The inaugural oration, spoken on the 4th day of November 1815, at the ceremony of laying the first stone of the London Institution for the Diffusion of Science and Literature / By Charles Butler.

  • Butler, Charles, 1750-1832.
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The inaugural oration, spoken on the 4th day of November 1815, at the ceremony of laying the first stone of the London Institution for the Diffusion of Science and Literature / By Charles Butler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    About the beginning of the eleventh century, Venice became generally known in Europe, by her extensive and lucrative trade with the sove¬ reign princes and states of Italy, Germany, Greece and Egypt. From a merchant, she be¬ came, like our own East India Company, a con¬ queror : by degrees, she turned her factories into fortresses, and, by conquest or treaty, made herself mistress of many towns and ports of Dalmatia, Albania, and the Morea, and of the islands of Candia, Corfu and Cephalonia, in the Archipelago. Having taken a leading part in the famous League of Lombardy, in support of Pope Alexander III, his Holiness, in testimony of his gratitude to her, conferred on her the Seignory of the Hadriatic sea. This gave rise to the sin¬ gular and splendid ceremony of the Doge’s mar¬ rying the Sea, on the Feast of the Ascension, by throwing into it, his ring, as a symbol of their Espousal. With equal success, but perhaps without equal wisdom, Venice afterwards extended her con¬ quests over a considerable part of the adjoining continent of Italy. They often proved to her a source of dispute and war, and drained her b 2 of