Introduction :Venice is renown for the long sweep of its history and its contribution to the arts. Its earliest centuries, however, have long remained obscure. In the last ten years, things have changed as archaeology has now begun to reveal what life was like in the Lagoon and the city in the years before the body of Saint Mark was brought to Venice. According to tradition, two Venetian traders purloined the bones of the Evangelist from a church in Alexandria in A.D. 828 and gave them to the Doge, who then built his new chapel in honor of San Marco. It will be recalled that it was only in A.D. 811 that the seat of ducal power had been relocated from Malamocco (on the Lido) to the area that we today call Piazza San Marco. Because of the lack of firsthand sources and written records for the time that runs from the fourth century A.D. through the eight century A.D., little was previously known about the city's formative years. One was left simply to puzzle over the legendary origins that the Venetians had constructed at a much later date (starting with the chronicle written by John the Deacon in the eleventh century A.D.). Recent archaeological excavations at several major sites -- Torcello, San Francesco del Deserto, San Lorenzo, Frari and Piazza San Marco -- are now throwing important new light on the period. The aim of the conference is to provide a synthesis of the new results and also to explain how this shift came about. The archaeological levels of interest are deeply buried in the ground (well below modern sea level), and it has taken the use of new methods in the field and the laboratory to make this all happen.

Dates and Places.  The conference will be held at Colgate University (Hamilton, New York) on October 5-6, 2001. The lectures will be given at Golden Auditorium, Little Hall, a brand new and state of the art facility at Colgate. The exhibition itself will be held at Case Library. In addition to the panels describing the recent excavations and environmental studies, it will include a set of artifacts brought from Venice and rare books from the library of the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) and Syracuse University.  Later, there will be a conference exhibition for display in London and at the American Academy in Rome.  

Check the schedule for the conference here