Venetian

We've then got Romanian coming in at 24 million.

Portuguese with 10 million, Catalan with 7 million, Neapolitan with 6 million, Sicilian with 5 million, Venetian with 4 million, Galician with 2 million, Sardinian with 1 million, and Ossetan with about 500,000.

And if we look at that list, I can pretty much guarantee that once we've gotten as far as Portuguese, none of the other languages on that list were probably on offer to you when you were at school.

Or if they were, then they were in a club because you had a teacher that could offer it.

He writhed and twisted about like a man pinched with a colic and pulled a hundred queer faces.

At last, what is the matter, Eracolani, said I, are we not well? Mistress, replies the fellow, if that beast don't leave off soon, I shall run mad with rage or else die, and so you will see an honest Venetian lad killed by a French dog's howling.

The phrase of mistress is here not confined to servants at all.

Gentlemen, when they address one cry, mia padrona, note my mistress, end note, mighty sweetly and in a peculiarly pleasing tone.

Our government has left so narrow a space between the upper and under ranks of people in Great Britain, while our charitable and truly Christian religion is still so constantly employed in raising the oppressed by giving them the means of changing their situation, that if our persons of condition fail even for a moment to watch their post, maintaining by dignity what they or their fathers have acquired by merit, they are instantly and suddenly broken in upon by the well-employed talents or swiftly acquired riches of men born on the other side of the thin partition.

Whilst in Italy the gulf is totally impassable, and birth alone can entitle man or woman to the society of gentlemen and ladies.

This firmly fixed idea of subordination, which I once heard a Venetian say he believed must exist in heaven from one angel to another, accounts immediately for a little conversation which I am now going to relate.

Here were two men taken up last week, one for murdering his fellow servant in cold blood while the undefended creature had the lemonade tray in his hand going in to serve company, the other for breaking the new lamps lately set up with intention to light this town in the manner of the streets at Paris.

Here lay her chief power, and her commercial and maritime supremacy, which was undisputed until the rise of Genoa, introduced a formidable rival and a constant source of war and quarrel.

Venetian history differs from that of most Italian towns partly owing to her peculiar constitution.

A doge of Venice had existed ever since the seventh century.

He was a duke elected for life, at first by the whole body of the people, and in early days invested with almost supreme despotic power, though this was gradually usurped by his ambitious colleagues.

All the chief patricians were great traders and guildsmen, not military and territorial lords.

The power of Venice had gradually increased by the spread of commercial settlements and the subjection of surrounding lands, until the name came to include much more than the islands on the Rialto, which formed the city itself.

It was not, however, till the fifteenth century that Venetian territory reached its full development and that Venice became a great mainland power, participating in Italian complications and even in European politics.

Tuscany, divided by the Apennines from the Lombard plain, was split into a number of city-states.

Here lay her chief power and her commercial and maritime supremacy which was undisputed until the rise of Genoa introduced a formidable rival and a constant source of war and quarrel.

Venetian history differs from that of most Italian towns partly owing to her peculiar constitution.

A doge of Venice had existed ever since the 7th century.

He was a duke elected for life at first by the whole body of the people and in early days invested with almost supreme despotic power though this was gradually usurped by his ambitious colleagues.

All the chief patricians were great traders and guildsmen, not military and territorial lords.

The power of Venice had gradually increased by the spread of commercial settlements and the subjection of surrounding lands until the name came to include much more than the islands on the Rialto which formed the city itself.

It was not, however, till the 15th century that Venetian territory reached its full development and that Venice became a great mainland power participating in Italian complications and even in European politics.

Tuscany, divided by the Apennines from the Lombard plain, was split into a number of city-states.

I hope you'll enjoy the talks and that they'll help you find your way along your own Dharma road.

Episode 45 Intermingling Minds A Venetian Rendezvous In this extended episode, I take an exploratory wander through a number of themes and associations, all of which are somehow connected to the image of Venice as a place where people have met, traded and gone off on their travels to all parts of the globe.

This notion of a cosmopolitan meeting of people I associate with another observation, that people's minds are intermingling as well as their bodies.

The city is a place where they open their minds to each other, opening windows into each other's lives, swapping stories and ideas in a great communal marketplace of imagining and minding.

We're constituted out of innumerable strands of thought and feeling.

webs of connection with all the people we have met, all the songs we've heard, all the stories we've read and images we have seen, and all the places in which we have walked and sat and breathed.

Hence my title, Intermingling Minds, A Venetian Rendezvous.

Because I refer to many philosophers and writers in this episode, you may like to take breaks along the way and perhaps take a look at the transcript with its bibliography.