The granite S. Marco
Lion, erected during the XII century,
in the omonimous Piazza
At the
end of the XII cent., the role of Venice in the
world was diminished because of a sequence of
unfavorable events: 1) Slavs, Hungarian and Normans
promoted many insurrections all along the East
Adriatic coasts. 2) Constantinople was behaving
ambiguously with Venice, with the clear intent
to create a sort of equilibrium between its power
and that of the other sea republics, Pisa and
Genoa, so that no one could be strong enough to
seriously menace "Nova Roma" 3) After the Muslim
conquest of Jerusalem, the Venetian properties
in Syria appeared compromised.
The Serenissima(*)
overcame this situation with the fourth crusade
(1202-1204).
Just because
of Venetian initiative, it diverted from its original
plan to invade the Muslim owned "Holy land", to
the conquest of Constantinople. After the capture
of Constntinople came the partition of the Byzantine
Empire and the formation of the East Latin Empire
(of Constantinople), with included enormous advantages
for Venetia.
Michael VII Paleologos
While the
republic limited its occupation to some strategic
positions in Epirus, Morea, Crete, Euboea (Evvoia),
several Venetian patricians made their own dominions
in the main Aegean islands as vassals of the Republic
itself. By this, a dense cluster of colonies was
formed, creating a sort of "Empire of Romanìa",
including the main part of the former Byzantine
Empire, that gave to Venetian merchants a virtual
commercial monopoly, even though Pisan and Genoan,
as well as the remaining Byzantines, tried all
they could to contrast it. This situation ended
in 1261, when Michael VIII Paleologos recaptured
Constantinople for the Byznatines and destroyed
the Eastern Latin Empire.
The Venetians
then found themselves to be less privileged than
Genoese, who were the new allies of the Eastern
Empire, so they tried to re-conquer Constantinople
(with the help of the Angiò's of Naples), but
only with partial success. Thereafter, the Serenissima
had to front the Ottoman Turks, so it started
new negotiations with Byzantium and, by the end
of the XIV century, it reacquired lands in the
East that had been lost in 1261.
(*)
La Serenissima: This title, litterally meaning
"The Very Serene One" was that which all
the major magistrates of Venice, including
the Dogi (plural of Doge), used for themselves
and their republic.
During the same period, Venice
fought nearly without pause against Genoa (1261-1270,
1294-1299, 1351-1355, 1378-1381).
The most violent war was the
one called "of Chioggia", which ended with the
peace of Turin (1381). After that, Genoa started
to decline and Venice could return to its former
unrivaled political and economic activities in
the East,
Also in this period, The Serenissima,
through agreements with Muslim powers, obtained
important positions in Egypt and Syria, where
caravans coming from India had their traditional
home bases.
The portrait of the traitorous
Falier was removed from official Dogi
gallery as a sign of scorn
During the XIII and XIV centuries,
the main constitutional reform was the closing
of the Maggiorconsiglio (1297), with which
the Republic became decidedly oligarchic. This
change, opposed by a strong party, was the cause,
in 1310, of a conspiracy (Conjure of Tiepolo)
that was repressed.
In order to protect the new
political system, the "Council of Ten", which
was a secret tribunal with its own secret police,
was created. Subsequently, this Council's powers
were augmented more and more. It was meant to
be a temporary one, but it was made permanent
after the conspiracy led by the doge Marino Falier
(or Faliero) in 1355.
Since many local Lords were
competing for supremacy overa all over Veneto
and Lombardy, Venice understood the need to expand
into the countryside.
La Serenissima repubblica
took part in the Florence-Milan League (1337-1339),
which caused the ruin of the power of Mastino
II Della Scala. Venice obtained Treviso (1339,
definitively confirmed in 1389), Ceneda (definitively
in 1338) and Castelfranco.
Later, after defeating the
da Carrara family of Padua, Venice occupied Padua,
then Vicenza and Verona (1404-1405), and, once
brought Dalmatia to submit (1409-1437). Venice
conquered nearly all of Friuli (1420), hence ending
the state of the patriarch of Aquileia.
At one time, a party arose
and judged the policy of conquest in the countryside
dangerous and not so advantageous. It was suspended
for some time, until doge Francesco Foscari (1423-1457)
strongly revived it in order to contain the dynamic
expansionism of Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of
Milan.
Venice, allied with Florence
and other communes, subtracted the eastern Lombardy
from the Visconti (Brescia and Bergamo in 1428,
Crema in 1447), and Ravenna from the da Polenta
(1410-1441).
