ABSTRACT
Venice is beginning to be looked upon in environmental circles with the same gravitas as it has been in architectural circles since Ruskin offered it up as the ultimate archetype of form and sentinel of (dis)function. Musu (2001, in Musu 2001) believed that Venice is the most relevant example of the relation between environment and development and the tradeoffs existing between ecosystem preservation and economic resourcism. And Rinaldo (in Musu 2001) went even further in his assertion that the Venetian challenge is the central episode of the crisis of modern civilization.
