History

The Rise of the Serenissima: how Venice Went from a Literal Backwater to a Maritime Empire

How Venice triumphed against impossible odds and endured for over a thousand years

Sea power is one of the most important factors in determining the fate of powerful nations. This is truer of some powers than it is for others – but one crucial State in European history absolutely lived and died depending on their ability to control the sea. This country, a unique experiment in European politics, was the Mistress of the Adratic, La Serenissima, or more officially, The (Most Serene) Republic of Venice.

At her height, she ruled the Adriatic undisputed, she controlled the trade between the Fertile Crescent and Europe, she held a tight grip over the Eastern Emperors, and could and would safely ignore the Holy See whenever she so desired.
A few select episodes of Venetian history achieved popularity and infamy, such as the unexpected turn of events taken by Fourth Crusade, which culminated in the sack Constantinople and the enmity of Pope Innocent III. There is much more to Venetian history than this dark page however. Considering the Republic’s long history, some topics will be touched upon only in passing.

It was completely dark. The sky was stormy. I was tired…when suddenly the shouting of sailors struck my ears. Remembering the meaning of this from previous occasions, I hurriedly got up and climbed to the top of this house, which surveys the harbour. I looked out. Good God, what a sight! At once touching, marvellous, frightening and exhilarating! Here in the harbour there were some sailing ships which had moored at the marble quayside over the winter, as massive as this great house which the most generous of cities has put to my disposal. Their masts rise as high as its square corner towers. At this very moment, while the stars are muffled by thick cloud, while my walls are shaken by by blasts of wind, while the sea roars and bellows horribly, the largests of them cast off on its voyage…

Parts of a letter written by Francesco Petrarch, a poet and scholar, in 1363, in regards to Venice.

The Safety of the Lagoon

Flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice
Flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice

The history of Venice begins around 400 A.D. The first people to settle in the Venetian Lagoon were frightened men coming from the nearby Italian mainland. For centuries these people had enjoyed prosperous lives in a chain of splendid cities of the Roman Empire strung along the north-eastern shores of the Adriatic.

This came to an abrupt end in the early years of the 5th Century: with the collapse of the Roman Empire and Germanic soldiers sweeping down from northern Europe, the Adriatic communities were thrown into chaos. As further waves of invaders swept across the mainland, more and more people sought sanctuary in the channels and shoals of the lagoon. Not all stayed: as each wave of invaders passed, so people would return to the mainland to try to resume their own lives.

According to tradition, Venice formally came into existence at the stroke of noon on the 25th March, 421 A.D. But, it wasn’t until around 450 A.D. that large numbers of people decided to settle permanently in the lagoon. From there, the Venetians remained in place, carefully building their communities and trading with those around them.
While it would take Venice around five centuries until they began their rise to naval supremacy in the Adriatic, already in 523 we have evidence that Venice was known and was a recognized entity and already considered rather unique, as the Byzantine legate Cassiodorus wrote about them, saying “…your people have one great wealth – the fish which suffices for them all. Among you there is no difference between rich and poor, your food is the same, your houses are alike.”

A Unique Experiment

Venice viewed from the International Space Station
Venice viewed from the International Space Station

Before Venice became the wonder of the world, she was a curiosity (as shown by Cassiodorus), her social structure enigmatic and her strategies distrusted. Beyond the mullet and eels of the lagoon, and its saltpans, Venice produced nothing – no wheat, no timber, little meat. As such she was terribly vulnerable to famine, and the only thing keeping her safe was the ability to nagivate the seas and carry goods to and from the city, so constructing perfect ships capable of that became instrumental. Without land there could be no feudal system, no obvious gap between knight and serf. Without agriculture, money was her barter. Her nobles would be merchant princes rather than distant figures ruling from mighty castles. The difficulties of life bound all its people together in an act of patriotic solidarity that required self-discipline and a measure of equality – much like how the crew of a ship had to as they were are subject to the perils of the deep.

For much of their early history, the Venetians were stuck between two vastly different worlds. They began their history as subjects to the Eastern Roman Emperor, but they were Latin Catholics, in theory subject to the Pope. Despite this, they repeatedly defied the Pope, who responded by excommunicating the entire city. They resisted the temptations of tyrannical government and constructed for themselves a republic, led by a Doge so shackled by restraints that he was not allowed to accept gifts from foreigners more substantial that a pot of herbs. Over-ambitious nobles as well as defeated admirals were disliked to the extreme, ending up as exiles or imprisoned and executed.

