Venice in History

Venice in History

John D. Irany

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017 by John D. Irany

All rights reserved

*** ~~~~ ***

Venice in History

Chapter 1: The Serene Republic

In 1581, Francesco Sansovino a Venetian who greatly admired his city wrote that the name Venice derived from the Latin phrase Veni etiam which he said meant come back again, and again, for however many times you come you will always see new and beautiful things.

Nice story.

Probably untrue as to the origin of Venice’s name.

Yet it conveys the sense that Venice is unique. It is different from any other city. It is a special place. Each year hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Venice. All admire the city’s beauty and vitality. The observer cannot fail to be seduced by the elegance and charm of the canals, the opulent palaces, and the numerous large and small churches glistening by the waters edge. The Basilica, the Doge’s Palace, the Piazza San Marco invite the traveler to enter and to explore. All agree. Venice is different from any other city in the world.

Most of us, however, know little of Venice’s history and past importance. This is unfortunate, for to fully appreciate the presence of Venice, one must understand the richness of its past.

Visitors who walk across the Piazza San Marco, or who ride a gondola on the Grand Canal, or who look in awe at the magnificent buildings and art, must take one more step and reach back to examine the history of the people who created this wondrous place.

This book is the story of the Republic of Venice from its settlement on a few remote islands in the Adriatic through its rise to become the most powerful state in Europe. The history of Venice is about simple things: the price of cloth, the design of ships, the transportation of spices and other goods. And it is about how such simple things affect the power and prosperity of nations. Like the Venetians themselves we must approach their history from a worldview.

For hundreds of years, Venice was rich when the nations of the rest of Europe were poor. While London, Paris and Rome were mired in the Dark Ages of Medievalism, the Republic of Venice–the Serene Republic–expanded in commerce, art, learning and power. As such, Venice played a crucial role in the dynamic development of Europe.

In time the changing fortunes of world events would allow other nations to successfully challenge the pre-eminent status of Venice.

But five hundred years ago, and for a thousand years before Columbus set sail to find a westward route to Asia, the Republic of Venice was the most exciting place to be. The citizens of the European nations that would later become great powers—England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands—could look only wistfully at the prosperity and wealth of the Venetians.

The Venetians readily expended their wealth in artistic and scientific achievement. Bellini, Tintoretto, Giorgione and Titian were great masters of painting. The architects Andrea Palladio, Baldassare Longhena and Jacopo Sansovino created churches, palaces, and even administrative offices of unsurpassed beauty. Galileo made his first astronomical discoveries while a professor at the Republic’s university, and later referred to his time in Venice as the happiest years of his life.

With seemingly inexhaustible economic resources, and with unabated confidence in a bountiful future, Venetians built the glorious city that captivates all who see it, even today. In art, architecture, and scientific accomplishment, Venice in its time was the center of the world.

Venice, of course, is a masterpiece. It is a work of art in itself. No photograph or set of photographs can fully capture the beauty of the city. Venice must be experienced. We must walk the narrow calli in the shadows of surrounding buildings and suddenly stumble out into a sun-filled plaza dominated by a Renaissance church. We must wend our way down a winding pedestrian-filled street and be surprised by the changing view around each corner. Only a traveler who has been to Venice can appreciate a boat ride up the Grand Canal. Only a visitor who has entered a church and looked upon an altarpiece or painting by Titian, Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Tintoretto or Veronese can truly admire the greatness of Venetian art. To see the most beautiful city in the world one must go to Venice.

Chapter 2: The Rise to Supremacy

In the first centuries of the Christian era, Venice was an unimportant fishing village. As the Roman Empire disintegrated, people seeking refuge from the invading barbarians of the north founded Venice as a haven from terror and violence. Standing on the beaches of the northern Adriatic Sea, the first settlers looked out at the uninhabited islands in the lagoon and saw places of safety beyond the grasp of the land based, civilization destroying marauders. Soon, they established isolated hamlets on the islands. In 537 in the first historical record mentioning Venice, Senator Praetorian Praefect Cassiodorus reported to the Tribunes of the Maritime in Rome that the Venetians live as fishermen and harvesters of salt and that they have built houses on islands in the lagoon after the manner of water-fowl.

As the population grew, however, the people recognized that their common interests were best served by forming one government on the most centrally located and best protected islands. Thus, Venice came into being. Since the islands chosen were low and muddy, wooden pilings were pounded into the sand and ooze to provide a base for buildings. The first structures were made of wood timbers that were laboriously hauled from the abundant forests on the mainland. In time, though, the ever present danger of fire made clear the necessity of building in stone and brick.

