VENICE: city development maps

Maps, maps, maps. Theres something therapeutic about tracing old maps; figures of cities twisting and turning from the centre to its water edges. Mindless work it appears to be at times, but I like feeling the city change at my fingertips...  Through my initial research most authors seem to speak of the birth of the city from nothing. I would like to think that Venice always existed, exactly like she is today. As Tiziano Scarpa wrote, "its been sailing since the dawn of time; its put in at every port." Like a fish thats always swam, before every man, Venice the fish stations herself within Adriatic in almost her present day form. Although this may be simply a glorified personification of the city, it is interesting to to suggest that Venice as a city form seems to emerge from the sea during the second century AD. Prior to 'Paolino' map of 1346 (Library of St. Mark) no graphic illustration of the city seems to exist. The above development maps begin to explain how Venice was already a condensed centre from its first centuries. It's organic shape would remain for almost six centuries. By 1843, the island city was part of a modern state, and linked to the mainland by a three mile railroad bridge. This in turn allowed the mechanized world to beckon on her heels thus the beginning of the alterations to Venice's physiognomy and the destruction of ancient buildings.