Doge Pietro Orseolo II
Doge Pietro Orseolo II

By the 10th century, Venice sold extremely rare oriental goods at the important fairs at Pavia on the River Po: Russian ermine (commonly considered the winter coat of weasels), purple cloth from Syria, silk from Constantinople. To the Muslims they traded back timber and slaves. Venice was now on the brink of greatness due to trade and her position at the head of the Adriatic. On Ascension Day (the Fèsta de ƚa Sènsa) in the year 1000, Doge Pietro Orseolo II, a man who “excelled almost all the ancient doges in knowledge of mankind”, set sail on an expedition that would launch the Republic’s ascent to wealth, power and maritime glory.

It was he who fully understood that Venice’s growth, perhaps her very survival, lay far beyond the waters of the lagoon. He had already obtained profitable trade agreements with Constantinople, and he dispatched ambassadors to the four corners of the Mediterranean to ensure similar deals with Islamic leaders, much to the dismay of militant Christians. The future for Venice lay in Alexandria, Syria, Constantinople and the Barbary Coast, where wealthier, more advanced societies promised silk, spices, cotton and glass – luxurious goods that Venice was in a perfect position to sell on into northern Italy and central Europe.

The Mistress of the Adriatic

Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea

The largest threat to Venetian trade was the voyage down the Adriatic, which held many perils. Especially the central Adriatic, out of reach from the city, was a no-man’s-land, patrolled by Croat pirates. These Slavic settlers from the upper Balkans had established themselves along the coast of Dalmatia during the 8th Century, taking advantage of the rugged terrain – which proved perfect for maritime robbery. From coastal caves and island lairs their ships darted out to strike a passing merchant ships.

Venice had conducted a running fight with these pirates for over 150 years. The contest had led to nothing but defeat and humiliation, one Doge had even died leading a punitive expedition. These many defeats convinced Venice to pay tribute to ensure say passage. Orseolo provided a clear strategic vision to this problem that would form the cornerstone of Venetian policy for all centuries the Republic lived. The Adriatic must provide safe passage for Venetian ships, lest they be forever bottled up.

Orseolo’s campaign can be considered a blueprint for future Venetian campaigns. They skillfully mixed shrewd diplomacy with precision strikes of force. As the fleet worked its way down the Adriatic – from Palenzo to Pola, Ossero to Zara – the citizens came out to demonstrate their support and loyalty to the Doge. Those who wavered were convinced by a more visible show of force. The Croats could clearly see what was going down and tried to buy off Orseolo. He was not deterred: he captured a ship of Narentine nobles and forced the Croats to reluinqish their demands for tribute and  cease harassment of Republican ships. Only the offshore islands resisted. Curzola was stormed. Lagosta was seized after a long siege with furious assaults. The people were led away in chains and their pirates’ nest destroyed.

After this incredibly successful campaign and on the way back to Venice, Orseolo again visited the cities that had sworn allegiance to him. His objective was simple – to make sure they would not waver in their loyalty. This procession however transformed the journey into a parade, and he arrived at Venice in great triumph. Henceforth, Orseolo and all future Doges carried the honorific title of “Dux Dalmatiae” – Lord of Dalmatia. If there is a single moment that marked Venice’s rise to greatness, it is this. The breaking of the Narentine pirates was an act of great significance. Having gotten a taste of ruling the Adriatic, the Venetians began refering to it as “nostra chaxa”, “our house”. Henceforward there was no rival naval power to match Venice in the heart of the Adriatic Sea, and from this point on, every Ascension Day, the city performed a celebration of Orseolo’s triumph.

Venice and the Eastern Roman Empire

Byzantine Empire ca. 1095
Byzantine Empire ca. 1095

In the 1080s, Venice took their next step on the path to greatness. The waning Byzantine Empire was under threat of invasion by Norman war bands who intended to assault Constantinople itself. But they were halted in the Adriatic by the Venetians who defended the Byzantines. The city received a magnicifent reward in return. They were handed the rights to trade freely, exempt from tax, all across the Byzantine realm. And most importantly, they were given territory within Constantinople, down by the Golden Horn. Though nominally subjects to the Emperor, the Venetians who settled there were basically an autonomous Venetian colony, in the heart of the richest city on Earth under extremely favourable conditions. By the second half of the 12th century, the colony contained around 12 000 people and Byzantine trade was more and more taken over by the Venetians. Their ships triangulated the eastern seas, shipping olive oil from Greece to Constantinople, buying linen in Alexandria and selling it to the Crusader States via Acre; touching Crete and Cyprus. With each passing decade Venice was sinking her tentacles deeper into the trading posts in the East.

