According to Jennifer Senior, reviewing Salvatore Settis’s If Venice Dies in the New York Times, Venice

“had 174,808 inhabitants in 1951. By 2015, the number had dropped to 56,072. That’s about 2,000 fewer residents than Venice had in the aftermath of the plague of 1348. Maybe the ancient records can’t be trusted. But you get the idea.”

I do. Better book that holiday now.

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