But like a lot of us, the place barely survived the middle ages. Venice ran the town for 400 years and proposed moving the arena to Venice in 1583. (While the Renaissance awakened interest in Greece and Rome, could Venice -- where Titian had died seven years earlier -- have needed more art?) A Pula-born Venetian senator earned a plaque among these stones by quashing the plan. But many stones did move -- the last being in 1709 to help build a belfry foundation we will see in a few more slides. Fortunately, Marshall Marmont whom Napoleon had tasked with governing Dalmatia, started a restoration which continued under the Austrians. Today, Pula's arena holds 5000 spectators who might lionize the likes of Pavarotti, Carreras, or Elton John -- or watch a movie, which, of course, would be called a "film."
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