Medieval Towns — theii" Business and Buildings 5 1 7 place for fishermen, and its very desolation and inaccessibility recommended it to those settlers who fled from their homes on the mainland during the barbarian invasions. As time went on, the location proved to have its advantages commercially, and even before the Crusades Venice had begun to engage in foreign Fig. 191. A Scene in Venice Boats, called gondolas, take the place of carriages in Venice ; one can reach any point in the city by some one of the numerous canals, which take the place of streets. There are also narrow lanes along the canals, crossing them here and there by bridges, so one can wander about the town on foot trade. Its enterprises carried it eastward, and it early acquired possessions across the Adriatic and in the Orient. The influ- ence of this intercourse with the East is plainly shown in the celebrated church of St. Mark, whose domes and decorations suggest Constantinople rather than Italy (Fig. 192). It was not until early in the. fifteenth century that Venice found it to her interest to extend her sway upon the Italian
