Venice looking at the past and an opportunity for the future

History of a challenge, a balance between nature and men to be subtracted from time to time to insecurity, constantly be regained. At least since the year one thousand, Venice has had to pay a daily struggle and long breath against the silting of the lagoon. The numerous rivers that sboccavano at that Adriatic Gulf, with their transport of sand and mud fueled the formation of swamps, altering the healthy air and threatening, with the spread of malaria, the city life. But the same silting process of inland waters constituted a mortal danger for the future of Venice, because it led to the destruction of its ports and the fatal decline of its maritime economies.

The fight has continued over the past two centuries and still requires a strong concentration of intelligence, technology and resources. Below the spectacular parable with which Venice has established itself as a center of the first magnitude in the international traffic, regional State of the most powerful in the world, home of the arts and cultural crossroads, and finally as a city symbol of a whole civilization, flowing So a dark and dramatic story, which sees fishermen actors, technicians, hydraulic experts, engineers struggling with a fragile and delicate habitats. Not unlike the present inhabitants of the planet, the people of Venice have had to face the threat of a microcosm of problems. How was it so successful? Behind the success of the technical design hides a secret and important key to explaining the victory of the city. A severe and far-sighted policy of preservation of the natural balance, the government of resources and goods under the sign of an early and surprising "economy of reproducibility", make the action state of the Venetian ruling classes conducted a universal model that has few of comparison in the history of the West.

Venice door for dialogue not only cultural but driving sustainability and resilience in a modern way. So tied to the future of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Black Sea basin and to the Gulf can be and be an element of dialogue and stability, a vital example of good practice and an international challenge that we can not / must escape. In the next geographic area where Europe recorded today a plurality of increasingly transnational challenges and tensions that affect the legitimacy of the borders and of the structures of state power and balances regional and alignments. In the new (dis) order that is emerging shows a period of widespread change. This includes countries in search of a consolidation, in some difficult cases, the socio-political internal equilibrium, is the case of Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia and Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria and situations of open conflict and confrontation, as in Iraq, Syria , Libya and Gaza, Ukraine.

The city of Venice in its metropolitan dimension in close and synergistic relationship with the Veneto region can make a contribution of analysis and understanding, reclaiming the centrality of the past to promote dialogue and proactive partnership, positive supporting democracy and the defense of rights