'Eighteenth century Venice was a paradigm of degradation. … Her trade had vanished, her aristocracy was hopelessly effete, and she depended for her existence upon the tenuous good faith of her neighbours.'

No wonder Napoleon swept her aside. The Venetians, temporising and vacillating, offered him no real resistance, and he ended their Republic with a brusque gesture of dismissal: 'Io non voglio piu Inquisitori, no voglio piu Senato; saro un Attila per lo stato Veneto'- 'I want no more Inquisitors, no more Senate: I will be an Attila for the Venetian State.'

Jan Morris, Venice, published by Faber and Faber.