Was an 18th Century Annexation of Venice Ever Considered?

Was there ever any proposal to annex Venice by the Austrians or someone else, perhaps as compensation for one of the partitions? Obviously this happened in the Napoleonic Wars but I would have thought it'd be a more useful compensation for the Habsburgs than Galicia was...
 
Why did you think it was that Venice maintained good relations with France? You could ask why Austria never got around to annexing Bavaria and revive a similar answer.

The divided state of Italy was tied to European Politics at the time with the Italians playing Great Powers off each other. The opposite was also true. The Great Powers played Italians against Italians in order to gain influence. It had been that way for hundreds of years. It would have taken a total disruption of the European system, such as the French Revolution, to annex Venice or any of the other the mainland Italian States.
 
No, I don't believe so at least. It was the Switzerland of it's day near the end of it's existence, being convenient neutral grounds for diplomacy between the nations. While the political elite of Europe held the city in high esteem as a center of culture and philosophy making the thought of ending that seem sacrilege.

Venice at this time was coasting on it's reputation as the cool old guy of Europe.
 
Well, Austria certainly did consider annexing Bavaria, very seriously, at least three times in the eighteenth century. They resolved not to do that each time for broader diplomatic reasons and different priorities but the matter was very clearly on the table.
Austrian interest in Venetian territory also existed, but was a lot less significant. Venice was a useful secondary ally against the Ottomans (while Bavaria was, from Vienna's perspective, mostly nothing but a headache and often an irritating French proxy) and had no way to turn into a threat.
 
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