In this manner, Venice existed in quiet obscurity for hundreds of years. As the Dark Ages descended upon Europe, Venice was a mere town in the shadows of Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem.

Yet despite its isolation, Venice was claimed by Byzantium to be part of its empire which stretched to the east with its capital at Constantinople. This connection with the east was important for reasons of culture and trade. Much of Venice’s early architecture derives from Byzantium. The Basilica of San Marco, for example, was modeled after the sixth century church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. In trade also Venice benefited from the Byzantine connection as spices, silk, and other products of Asia were brought west. In time, of course, these articles of commerce would become the mainstay of Venice’s wealth.

In the early Middle Ages, some of the fishermen of Venice seeing the potential of commercial ventures turned to trade and shipping as a means of earning a living. They transported goods up and down the Italian rivers that flowed into the Adriatic Sea. The Po, with its headwaters in the Italian Alps in the region of Lombardy, is the largest of these rivers. It flows across northern Italy to find its outlet on the Adriatic, a few miles south of Venice. The Po River valley, from the earliest times, was a rich source of timber and agricultural goods that could be traded for the products of nearby regions and far off countries.

As the commerce thrived, the Venetians became the merchants who handled the trade. In time, they were buying and selling products throughout the Mediterranean and as far north as England and southern Russia. With each successive outreach, their prosperity increased.

As the wealth of the Venetians multiplied, the people of the rest of Europe were in awe, for, as the amazed Europeans said, the Venetian Non arat, non seminat, non vendemiat – he plows not the land, sows not the seed, and reaps not the grain. In the Middle Ages, Venice was a state thriving on commerce and trade, while the rest of Europe, adhering stubbornly to the feudal past, drew its wealth, almost entirely, from farming the land. The Venetians became the merchants of Europe.

Naturally, Venice had competition for this lucrative business. In the early Middle Ages, Ravenna and Comacchio, both closer to the Po than Venice, were well placed to become the leading trading centers of the northern Adriatic. In a series of military engagements, however, Venice emerged victorious, and the other cities of the northern Adriatic never again threatened the Venetian dominance of the region.

A more serious challenger to Venice’s position came from Constantinople, the powerful Byzantine city that controlled the principal land and sea routes between Europe and Asia. In the twelfth century, Constantinople was the richest city in the world. If Venice was to dominate European commerce Constantinople had to be defeated. But Constantinople was too strong to be militarily taken on by Venice alone. To defeat Constantinople, which was then a Christian city, Venice needed help. Mainly, Venice needed a large army. Venice simply did not have sufficient population to provide the enormous number of foot soldiers needed to successfully attack the Byzantine city.

As the thirteenth century began, though, an army was formed in western Europe that precisely met the needs of the Venetians. The army’s stated purpose was to seize Jerusalem from the Muslims. By the grace of God, the army was the Fourth Crusade. What Venice needed to do was to hijack this army and use it for the national interests of the Serene Republic – that is, to attack Christian Constantinople rather than Islamic Jerusalem.

The Fourth Crusade, which set out for the Holy Land in 1202, was passing through Venice on its way to the East at a most advantageous time. In contrast to the army-deficient Venetians, the Fourth Crusade had foot soldiers in abundance. The Venetians looked upon the unexpected availability of the military apparatus of the Fourth Crusade as an opportunity not to be missed, and the leaders of the Serene Republic immediately began to scheme to find a means to use this fighting force for Venice’s own needs. The Venetian conscience was not troubled one wit at the prospect of using these Crusaders to attack Christian Constantinople. The only problem was to convince the Crusaders of the righteousness of such an act.

Some cynical historians believe the Venetian role in the Fourth Crusade was entirely self-serving and an example of opportunism carried to an extreme. These historians may be right. The Venetian plan was at least an example of the strategy that the Venetians used to make the Serene Republic the most powerful state in Europe. History does not provide many other examples of such inspired arrogance.

The Fourth Crusade was conceived when Pope Innocent III challenged the Christian world to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims. The knowledge that the land of Christ’s crucifixion was a possession of the followers of Islam gnawed at the Christian soul. Three earlier crusades had failed to capture and permanently hold the city. Despite some successes against the Arabs, the Crusaders’ hold on the most sacred city of Christianity was always tenuous, and Jerusalem always returned, in time, to Muslim control.

