Metropolitan City of Venice had annexed Padua and Verona, and by the 16th century the republic included territories from the Julian Alps to Crema, Istria, Dalmatia, Cyprus and part of the Peloponnese. In 1797, Napoleon invaded the Republic and, following the Treaty of Campo Formio, it was ceded to Austria. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the Austrian Empire founded a province of Venice on the Adriatic. In 2015 this was converted to the current Metropolitan City. Facing east on the Northern Adriatic Sea, the Metropolitan City is bordered to the northeast by the Province of Udine and Province of Pordenone, south by the
Gulf of Suez Rift the area now occupied by the rift was a shallow sea depositing carbonates. This period was mainly quiet tectonically but the northern part of the gulf region was affected by periodic far-field effects of the Alpine orogeny. A series of WSW-ENE trending extensional basins were inverted, creating isolated uplifted and folded areas known as 'Syrian arc' structures. These structures were mainly active during the Late Santonian but there is evidence of further movements on the same structures at the end of the Cretaceous and during the Paleogene. Rifting began along the whole of the Red Sea -Gulf of Suez rift