by Judge Arthur Tompkins, ARCA Lecturer The horses remained in
Venice, in a variety of locations but mostly on the Basilica,
for nearly 600 years, until Napoleon arrived in 1797. The fall
of Venice followed on from the plundering of Rome. There was no
frontal attack, but rather Napoleon engineered the rebellion of
a number of subject cities on the mainland against their
Venetian masters, and after a year of negotiations, on Friday 12
May 1797 the Venetian Great Council voted itself into
extinction, and the French occupied the city. This brought to an
end 1070 years of independence, and left Venice and its
dependencies and territories, under the terms of the Treaty of
Campo Formio, signed in October 1797, divided between France and
Austria. But the Austrians did not arrive to take control of the
city until January 1798. In the meantime the French looted the
city. As Chamberlain notes, curiously for the legalistic French,
there was a four day lacuna between the dissolution of the Great
Council, and the signing