Venice Trivia
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44 free Venice trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Venice was a republic for almost a thousand years, ran what historians call the first factory and the first international financial centre, stole a saint's body from Alexandria and four bronze horses from Constantinople, and then handed itself to Napoleon in 1797. This quiz covers that history: the founding at noon on 25 March 421, the 117 doges, the Fourth Crusade, the Arsenal, the Black Death, the Ghetto that gave the world a word, and the last doge's abdication. It then covers the city that floats today: 126 islands and six sestieri, the four bridges over the Grand Canal, why glassmakers were exiled to Murano and lace made on Burano, the ferro on a gondola's bow, vaporetti, the campanile that fell down in 1902, the Bridge of Sighs, the record 1966 flood and the MOSE barrier, cruise ships and the day-tripper fee, plus Carnival, the Biennale, the world's oldest film festival, Marco Polo's prison memoir, Vivaldi's orphanage orchestra and Titian's Frari altarpiece. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Venice and its landmarks, people and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Italy quiz covers the rest of the country.
30 of 44 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What holds up Venice's historic buildings?
Wooden piles
Wooden piles were driven down below the water, where the wood is cut off from air, so it resists the rot that destroys exposed timber.
Q 02Venice's lagoon opens onto which sea?
The Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea was 'married' by the doge each Ascension Day, when he threw a golden ring into it as a token of Venice's rule over the sea.
Q 03Venice's first lagoon settlers were Romans from nearby cities fleeing what?
Barbarian invasions
Barbarian invasions, ending with the Lombards, drove them onto the islands, where a Byzantine duchy formed whose duke, the 'dux', became the doge.
Q 04Venice built the domed church of Santa Maria della Salute to give thanks for the end of what?
A plague
A plague killed 46,000 people in the city in 1630–31, and almost every work of art inside the church still refers to pestilence.
Q 05After conquering Venice in 1797, Napoleon handed the city to which power by the Treaty of Campo Formio?
Austria
Austria took the city, but in 1848 Venetians rose up, drove out the Austrians and briefly revived their republic under Daniele Manin.
Q 06Which crusade, diverted off course, sacked Constantinople in 1204 with the help of Venice's fleet?
The Fourth
The Fourth Crusade's loot included four bronze horses from Constantinople's Hippodrome; the originals are now kept inside St Mark's, with copies outside.
Q 07St Mark's body was smuggled to Venice from which city?
Alexandria
Alexandria's customs officers let the cargo pass because, legend says, the two Venetian merchants had covered the saint's body with pork.
Q 08Venice's 1516 Jewish Ghetto grew up beside what kind of works?
Foundry
A foundry, 'getto' in Venetian, may have given the Ghetto its name, and the quarter was shut off from the city under Christian watchmen.
Q 09Venice's medieval glassmakers were ordered to move their furnaces to which island?
Murano
Murano got the glass furnaces because the Republic feared they would set the crowded city on fire.
Q 10The lagoon island of Burano is famous for which craft?
Lace
Lace from Burano had faded by the 19th century, until a lace school opened in 1872 and revived the craft.
Q 11What are Venice's historic districts, such as Cannaregio and Dorsoduro, called?
Sestieri
Sestieri comes from 'sesto', a sixth, because historic Venice is divided into six of these districts.
Q 12What are Venice's motorised waterbuses called?
Vaporetti
Vaporetti means 'little steamers', a name kept from the steam-powered boats that first ran these public routes.
Q 13Which Venetian bridge did a rival architect predict would fall to ruin?
The Rialto Bridge
The Rialto Bridge still stands, while the earlier bridge on the same spot was destroyed and had to be rebuilt.
Q 21Why did Venice begin to sink noticeably in the 20th century?
Artesian wells drew water for industry
Artesian wells drew water for industry from beneath the lagoon, and that industrial pumping was later stopped.
Q 22In 1637, Venice's Teatro San Cassiano became the first theatre where paying audiences could see what?
Opera
Opera had been a private court spectacle, but San Cassiano opened it to a paying public, and many more Venetian opera theatres soon followed.
Q 23At Lepanto in 1571, Venice's galleys helped defeat which empire's fleet?
The Ottoman Empire
Q 14The Bridge of Sighs connects the Doge's Palace to what?
The New Prisons
The New Prisons lay across the canal, and tradition has prisoners sighing at their last view of the outside world as they crossed.
Q 15Which Venetian adventurer escaped in 1756 from the lead-roofed cells of the Doge's Palace?
Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Casanova had secretly been sentenced to five years, but after 15 months he broke out of his cell beneath the palace's lead-plated roof.
Q 16St Mark's Campanile in Venice is a reconstruction because the original did what?
Collapsed in 1902
Collapsed in 1902, and rather than leave the square open, the city chose to rebuild the bell tower exactly as it had been.
Q 17A remark usually attributed to Napoleon calls Piazza San Marco what?
The drawing room of Europe
The drawing room of Europe, as Napoleon supposedly called it, gained a new palace wing across its west end under French rule.
Q 18Why was Venice's Council of Ten created in 1310?
To judge plotters
To judge plotters behind Bajamonte Tiepolo's failed conspiracy, it began as a temporary court but was later made permanent.
Q 19Which two gods' colossal statues crown the Giants' Staircase in Venice's Doge's Palace?
Mars and Neptune
Mars and Neptune, carved by Sansovino, stand for Venice's power on land and at sea.
Q 20What does Venice's MOSE do against high tides?
Raises sea gates
Raises sea gates: its barriers rise at the lagoon inlets, but delays, cost overruns and scandals held back the first full test until July 2020.
The Ottoman Empire lost the battle, yet in 1573 Venice made a separate peace with the Turks on loser's terms, and the Holy League broke up.
Q 24As of 2021, where did most residents of the comune of Venice live?
On the mainland
On the mainland, around Mestre, which took in a large exodus from the historic centre while the old city's population kept falling.
Q 25Marco Polo dictated the story of his travels while a prisoner of which rival city?
Genoa
Genoa held him during its war with Venice, and his cellmate Rustichello wrote the stories down in Franco-Italian.
Q 26Vivaldi wrote many of his works for the all-female ensemble of which Venetian institution?
The Ospedale della Pieta
The Ospedale della Pieta's women and girls gave regular performances, and their fame attracted foreign visitors and patrons.
Q 27Titian's Assumption of the Virgin was painted for the high altar of which Venetian church?
Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari
Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari lost the painting to the Accademia gallery in the 19th century, but it returned to the high altar in 1919.
Q 28Which Shakespeare tragedy opens in Venice before the action moves to Cyprus?
Othello
Othello opens in Venice, whose senate sends its general to defend Cyprus, but a storm wrecks the enemy fleet before any battle is fought.
Q 29What is the top prize of the Venice Film Festival, the world's oldest film festival?
The Golden Lion
The Golden Lion went unawarded from 1969 to 1979, after the 1968 protests ended prize-giving, and returned only in 1980.
Q 30Which American collector bought a Venice palazzo in 1949 that now houses her museum?
Peggy Guggenheim
Peggy Guggenheim made the palazzo her home, opened her collection there to the public, and her ashes now rest in its garden.