The connection between religion, culture, language, and…

Refugees from Aquileia, a city sacked so ruthlessly by the Huns in 452 that it is essentially uninhabitable, establish the city of Venice to the southwest, the residents having fled to small islands in the Venetian Lagoon.

A council of twelve townships emerges on the islands in the Venetian lagoon to form a basic system of governance.

...Venetia and ...

Venice (uniquely among the chief cities of present Italy) comes into being after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West when the Lombard hordes, whose incursions into northern Italy begin in 568, drive great numbers of mainlanders onto the islands of the lagoon, previously the homes of itinerant fishermen and salt workers.

The Lombards under Alboin, having swept through the Veneto, …

…the isolated communities of Venice, literally islands of Veneto-Greek civilization, become part of it.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta (Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta), a basilica church on the Venetian island of Torcello, is a notable example of Venetian-Byzantine architecture.

One of the most ancient religious edifices in the Veneto, it is founded by the exarch Isaac of Ravenna in 639, confirming the island's importance as a center of population in Venice at this date.

…one of the islands in the Venetian lagoon.

Venice emerges as an independent city-state in the first half of the eighth century.

Venetian authority becomes concentrated in the city-state’s first doge, whose title derives from the Latin “dux” ("leader").

Orso Ipato, the third traditional Doge of Venice, is the first historically known.

Elected leader of Venice around 726, will eventually be appointed Roman consul by Emperor Leo III.

According to John Julius Norwich (A History of Venice. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1982), Paolo Lucio Anafesto, the reputed first doge of Venice, was actually Exarch Paul.

Moreover, Paul's magister militum had the same first name as Paoluccio's reputed successor, Marcellus Tegallianus, casting doubt on the authenticity of that doge as well.

As popular revolts against iconoclasm break out in the late 720s in Venice, ...

The rule in Venice of the doge Orso I ends in 739; he is succeeded by imperial officials.