The Lido, which lies about 2 m.
Under the republic commercial shipping used to enter Venice by the Tort of San Nicole del Lido and lie along the quay called the Riva degli Schiavoni, in the basin of San Marco, and up the broad Giudecca Canal.
But with the decline of Venice the trade of the port fell off; the mouth of the Lido entrance became gradually silted up owing to the joint action of the tide and the current, and for many years complete stagnation characterized the port.
The Austrians, abandoning the nearer Lido entrance to the lagoons, resolved to deepen and keep open the Malamocco entrance.
The government accordingly resolved to reopen the Lido entrance to the lagoon, and thus to afford a shorter and more commodious access from the sea.
As at the Malamocco entrance so at the Lido, two moles were run out in a south-westerly direction; the westerly is about 2 m., the easterly about 3 m.
He gathered a fleet at Ravenna, captured Chioggia, and pushed on up the Lido towards the capital of the lagoons at Malamocco.
The intricate water-ways and the stubborn Venetian defence baffled all his attempts to reach Rialto; the summer heats came on; the Lido was unhealthy.
The swift Liburnian vessels began to raid the Lido, compelling the Venetians to arm their own vessels and thus to form the nucleus of their famous fleet, the importance of which was recognized by the Golden Bull of the emperor Basil, which conferred on Venetian merchants privileges far more extensive than any they had hitherto enjoyed, on condition that the Venetian fleet was to be at the disposition of the emperor.
Sailing to Chioggia he blocked the channel leading from the lagoon to the sea, and Doria was caught in a trap. Pisani stationed himself outside the Lido, on the open sea, to intercept relief should any appear, and Doria, instead of blockading Venice, was himself blockaded in Chioggia.
On the arrival of his successor, Pietro Doria, with reinforcements, they appeared off the Lido, the outer barrier of the lagoon of Venice, in July, and in August they entered on a combined naval and military attack on the city, in combination with the Carrarese and the Hungarians.
It was not till the invasions of Hun and Langobard that fugitives from the Venetian mainland took refuge among the poor fishermen on the small islands in the lagoons and on the lido - the narrow stretch of coast-line which separates the lagoons from the Adriatic - some at Grado, some at Malamocco, others on Rialto.
The form it took was a solemn procession of boats, headed by the doge's maesta nave, afterwards the Bucentaur (from 1311) out to sea by the Lido port.