More on The City of Falling Angels

I've read some more of The City of Falling Angels and more interesting facts, which are somehow related to our project came up.
First of all, there is a big discussion after the fire at the Fenice episode, about who was responsible for it and how the negligence from the part of the authorities may have contributed. They even suppose that there could have been some interested parties, since Rome would now send a lot of money to Venice for the reconstruction, and many people, including high level artists, would have to be employed on the new project, which could revitalize the Venetian art scenario. These ideas reminded me of my group's studies and investigations on how politics and external interests may be affecting the implementation of the cargo transportation system in Venice.
Also, there is a brief section about the history of Venice, which taught me some facts I did not know of. I did not know that Napoleon had been responsible for bringing the mighty Venetian empire (whose mightiness I wasn't aware of either) to its knees, in 1797. Interestingly, and rather ironically, this fact has to do with the intactness of the Venetian architecture nowadays, because the abrupt decline of the empire was followed by two centuries of poverty, which reduced the city's capabilities to adjust itself to modern times and made isolated Venice from the architectonic tendencies that appeared in Europe during two hundred years.