There are few cases comparable to the city of Venice in terms of population mobility between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. One of the four to five most populous cities on the continent, Venice extended its dominion to the Aegean, with an area of influence that extended to the Black Sea and Syria, and acquired a robust territorial state in Italy between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was therefore inevitable that the town was the destination of a population made up of different customs, languages, even religions. More than one observer thus ended up considering that most of its population was “foreign”. It was undoubt-edly a hyperbole, which nevertheless clearly conveyed the impression that a walk between Rialto and San Marco must have aroused.