The Pope’s call, however, went unanswered until November 28, 1199. On that day at a tournament at a castle in the Ardennes region of France, powerful nobles rose to the command of Pope Innocent III. In the Middle Ages, the tournament was the social event of the day. Knights and their ladies got together for several days of merriment, banqueting, and social engagement. At a time when the landed nobility lived in castles and manor houses somewhat isolated from one another, a tournament was a joyous occasion for the renewal of friendships and the enjoyment of good food, good wine, and good entertainment. Included in the festivities were the jousts in which the knights could prove their prowess with horse and lance before the crowd of their elegantly dressed fellow nobles and their ladies. All in all, tournaments provided welcome diversions for people who lived rather dull lives.

The tournament at the castle in the Ardennes on November 28, 1199 was no different from the ordinary such event until Count Thibaut of Champagne rose to make a spectacular announcement. Although he was only in his early twenties, Count Thibaut was one of the most powerful and distinguished nobles of France. To the assembled aristocrats, he proclaimed that the time had come to accept the challenge of Pope Innocent. They must commit themselves, he said, to a crusade to regain Jerusalem for Christianity’s faithful. Immediately, the barons, like missionaries in pursuit of unrepentant sinners, swept forward with unrestrained enthusiasm. Religious fervor ran through the crowd. Those not imbued with the hysteria of the prospect of the audacious venture were nevertheless carried away by the passions of their fellow men, and by the sheer enjoyment of the anticipation of going forward and doing battle with the enemy.

In the months that followed the tournament at the castle in the Ardennes, other nobles in France and in Flanders joined the commitment to the Crusade. Soon they pledged an army of over 30,000 men to complete the divine task of making Jerusalem a Christian city. The nobles were possessed of a religious zeal that promised to move all before them.

When the barons met again, they resolved questions of strategy. They would move their soldiers, horses, and supplies to the Holy Land by sea. They realized, of course, they could not move 30,000 soldiers across the Mediterranean without ships. Given the small size of the ships of the Middle Ages, many ships would be needed. These ships would have to be acquired from a foreign source. No French port had sufficient shipbuilding facilities. Nor did the Italian maritime states of Pisa or Genoa. England, in 1200, was an economic backwater. Only Venice, as Europe’s supreme maritime power, had the shipbuilding resources to build the number of vessels required. If the ships were to be built, the Venetians had to be approached. Accordingly, the French nobles chose six envoys led by, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, to negotiate with the Doge, Enrico Dandolo.

Enrico Dandolo was as sharp a trader as Venice ever produced. He was at least eighty years old, and he was blind. But his age and lack of sight had not diminished his sharpness of mind, his strength of character, or his understanding of what policies were in the long term best interests of Venice.

He entered into an agreement with the French representatives. Venice would build 200 ships, enough to transport the 4,500 knights, 9,000 squires, and 20,000 foot soldiers whom the French confidently expected would join the Crusade. The Venetians also agreed to feed this horde for a year. In addition, the Venetians would support the expedition with fifty armed galleys and with the thousands of sailors needed to man the ships. In return, the Venetians were to be paid 85,000 marks of silver, and to receive one half of the booty and conquests.

After the agreement was reached, however, the French realized that they had one very large problem. They were financially over-extended. The 85,000 marks of silver that they promised to pay far exceeded their resources. Indeed, 85,000 marks of silver exceeded the annual revenue of the kings of France and England combined. It was impossible for a few French nobles to amass such a sum. In the end, they could raise only 51,000 marks, which they gave to the Venetians. Nevertheless, the Venetians went ahead with the full shipbuilding program.

It is likely that Doge Dandolo knew from the beginning that the French had promised more than they could possibly deliver. The terms of the agreement were basically outrageous. Now, the Crusaders were short of funds. They were also short of men. As the hour of departure arrived, only 10,000 Crusaders showed up, less than one-third the number expected by Villehardouin and the other French barons. Somehow, when faced with the actual decision to leave their castles, their farms, their vineyards and towns, most of the advocates of the Crusade found pressing reasons to remain at home.

Nonetheless, ten thousand men did make it to Venice, and for the Venetians, a fighting force of 10,000 men was too valuable an asset to waste fighting infidels. A much more important use for this armed rabble was at hand, namely the destruction of Venice’s chief economic competitor – Constantinople. At the time, the population of Venice was only about 100,000, so a force the size of the Crusader army was a significant resource that would not likely ever be available again. If God had seen fit to make available to the Venetians this army, they reasoned, God must have meant for them to use it.