This fortunate arrangement came to an ignominous end with the Fourth Crusade. When the call came to Christendom in 1198, the leaders of the fledging Crusade deducted that trying to get to the Holy Land via the land route, across the Byzantine Empire, was too dangerous, as previous crusades had shown. With Genoa and Pisa at war, only Venice remained with enough power and resources to ferry the Crusade across the ocean.

Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III

The Venetians did have reservations however, and demands. They wanted the Pope to lift the papal ban on trading with the Islamic world, specifically Egypt. This request rested on the definition of Venetian identity, and the unique situation in which they were. Venice had no agriculture; she depended entirely on trade to survive, and Venice suffered badly by the trading ban. Venetian delegates also pointed out that Venice faithfully observed the ban whereas Genoa and Pisa did not. Pope Innocent III, however, was hardly impressed.

He eventually gave the Venetians a carefully worded permission, framed to exclude transactions of any kind of war materials, “[we] prohibit you, under strict threat of anathema, to supply the Saracens by selling, giving or bartering, iron, hemp, sharp implements, inflammable materials, arms, galleys, sailing ships, or timbers”, adding as well “whether finished or unfinished”, to make sure no loopholes could be exploited by Venice.

Venice had a long tradition of equating age with wisdom, but even by their standards, the current Doge that the Crusaders came to see was extraordinary. In 1201, Enrico Dandolo was over 90 years old. He was also completely blind. When it comes to his personality, comtemporary impressions and subsequent judgments are sharply divided. To the French knigth Robert of Clari he was a “most worthy man and wise”; to Abbot Martin of the abbey of Pairis, the Doge was a man who “compensated for his physical blindness with a lively intellect”. However, Greek chronicler Niketas Choniates gave Dandolo a famous counter-judgment: “a man most treacherous and hostile to the [Byzantines], both cunning and arrogant, he called himself the wisest of the wise and in his lust for glory surpassed everyone”.

Dandolo greeted the Crusaders warmly, then got down to business. With everything Venice had to supply for the Crusade, they demanded a sum of 94,000 marks. This was not an unreasonable request, as the Genoese had asked for a similar sum in 1190, but the aggregate sum was staggering, equivalent to the annual income of France. Venice clearly saw the danger in the Crusade, and supplying for it would need the undivided attention of the entire city for two years, halting all other projects and forms of income. Failure at any point would mean utter destruction for the Serenissima.
The Treaty of Venice, as it was called, was signed and celebrated, then the Republic got to work. The Treaty contained one unofficial provision, known only to a select few such as the Crusader Geoffroi de Villehardouin, who confessed in his chronicle:

It was secretly agreed in closed council that we would go to Egypt, because via Cairo one could more easily destroy the power of the Turks than by anywhere else, but publicly it was just announced that we were going overseas.

The Crusade was thus not bound for the Holy Land as everyone assumed. There were sound strategic reasons for this. It had long been recognized that the wealth of Egypt, more than the Holy Land, supplied the Muslims with money, troops, and supplies needed to control the area. As Richard the Lionheart understood, “the keys to Jerusalem are to be found in Cairo.”

The Long Voyage to the Holy Land

The great fleet left Venice in the summer of 1202. At about that time, a teenage boy escaped from captivity in Constantinople. He was Alexios Angelos, son of the deposed Byzantine Emperor Isaac II. Six years earlier, in 1195, Isaac’s brother – also named Alexios – had overthrown and imprisoned him, taking the throne for himself as Emperor Alexios III. The Emperor’s talents did not match his ambition. He made his brother-in-law admiral of the imperial navy. The brother-in-law stripped the fleet bare, selling off gear and entire ships to line his own pockets.

During the late spring of 1202, the Crusaders began to gather in Venice. By the intended departure date their host totaled some 10 000 men, far short of the 33 500 planned for — and too few to provide the agreed upon charter fee. The Venetians had suspended their regular commerce to build and equip an immense fleet. Now they demanded that the Crusaders hold up their end of the deal: pay up, or no Crusade.

