Infantry, cavalry, and artillery units were also stationed in the area and foundries for armaments and munitions were built where the Jewish cemetery was later set up.

[11] In the mid-14th century tensions between Venice and the Republic of Genoa escalated due to their rivalry over supremacy of the naval routes and trading ports in the eastern Mediterranean .

The whole area became a c. 521 m long fortified citadel stretching along the lagoon coast with brick barriers and bastions, a dike and an earthen fore wall.

From 1600 the barracks hosted the Fanti da Mar (Infantrymen of the Sea), the first amphibian troops in history, a sort of precursor of today's marines.

Some of these were: In 1000 the doge Pietro II Orseolo (991-1099) set off for a mission to Istria and Dalmatia which freed the northern Adriatic from the Narentine pirates.

[19] Negotiations involving all the concerned parties to reach a formal peace treaty took place in Venice where a conference was scheduled for July 1177.

[20] In 1000 the doge Pietro II Orseolo (991-1009) set off for a mission to Istria and Dalmatia which freed the northern Adriatic from the Narentine pirates.

Between Lido and the Sant'Andrea fort (see above), where the Lagoon of Venice meets the Adriatic Sea, the doge took a golden ring which pope Alexander III had donated him.

This led to the building of the murazzi, imposing walls made with large blocks of Istrian stone to form a continuous sea defence on the barrier island of Pellestrina.

[23] This is because after the construction of the breakwater at San Nicolò (see below), sand has been accumulating on the sea shore in the northern part of the island, widening the beach.

In 1098 some of relics three of saints from Myra (now Demre), west of the Chelidonia cape, Lydia, on the southern coast of what is now Turkey, were smuggled by a naval squadron which returned form the first crusade and placed in the San Nicolò church.

[27] In 1620 there was a request to build a church at Lido to replace the unauthorised oratory of Beata Vergine Visitante Santa Elisabetta (Blessed Visiting Virgin St. Elizabeth) to the south of San Nicolò, which was built by the locals because they found it difficult to reach their parish church of San Pietro di Castello on the island with the same name.

In 1786 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German poet and scientist, visited Lido and wrote about his experience there in this book about his journey in Italy.

From 1879 queen Margherita of Savoy took her sickly son Victor Emmanuel III, the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Italy on holiday at Lido, at the sea bathing facility of La Favorita.

Tommaso Rima, a doctor at Venice's hospital, believed that bathing in the lagoon had therapeutic benefits for nervous illnesses, scrofulosis,[34] rickets and skin disorders.

In 1872 De la Hante bought the archduke's villa to convert it into a restaurant, café, casino and 70 rooms for an exclusive beach resort.

In 1858 the road from the church of Santa Maria Elisabetta, which was by the landing stage in the lagoon coast and lead to the seacoast, was widened and made suitable for vehicle traffic.

In the same year the military steamship Alnoch, which could carry up to 200 passengers, was made available for linking Lido with Venice during the tourist season from 6 am to 9 pm.

This idea was expounded by Paolo Mantegazza, a doctor who wrote about beaches and the sea as collective salons where people could rest and have fun.

With regard to Lido, compared to oar boats, it shortened the time needed to reach Santa Maria Elisabetta from San Zaccaria (near St Mark's Square) dramatically, from one hour to ten minutes.

The Grand Hotel Lido, in Piazzale Santa Maria Elisabetta, the square in front of the landing stage, was opened in 1900.

It had 82 rooms furnished by Eugenio Quarti, a famous Milan furniture maker nicknamed prince of the ebanisti (carpenters who work with ebony).

[54] In 1920 the Grand Hotel Company (CIGA) built a bagno popolare (low-cost bathing resort) and gave the municipality a large square to create a public playground.

It became a summer casino in 1946, when a winter venue was opened in Venice in what is now Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, formerly the last residence of Richard Wagner, who died there.

[61] In the 1960s, the improving post-war Italian economy created a real-estate boom in the island and many Venetians moved to Lido to benefit from its modern infrastructure.

In 2014, aviator Francesco Fornabaio was killed in a plane crash at the "Fly Venice" air show at Lido di Venezia.

It was the idea of the then chair of the Venice Biennale who was worried about a decline in tourism at Lido due to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and understood that cinema could help to alleviate this.

[67] Both the novella and the film were set at Lido and the Grand Hotel des Bains, where Thomas Mann stayed with his wife and brother in the summer of 1911.

[68] The term Lido, which originates from this island, forms the first part of the name of many seaside resorts in Italy and is used to refer to certain types of outdoor swimming pools, especially in Great Britain.

In Thomas Mann's 1912 novella Death in Venice, often considered one of his greatest works, the main character — Aschenbach — stays at the Grand Hotel des Bains in Lido.