When Filippo Maria died, Venice
tried to conquer Milan, but Francesco I Sforza
managed to stop it, since Florence left the alliance
with Venice and allied with him.
Therefore, between Milan and
Venice the peace of Lodi (1454) fixed the border
between the two states along the river Adda.
When the Ottomans advanced
in the East and Conquered Constantinople in 1453,
Venice embraced the policy of equilibrium of Powers.
Venice: Part four
-from the second half of XV century to the beginning
of XVII. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople
(1543),
Venice had to fight vigorously
in order to defend its possessions in the East,
which were menaced by Ottoman Turks since 1430
(Salonika).
At first the Negroponte
was lost (1470), and while it could preserve
Cyprus (1474), after many wars, during which
the Ottomans reached Friuli, Venice lost Morea
(1460),
At first the Negroponte
was lost (1470), and while it could conserve
Cyprus (1474), after many wars, during which
the Ottomans reached Friuli, Venice lost Morea
(1460), Lemnos (1477), Most of Albania (XV÷XVI
cent.), Modon and Koron (XVI cent.).
Meanwhile, the discovery
of America and a new way to Far East through
Africa caused a deep change (actually not entirely
negative) on Venetian economy and general politics.
The Serenissima won
the Ferrara war (1428-1484), gaining Rovigo
and Polesine (North Lombardy) at Bagnarolo peace
(1484), took part in the Holy League against
Charles VIII (1495) and managed to help the
Aragonese in assessing their control on the
Reign of Naples, where Venice had important
interests related to the ports of Apulia. Then,
together with Louis XII of France, Venice attacked
Milan, temporary
conquering Cremona and Ghiara
d'Adda (1499-1509), and occupied also some imperial
lands, such as those of Trieste and Gorizia
(1508).
Salonika's location on a present day map
This expansion worried the
other powers, and the same year the Cambrai
league (alliance formed by Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I, King Louis XII of France, Pope
Julius II, King Ferdinand V of Aragón, Hungary
and several Italian city-states) was formed,
with the precise intention to dismember that
that was deemed the strongest Italian Power,
Venice. Venice was defeated at Agnadello (1509)
and had to leave some of its possessions in
Lombardy and Veneto.
But the "Very Serene Republic"
did not surrender: on the contrary, it used
its refined diplomacy playing on the discordance
inside the League, eventually managing to make
it break down. Moreover, Julius II created a
new one, the Holy League (1511), with the purpose
to drive French away from Italy. The allied
forces -Papal, Venetian, and Spanish- overcame
the French, and Venice recovered most of the
territories it had lost (1512)
Then it allied again with
Louis XII (Blois, March 1513) against the League
of Malines in order to conquer Milan, but the
attempt was unsuccessful. Venice was neutral
when Francis I, who succeeded Louis XII, conquered
it on 1515. Anyway, the treaty of Noyon (1516)
between Francis I and the new king of Spain,
Charles of Absburg (the future Emperor Charles
V), gave back to Venice former territories remaining
in Veneto that were not recovered yet.
Venice did not substantially
take part in the following struggles among France,
Spain and the Empire for the control of Italy.
It was busy to defend its oversea possession
against Ottoman Turks, who took away most of
the Aegean Islands and some strategic ports
(1537-1540). Later, Cyprus was lost too, after
the Heroic but useless resistance of M. Bragadin
at Famagusta (1571).
Paul V
Famagusta (at
the low right)
The Holy league, wanted
by pope Pious V, managed to obtain a great naval
victory against the Turks near Lepanto (1571
-- please read this
thread for more information), but Venice
obtained no practical gain from it. Its possession
were reduced to Crete, few Aegean and Ionian
Islands, some harbors in Albania and Greece,
and Dalmatia, this latter in continuous danger.
Since Spain had won the
control of Italy, Venice remained neutral in
order to safeguard its independence. From 1605
to 1607, the senate strongly polarized with
Pope Paul V (incident of the interdict), who
was disputing the full sovereignty of the republic
and, interdict notwithstanding (1606), the Venetians
prevailed.