In the spring of 1202, the Crusaders who did decide to honor their pledge left their homes in France and Flanders, and began the journey to Venice, from whence they were sure, they would be sailed to the Holy Land. Upon arriving in Venice, they were transported by the Venetians to the Lido, then called San Nicolò, to pitch their tents and to wait. Today, the Lido is a fashionable summer resort community. In 1202, it was a hot, sandy, and barren island, cut off by the lagoons from the inhabited islands of Venice. The choice by Doge Dandolo of this isolated piece of scrubland for the Crusaders’ bivouac area was made with much thought. For one thing, an army separated from Venice proper could not get into mischief. On an individual basis, this mischief could include rape, theft and murder. It could also include, on a collective basis, an insurrection to overthrow the Venetian government.

Dandolo well knew that there were many times in the historical past, when a city invited an army in as a savior, only to see the army stay as a predator.

Another reason for placing the Crusaders on an isolated island was that the Crusaders, being without boats, were totally dependent upon the Venetians for food and fresh water. If the Crusaders proved to be unruly guests, the Venetians could always forget to send the lunchwagon. The Crusaders would quickly get the point.

But Doge Dandolo had another point he wanted to make: the Crusaders still owed him 34,000 marks of silver. He declared that Venice had fulfilled its part of the bargain. The ships were built and ready to sail. The Crusaders acknowledged that the Venetians had done even more than they had agreed to do. Upon first seeing the fleet that the Venetians had built, the Crusaders were amazed at its size and readiness. The fleet consisted of galleys, warships, merchantmen and special transports to carry the horses. The Venetians had employed all the resources of their shipyards for over a year to accomplish the feat. The Crusaders conceded that they owed the Venetians the money. The only problem they had was that they were broke. They could not pay.

Thereupon, Doge Dandolo, rapacious businessman that he was, declared that Venice would keep the money the Crusaders had already paid. Furthermore, he announced to the Crusaders, isolated on the dry and barren Lido: You shall not move a foot from the island until we have been paid. Quite apart from which, you will not find anyone who will bring you anything to eat or drink.

So the situation in the summer of 1202 was thus. Ten thousand Crusaders, who had set off from their homes in France and Flanders in the religious exaltation of returning Jerusalem to the Christian people, were now being held captive by a Christian state on a forlorn island because they were broke and could not pay their bills. Moreover, the Christian captors, lacking any semblance of Christian charity, intended to keep the money they had already received and to let the Crusaders starve until they received the rest.

The barons, of course, were very upset. Was there no way out of this dilemma, they asked. At this point, Doge Dandolo, not surprisingly, presented a solution to the problem. Down the Adriatic coast was a city named Zara. (Zara is the present city of Zadar in Croatia.) Zara was a thorn in Venice’s side. It was a Dalmation city that challenged Venice’s control of the Adriatic. By its geographical location, and by its vigor as an economic competitor, Zara was a threat to the prosperity and security of Venice. In addition, pirates from Zara occasionally preyed upon Venetian shipping.

By themselves, the Doge acknowledged, the Venetians were not strong enough to overcome the military superiority of Zara. In the previous dozen years, Zara had twice defeated Venetian armies sent to conquer the city. Enrico Dandolo himself was doge when the second unsuccessful attempt was made.

Therefore, to counter the threat posed by Zara, and to provide a way for the Crusaders to pay their bills, Dandolo proposed that a new agreement be drawn up.

To compensate the Venetians for the failure to provide the entire payment of 85,000 marks of silver, the French would have to agree to a new contract: the Crusaders would have to help the Venetians conquer Zara. Some Crusaders balked at this agreement. After all, Zara was a Christian city. The original purpose of the Crusade was to fight Muslims, not to aid one Christian state in a war of aggrandizement against another Christian state.

The papal legate, Peter Capuano, moreover, was outspoken in his objection to the use of the Crusaders to attack a Christian city. Such an attack had been expressly forbidden by the Pope. Doge Dandolo responded by not allowing Capuano to sail with the Crusaders as the papal legate. Capuano could join the expedition as a simple priest, but nothing more. No meddlesome envoy from the Holy See would be allowed to disrupt this venture. Faced with the intransigent doge, Peter Capuano decided to forgo the Crusade and returned to Rome.

The money issue too was an argument without merit. Although not receiving the total amount due, the Venetians were being well compensated for their efforts. They only had to feed one-third the number of Crusaders originally contracted for, resulting in considerable cost savings. And because so few Crusaders had made their way to Venice only about one-half of the galleys and merchantmen, and two-thirds of the horse transports were needed. The rest were to be left tied to their docks in Venice. In addition, the ships built to transport the Crusaders to Jerusalem including those not needed remained the property of Venice, and could be put to other uses.

Under the circumstances, the demand by the Venetians for full payment