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Rh in the Levant and the archipelago should not eventually bring her into collision with the expanding energy of the Mussulman. Europe persistently refused to assist the republic to preserve a trade in which she had established a rigid monopoly, and Venice was left to fight the Turk single-handed. The first Turkish war lasted from 1464 to 1479, and ended in the loss of Negropont and several places in the Morea, and the payment by Venice of an annual tribute for trading rights. She was consoled, however, by the acquisition of Cyprus, which came into her possession (1488) on the extinction of the dynasty of Lusignan with the death of James II. and his son James III., Caterina Cornaro, James II.'s widow, ceding the kingdom of Cyprus to Venice, since she could not hope to maintain it unaided against the Turks. The acquisition of Cyprus marks the extreme limit of Venetian expansion in the Levant; from this date onward there is little to record save the gradual loss of her maritime possessions.

Exhausting as the Turkish wars were to the Venetian treasury, her trade was still so flourishing that she might have survived the strain had not the discovery of the Cape route to the Indies cut the tap-root of her commercial prosperity by diverting the stream of traffic from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. When Diaz rounded the Cape in 1486 a fatal blow was struck at Venetian commercial supremacy. The discovery of the Cape route saved the breaking of bulk between India and Europe, and saved the dues exacted by the masters of Syria and Egypt. Trade passed into the hands of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English. Venice lost her monopoly of oriental traffic.

To complete her misfortunes, the European powers, the church and the small states of Italy, partly from jealous greed of her possessions, partly on the plea of her treason to Christendom in making terms with Islam, partly from fear of her expansion in north Italy, coalesced at Cambrai in 1508 for the partition of Venetian possessions. The war proved disastrous for Venice. The victory of Agnadello (1510) gave the allies the complete command of Venetian territory down to the shores of the lagoon. But the mutual jealousy of the allies saved her. The pope, having recovered the Romagna and secured the objects for which he had joined the league, was unwilling to see all north Italy in the hands of foreigners, and quitted the union. The emperor Maximilian failed to make good his hold on Padua, and was jealous of the French. The league broke up, and the mainland cities of the Veneto returned of their own accord to their allegiance to St Mark. But the republic never recovered from the blow, coming as it did on the top of the Turkish wars and the loss of her trade by the discovery of the Cape route. She ceased to be a great power, and was henceforth entirely concerned in the effort to preserve her remaining possessions and her very independence. The settlement of the peninsula by Charles V.'s coronation at Bologna in 1530 secured the preponderance to Spain, and the combination of Spain and the church dominated the politics of Italy. Dread of the Turks and dread of Spain were the two terrors which haunted Venice till the republic fell. That she retained her independence so long was due to a double accident: the impregnability of the lagoons and the jealousies of the great powers.

But the decline was a slow process. Venice still possessed considerable wealth and extensive possessions. Between 1499 and 1716 she went to war four times with the Turks, emerging from each campaign with some further loss of maritime territory. The fourth Turkish war (1570-1573) was signalized by the glorious victory of Lepanto (1571), due chiefly to the prowess of the Venetians under their doge Sebastian Venier. But her allies failed to support her. They reaped no fruits from the victory, and Cyprus was taken from her after the heroic defence of Famagusta by Bragadino, who was flayed alive, and his skin, stuffed with straw, borne in triumph to Constantinople. The fifth Turkish war (1645-1668) entailed the loss of Crete; and though Morosini reconquered the Morea for a brief space in 1685, that province was finally lost to Venice in 1716.

So far as European politics are concerned, the latter years of the republic are made memorable by one important event: the resistance which Venice, under the guidance of Fra Paolo Sarpi, offered to the growing claims of the Curia Romana, advanced by Pope Paul V. Venice was placed under interdict (1606), but she asserted the rights of temporal sovereigns with a courage which was successful and won for her the esteem and approval of most European sovereigns.

But the chief glory of her declining years was undoubtedly her splendid art. Giorgione, Titian, Sansovino, Tintoret, Paolo Veronese and Palladio all lived and worked after the disastrous wars of the league of Cambrai. The chief characteristic of Venice during these years is that she became the great pleasurecity of Europe. The end of the republic came when the French Revolution burst over Europe. Napoleon was determined to destroy the oligarchical government, and seized the pretext that Venice was hostile to him and a menace to his line of retreat while engaged in his Austrian campaign of 1797. The peace of Leoben left Venice without an ally. The government resolved to offer no resistance to the conqueror, and the doge Lodovico Manin abdicated on the 12th of May 1797. On the 17th of October Napoleon handed Venice over to Austria by the peace of Campo Formio, and between 1798 and 1814 she passed from France to Austria and Austria to France till the coalition of that latter year assigned her definitely to Austria. In 1848 a revolution broke out and a provisional republican government under Daniele Manin maintained itself for a brief space. In 1866 the defeat of Austria by the Prussians led to the incorporation of Venice in United Italy.

VENISON (pronounced venzon), originally a word meaning a beast of any kind killed in the chase, but now only applied to the flesh of the deer prepared for eating. The O. Fr. veneisun, venoison, &c., mod. venaison, meant the flesh of the deer or boar, the principal beasts of the chase (Lat. venatio, hunting).

 VENLO, a frontier town in the province of Limburg, Holland, on the right bank of the Maas, and a junction station 43 m. by rail N.N.E. of Maastricht. Pop. 15,000. It is joined by a bridge over the Maas, with the opposite village of Blerik. Venlo, with narrow streets irregularly built is not of the ordinary Dutch type in architectural styles The picturesque town hall (1595), the only building of special interest, contains some interesting paintings, by Hubert Goltzius (1526–1583). The church dates from 1304. There is a college for the higher education of Roman Catholic priests. The leading industries are distilling, brewing, tanning, spinning, needlemaking and tobacco manufacture. There is also a considerable trade by river with Rotterdam.

VENN, HENRY (1725–1797), English evangelical divine, was born at Barnes, Surrey, and educated at Cambridge. He took orders in 1747, and was elected fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, in 1749. After holding a curacy at Barton, Cambridgeshire, he became curate of St Matthew, Friday Street, London, and of West Horsley, Surrey, in 1750, and then of Clapham in 1754. In the preceding year he was chosen lecturer of St Swithin's, London Stone. He was vicar of Huddersfield from 1759 to 1771, when he exchanged to the living of Yelling, Huntingdonshire. Besides being a leader