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Right Honourable, and my very good Lord,
I Owe your Lordship, even by promise, some ac∣count of my foreign Travels: and the Obser∣vations which I have taken touching this City and Republick, are these;
The general position of the City of Venice, I find much celebrated, even by the learnedest of the * 1.1 Arabians, as being seated in the very middle point between the Equi∣noctial and the Northern Pole, at 45. degrees pre∣cisely,
or next hand, of latitude: yet their Win∣ters are for the most part sharper then ours, though about 6. degrees less of elevation; perchance by vi∣cinity tothe chilly tops of the Alps, for Winds as well as Waters are tainted in their passage; and the consequence which men make in common discourse, from the Degree of the place to the Temper, is in∣deed very deceiveable, without a due regard to other circumstances.
The Circuit thereof, through divers Creeks, is not well determinable; but as Astronomers use to measure the Stars, vve may account it a City of the first Magnitude; as London, Paris, Gaunt, Millain, Lisbon, &c.
Hovv they came to be founded in the midst of the Waters, I could never meet with any clear Me∣morial. The best and most of their Authors ascribe their first beginnings rather to chance or necessity, then counsel; which yet in my opinion will amount to no more then a pretty conjecture intenebrated by Antiquity: for thus they deliver it; They say, that among the Tumults of the middle Age, vvhen Nations vvent about swarming like Bees; Atylas, that great Captain of the Hunnes, and scourge of the World (as he vvas styled) lying long vvith a nu∣merous Army at the Siege of Aquileia, it struck a mighty affrightment and confusion into all the nearer parts; vvhereupon, the best sort of the bor∣dering People, out of divers Towns, agreed either suddenly, or by little and little (as fear vvill some∣times collect, as vvell as distract) to convey them∣selves and their substance into the uttermost bosome of the Adriatick Gulf, and there possessed certain desolate Islets, by Tradition, about seventy in number, vvhich afterwards (necessity being the
Mother of Art) were tacked together with Bridges, and so the City took a rude form, vvhich grevv ci∣vilized vvith time, and became a great example vvhat the smallest things vvell fomented may prove.
They glory in this their begining two ways: First, that surely their Progonitors vvere not of the meanest and basest quality; (for such having little to lose, had as little cause to remove.) Next, that they vvere timely instructed vvith Temperance and Pe∣nury (the Nurses of Moderation.) And true it is, that as all things savour of their first Principles, so doth the said Republick (as I shall afterwards shew) even at this day: for the Rule vvill hold as vvell in Civil as in Natural Causes.
Caetera desunt.
Averhoes.