In the 17th century painting, for some reason, took a rest music, on the other hand, came into its own - largely thanks to a single man, Claudio Monteverdi. This led to the practice of using two choirs, placed in different parts of the building – a practice that should have led to disaster, but somehow, under the guidance of Andrea Gabrieli and his nephew Giovanni, the two greatest Venetian musicians of their time, proved highly successful. As for music, it was still virtually all religious, firmly centred on the Basilica of St Mark, which already possessed not one but two organs, set in high galleries. In the art of painting the Renaissance was late in its arrival, making its appearance only in the second half of the 15th century with Giovanni Bellini and his contemporaries heralding the glorious cinquecento that was to follow. And so, gradually, the truth dawned: the Mediterranean had become a backwater.Īs Venice's political fortunes declined, however, her culture flourished. But already by 1500 two further blows had fallen: the discovery, first of the New World and then - only a year or two later - of the Cape Route to the Indies. The capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II in 1453 was the first stroke of her death-knell as a maritime and mercantile nation and as Turkish power spread, all Venice's trading colonies in the eastern Mediterranean were lost. Nowhere is this more true than it is of Venice. I t is often argued that it is only when a nation is politically in decline that its culture reaches its highest point.
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