On 17^th October, Warwick Venice Centre hosted a lecture by WVC Director, Prof Luca Mola and chaired by PVC-International, Prof Michael Scott, for an audience of Warwick History and History of Arts students undertaking their ‘Venice term’; members of the Venetian community and patrons of the charity Venice in Peril.

Luca’s talk unveiled some of the latest discoveries about Marco Polo, his life in Venice after his famous travels and about the wider culture of global trade and engagement between Venice and Asia in the 14^th century. This included not only hitherto unknown documents about Marco Polo himself; our clearer understanding of the crucial role that women in Venice played in financing expeditions to Asia in the 14^th century; and even revealed the latest research by our partner university, Ca Foscari University of Venice, into the metal used for the infamous Lion of Venice statue in St Mark’s Square, which, from scientific analysis, has been shown to have come from East Asia!

The event was part of the University’s Marco Polo International Programme – bringing together 36 global institutions to champion and investigate the importance and impact of engagement between cultures in the past and in the present. It was sponsored by Venice in Peril, a charity with which Warwick Venice Centre has been closely related since both were set up in the late 1960s in response to the great floods of Venice in 1966.