The crusaders conquering the City of Zara, painted by Andrea Vicentino
The crusaders conquering the City of Zara, painted by Andrea Vicentino

The Fourth Crusade seemed on the point of collapse before it could even depart. Then Doge Dandolo made an offer. The Venetians would suspend the unpaid balance of the transport charge in return for a small consideration – the Crusaders’ assistance in conquering the city of Zara, a Hungarian-owned port on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic. To the more pious Crusaders, this was a devil’s bargain, an unholy act of war against fellow Christians. But others, including the leading barons, saw no choice if the Crusade was to go forward. With some difficulty, they persuaded the dissidents to go along. On 10 November, the fleet reached Zara, which surrendered after a fourteen-day siege. Many knights deserted rather than take part.

The Crusaders set up winter quarters at Zara, as it was too late in the season to go on. There, the leaders met with Prince Alexios and, after several meetings and lavish promises, agreed to put him on the Byzantine throne in place of Alexios III. The usurper was hated in Constantinople, Prince Alexios assured them. In return for the Crusaders’ aid, he promised them everything, his ambassords stating, “…firstly, if God allows you to restore his inheritance to him, he will put the whole of Romania [Byzantium] in obedience to Rome, from which it has been severed. Next, because he understands you have given everything you have for the Crusade so that you are now poor, he will give two houndred thousand silver marks to the nobles and the ordinary people together. And he himself will personally go with you to the land of Egypt with ten thousand men…”. To some, it sounded too good to be true.

An inner circle of Frankish barons were well understood with the scheme and were receptive. Boniface of Montferrat, the leader of the whole venture, had family grievances against the Byzantine Emperor. In the aftermath of the disaster, Pope Innocent would put the blame squarely on the Venetians, but it’s evident the idea originated not with the Doge, but with the Franks. It is uncertain if Doge Dandolo knew in advance of the plan to divert the Crusade to Constantinople, and if he did, he likely appraised it very coldly. He no doubt understood the pros of the adventure: the debt would be handsomely repaid, and a pro-Venetian Emperor would sit on the throne. Even so, Venice had a lot to lose. All the merchants and Venetian citizens living there would be in mortal, immediate danger, and Venice had recently started trading profitably with the Byzantines after a short hiatus. Eventually, the leaders of the Crusade managed to overrule all other opinions, and Dandolo finally agreed.

A War Among Christians

The Entry of the Crusaders in Constantinople, by Eugène Delacroix
The Entry of the Crusaders in Constantinople, by Eugène Delacroix

On 24 June, 1203, the fleet passed beneath the walls of Constantinople. If Dandolo and the other leaders sincerely believed in Prince Alexios and his claim, their belief was wrong. A Byzantine Emperor was not a dynastic king like those of the feudal West. In the Roman imperial tradition, he was more a president for life with absolute authority. Whoever could take the throne and hold it was accepted as emperor. But young Alexios had no special right to the throne simply because he was the son of a deposed former Emperor. Emperor Alexios III led a large field army out to oppose the landing. Crusader horse-transports ran onto the beach, supported by crossbow and archery fire, and dropped their entry-port covers as ramps. Down rode armored French knights, lances couched. A century earlier, the Byzantine princess and historian Anna Comnena had written that a French knight’s charge would make a hole through the walls of Babylon. Constantinople now faced that very prospect, and the Byzantines retreated, abandoning tents and booty to the crusaders.

The Tower of Galata was now open to attack. Its English, Danish and Pisan garrison mounted an active defense, making sallies against the invaders. In one such action the defenders were forced back and could not shut the gates of the tower before the advancing French. It fell by storm. Doge Dandolo recommended an attack on the harbor wall. It was less formidable than the land walls, and the big transports could nudge close to serve as floating siege towers. The French, however, wanted to fight ashore, in their own element. The final decision was to mount a double attack, the Venetians against the harbor wall and the French against the north end of the land wall, adjacent to the Palace of Blachernae. The double assault was launched on 17 July. The attack hung in the balance until Doge Dandolo ordered his own galley to advance and set him ashore. The courage of the old doge fired up the Venetians, and they pressed home the attack. The Venetian banner was hoisted atop a wall tower. Soon twentyfive towers – about a mile of wall – were taken.

As often happened with feudal armies, the logic of command and control conflicted with the chivalric impulse to be first in the attack. Count Baldwin, in command of the leading battle, at first held his ground, but other Crusaders went brashly forward – forcing Baldwin to follow, to save face – until they all found themselves dangerously exposed to the Byzantine army and out of sight of most of their own force.

