The relics were placed in the new Byzantine-styled basilica. Considerable Byzantine plunder from Constantinople was then brought back to Venice, including the Winged Lion of St. Mark, which became the symbol of Venice. In 1968, the [[Roman Catholic|Catholic Church]] returned part of the relics of St. Mark back to the Coptic Church in Egypt.^{[http://www.zeitun-eg.net/stcyril6/stcyril6_v18.zip video #1], [http://www.zeitun-eg.net/stcyril6/stcyril6_v19.zip video #2]}