Part five - The decadence
during XVII and XVIII centuries
As soon as it overcame the
Uskoks (Slav Pirates) in the Adriatic Sea with
the help of the Austrian Absburgs (1617), Venice
had to face many Spanish plots. A Spanish ambassador,
the marquise of Bedmar, was suspected for a
conspiracy from 1611 to 1612, together with
the Venetian gentleman Angelo Badoer, who had
been exiled for collusion with Spain. Then,
in 1617, another conspiracy, this time by Captain
Alessandro Spinosa, that who would have given
the city of Chioggia in the hands of Spaniards,
was halted in time. Finally, in 1618, another
plan, probably by the same marquise of Bedmar,
according to which Venice should be invaded
and put on fire by mercenary troops, was equally
thwarted.
Thereafter, The Serenissima,
allied with France and the Duke of Savoy, prevented
the occupation of Valtellina by the Absburgs
(1620-1626).
A tremendous feat followed,
which took shape in the War of Crete (1644-1669).
This was for the defense of the only remaining
important Mediterranean dominion against an
Ottoman attack. The war was fought not only
on the island, but also on the sea and in the
Dardanelles, where Venetians won some battles,
but they, exhausted and helpless, eventually
had to surrender the islands into the Turks'
hands.
orosini, who was the last
defender of Crete, managed to win back Dalmatia,
Peloponnese (Morea), and some Greek ports and
islands (Karlowitz, peace, 1699) from the also
declining Ottoman Empire Unfortunately for the
Venetians, parts of those conquests were lost
in the subsequent anti-Turkish war (1714-1718),
which ended with the Passarowitz peace.
Venice
still kept Dalmatia, the Ionian Islands, the
"Bocche di Cattaro" and some other fragments
of its former empire.
We can
see that Venice and the Ottoman Empire behaved
not differently from The Byzantine and the Persian
Empires. They fought each other during interminable
wars, with the result of weakening each other,
till some external powers gave them the coup
de grace.
The Settecento
was characterized by the splendid and sumptuous
decline of the "Very Serene Republic",
which remained till the end as a callous administrator
of its own little oversea patrimony, and of
its larger continental one, always most acculturated,
cosmopolitan and pleasant, but unable to take
initiatives contrasting with its century old
traditions, i.e. to find allies in Europe more
and more subjected to deep transformations.
At the end of the
XVIII century Venice made one last attempt
to restore its old prestige in the Mediterranean
with military expeditions against Muslim
countries. This included the noticeable
but fruitless the war with Tunisia (1784-1792)
-- The Eyalet of Tunus, which was
a semi-autonomous province of the Ottoman
Empire, at that time.
The French Revolution
surprised Venice in an "unarmed neutrality"
position. It had to see French and Austrians
fight each other on its land during Bonaparte's
Italian Campaign (1796-1797). When some
sporadic revolt against the French occurred
(Pasque Veronesi), because of Bonaparte's
reaction, Venice's aristocratic government,
and the last doge, Ludovico Manin, abdicated
(May 12th 1797); thus leaving on its place
a Francophile municipality, which created
a short-lifed democratic government.
A little later, with
Campoformio peace (October 17th, 1797),
Bonaparte ceded Venezia and its
countryside up to Adige river to Austria.
Venice (as well as Verona and other Cities
of Veneto) expressed its rancor in form
of tumults, but they were quickly repressed.
Victor
Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia
After being robbed
of many artistic treasures by the French
Army, Venice was occupied by Austrians
from January 1798 'till December 1805,
when it was annexed to the Italic Reign
in force of the peace treaty of Presburg.
As soon as Napoleon
was defeated , the Austrian occupied it
again on May 1814, and the following year
it became the second main center, after
Milan, of the new Lombard-Veneto Reign
that was under the sovereignty of the
Empire of Austria.
In 1821 the first
great trials against the "carbonari"(rebels)
of the Lombard-Veneto were celebrated.
On March 17th, 1848 a insurrection that
aimed to restore the Republic started,
but the collapse of Venetian resistance
in 1849 caused its end.
According to Plombières
agreements (July 21st, 1858), Venice should
have ceded to Victor Emmanuel II, King
of Sardinia, but Villafranca's preliminaries
remained still subject to the Austrian
crown untill the end of third Italian
independence war, when it definatively
ceded to Victor Emmanual II through Napoleon
III (the treaty of Vienna - October 3rd,
1866). After the result of an official
poll (October 22nd) Venice definitively
joined the Kingdom of Italy.
![[Link] Picture of Uksoks Pirate](http://www.hrvatski-vojnik.hr/hrvatski-vojnik/652000/fotogallery/povjesne_odore/big_pictures/Br.%2026/Uskok.jpg%20){kind=link}
