Venice's influence in the 19th and 20th Century. What historians want!

Post date: Oct 07, 2015 10:39:22 PM

Hi all,

Today the group meet with Prof. William Baller of the Humanities and Art Department. We talked to him about out timeline application and asked him, how he would use the timeline. He told us that as a professor focused on European Social history from Napoleon on he would be particularly interested in the history of Venice after Napoleon conquered them. He thought it would be particularly interesting to see Venice's impact in WWI and in WWII. He said it would be particularly interesting to see if Benito Mussolini ever went to Venice and if so what did he do there. Did he impose any fascism in the city? Also he would like to see if there was any correlation between the great Venetian Arsenal of the 15th century with the great submarines that the Italians produced in WWII. Being a city with a great port he believes there might be a possibility of submarines being built in Venice and going to battle in the Mediterranean. If so why did the allies not attack Venice? Where they trying to protect the history of Venice?

This talk was very productive for the group as it gave us another perspective of Venice. The group as well as most people see Venice as a tourist stop and not as an influential city in modern days, when in reality it had the capability to be one. Did Venice have any influence in WWI and WWII? Well we don't know yet, but as we dive in deeper into our research we will totally look for this.

If Venice did have an influence in these two wars the groups could create some sort of "Journey" as the BBC Timeline refers to their tours of the timeline. Where the viewer only sees events related to a specific topic. In the BBC timeline they offer tours of Slavery, Kings and Queens, and Women Rights. In the Venice timeline we could ofer an array of tours such as one of the doges, the Republic of Venice and possibly of WWI and WWII. Having this tool will definitely attract many historians to the application as many of them are interested in WWI and WWII related events..

-Andrew Baez