The size of 'Venice City' on a map is absolutely tiny. The individual islands are merely shards of glass. I don't understand how it was physically possible for such a small place to even develop an empire? I know people often say the same about Britain 'small green sliver' blah blah but Britain was still a reasonably large country at least by European standards, supported by a decent-sized population spread out across different population centres and a varied geography (moutains in some places, green fields in others) etc.
In stark contract Venice 'City' is 114 miniscule islands. It does not seem realistic that it could have developed an empire from such a tiny territory...
a) Size: a single Venetian island would struggle to even physically fit a large factory that could produce something of value. So where did the industry in Venice reside? (Murano glass? - Murano is even smaller than Venice 'City')
b) Government: did the government just govern the 114 islands? You hardly need a large bureaucracy to govern an area the size of the historical City of London? What were all these initial Venetian Doges governing then? Lording it over a few islands in the middle of the sea?
c) Army: to have a proper army or navy you'd need a proper barracks to house and train them. Again, how will you manage this on some tiny Venetian island within the city of Venice?
Are there parts of the puzzle that I'm missing? Did 'Venice' mean more than just the City but it sprawled across all the other islands like Lido, Murazzi, Chioggia, Ca Savio... ?
Thanks in advance!
To add a bit to the response by u/alkiap, it is generally accepted that Venice emerged as a as a separate polity dependent on the Eastern Roman Empire in 726, although it is possible that it existed in such a capacity earlier, but there are no surviving sources corroborating this fact (the city itself has been founded around 452 by Aquileans). Thanks to diplomatic maneuvering between Eastern Roman Empire and the budding Frankish Kingdom, mainly due to efforts of doge Angelo Partizipatio, Venice gained independence in 814/815 after co called Pax Niceforiana, although this status has been recognized only 70 years later.
Even in 9th-10th century, Venice was not as small as one would expect, juding by its modern size. By the year 1000 in controlled the crescent of land and water between the rivers Adige and Tagliamento and roughly reaching to modern-day Dolo, Martellago and Torre di Mosto. This means that the Venice had a shoreline 72 miles (115 km) long and its area amounted to some 460 square miles (1200 sq km), making it one and a half times bigger than modern Singapore or Bahrain, although a large part of this territory was the Venetian Lagoon. In the late 10th century, Venice led by Pietro II Orseolo used its position and naval power to subdue pirates in the area (ultimately destroying their centres on Corzula (Korčula) and Augusta (Lastovo) islands as well as extending their influence over several coastal cities in Dalmatia, so until the year 1000 it already controlled large part of the shore of what is now Croatia, including key cities like Zara (modern Zadar), Spalato (Split) and Ragusa (Dubrovnik). This, combined with the focus on trade, privileges and preferential treatment granted by the Byzantine Emperor and the constantly developing fleet allowed Venice to amass significant wealth in relatively short time.
In late 11th century Venice greatly capitalized on the crusading movement, as their large fleet, control of the Adriatic sea, expertise in naval transport and proximity to the Eastern Roman Empire made it a perfect partner for the parties organizing mass transport of troops, colonists and pilgrims to the Holy Land to the point of the infamous forcing of a part of crusaders to support the side of the palace coup in Constantinople that was favoured by Venetians, resulting in the infamous sack of Constantinople in 1204. This particular event significantly weakened the Roman Empire and allowed Venice to extend their control to the part of Albania, Korfu, Ionian Islands, Candia (Crete) and Andrianople, all in the first decade of 13th century.