Word of the French peril reached Doge Dandolo. Saying he would live or die with the Crusaders, he ordered his men to abandon their hard-won towers and redeploy in support of their allies. At the sight of Venetian galleys moving up the harbor to set more troops ashore, the Emperor retreated into the city. He had achieved his tactical objective, holding off the French and forcing the Venetians to abandon their gains.

Miniature of Emperor Alexios III Angelos in Biblioteca Estense of Modena
Miniature of Emperor Alexios III Angelos in Biblioteca Estense of Modena

But Alexios III also had lost his nerve. That night he fled the city with his mistress and a favorite daughter – leaving his empress behind. Byzantine nobles hastily met and restored blinded old Isaac II, young Alexios’ father, to the throne. When the Crusaders heard of this, they demanded that young Alexios be crowned alongside his father. They still had a powerful army and fleet, they had nearly taken the city, and there was no real leadership among the defenders. The demand was granted, and young Alexios was escorted into the city in state, along with the Doge and the leading French counts and barons.

Alas, young Alexios could not keep the grand promises he had made. The imperial treasury was empty. Moreover, while the Byzantines and the Crusaders were now allies in theory, their relationship was actually poor and rapidly deteriorating. After repeated riots, one of which led to a disastrous fire, individual Crusaders no longer dared show themselves in the city. Young Alexios IV could not raise enough money to satisfy the Crusaders, nor could he force them away. He fell under the influence of a noble adviser, Alexius Ducas. Eventually, Ducas did a typically Byzantine thing – he lured the young emperor into a trap, kidnapped and imprisoned him, and took the throne for himself. Ducas, now Emperor Alexios V, was more of a leader than his recent predecessors. He slammed shut the gates of the city against the Crusaders and put the defenses in order. His actions eventually led to the second attack.

The Empire Betrayed

The Crusaders, greatly aided by the Venetians, managed to capture Constantinople, oust its Emperor, and give birth to the Latin Empire in 1204. This Empire would prove to be a catastrophically failed experiment – nominally bringing Constantinople under Catholic control for a few decades, but failing to win legitimacy over the vast majority of Byzantine lands. The dismissal of Constantinople’s extremely educated Greek-speaking administrative class in favor of feudal lordlings, and the conversion from a mercantile economy to a feudal one, had ruinous consequences for the territories administered by the Latin Empire.

Location of Latin Empire
Location of Latin Empire

All this didn’t negatively affect the fortunes of the Venetians, who claimed three-eights of the city of Constantinople as well as Byzantine territory in general. By the partition of Byzantium in October, Venice became overnight the inheritor of a maritime empire. At a stroke, the city was changed from a merchant state into a colonial power, whose writ would run from the top of the Adriatic to the Black Sea, across the Aegean and the seas of Crete.

While the feudal lords of France and Italy went to construct petty fiefdoms on the poor soil of continental Greece, the Venetians demanded ports, trading stations and naval bases with strategic control of seaways. Venice used these positions to construct way stations for its fleets, much like the British Empire would do centuries later. Venice created its own Gibraltars, Maltas, and Adens, and like the British Empire, she depended on sea power to hold these possessions together.

After the Rise, the Fall

The young French general, and future ruler of France, Napoleon Bonaparte
The young French general, and future ruler of France, Napoleon Bonaparte

The Latin Empire would fall fifty years later, but Venice endured. After several devastating wars against their archenemy, Genoa, the Serenissima finally stood triumphant in 1381. The conflict however was disastrous for both sides, and Genoa was certainly crippled. An ascendant naval power before the war, the Ligurian city State found herself in shambles. Venice might have suffered as badly, were it not for its admirals Vettor Pisani and Carlo Zeno. Instead, she regained her strength and continued to impressive maturity until the War of the League of Cambrai, which ended in 1516. While technically a Venetian victory, the resources spent left Venice and her Stato da Mar open and drained of its strength, and from now on, she was on the defensive, with the Ottomans slowly whittling away their territory. By the time Napoleon entered the city in 1797, the once great Mistress of the Adriatic was but a pale shadow of her former self. The Treaty of Campoformio would eventually transfer Veneto to Austria, ending the polity’s independence after over a thousand years.

Did you enjoy reading this article? You may also like  The Thirty Years’ War Began 400 Years Ago – And We’re All Living In The World It Created

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Tobias Lundqvist

CNC-Operator poring over maps and dusty books in his spare time. Loves writing about history, especially Antiquity and the World Wars.

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