The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage (30 page)
Read The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage Online
Authors: Jan Morris
Tags: #Mediterranean Region, #Venice (Italy), #History, #General, #Europe, #Italy, #Medieval, #Science, #Social Science, #Human Geography, #Travel, #Essays & Travelogues
| DATE | IMPERIAL AND OVERSEAS | |
| 1202 | Fourth Crusade subdues Zadar | |
| 1204 | Constantinople captured | |
| 1204-10 | Venice acquires Crete, Euboea, Koroni, Methon: Venetian citizens acquire Cyclades | At the time of the Fourth Crusade, though the Venetians were already commercially powerful in the eastern Mediterranean, their overseas territories were limited to scattered seaports on the coast of Dalmatia. The Crusade gave them a string of fortresses, islands and seaports in and around the Aegean and made them an imperial Power. |
| 1386 | Venice acquires Corfu | |
1388 1420 | Venice acquires Nauplia Venetian control of Dalmatia confirmed | The defeat of their rivals, the Genoese, in home waters gave the Venetians extra freedom of movement, and through the fourteenth century, and well into the fifteenth, their imperial expansion continued. |
| 1453 | Turks take Constantinople | |
| 1464 | Venice acquires Monemvasia | |
| 1470 | Turks take Euboea |
| DOMESTIC AND MAINLAND | DATE | |
| Birth of Giorgione | c. 1471 | |
| European League of Cambrai against Venice | 1508 | |
| Birth of Tintoretto | 1518 | |
| Birth of Veronese | c. 1528 | |
| During the last three centuries of her history, despite periods of astonishing artistic fertility, Venice consistently declined in power and virility at the centre. Though her constitution remained inviolate, her strength was whittled away by shifts in world power and the burdens of her commitments. In the eighteenth century she subsided into carnival and excess until Napoleon Bonaparte, declaring himself an Attila to the State of Venice, contemptuously abolished the Republic. | Church of the Salute begun Birth of Tiepolo Birth of Canaletto | 1630 1696 1697 |
| FALL OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC | 1797 |
| DATE | IMPERIAL AND OVERSEAS | |
1482 1489 1500 | Venice acquires Zakinthos Venice acquires Cyprus Turks take Koroni and Methoni Venice acquires Cephalonia | The rise of Turkish power, though, was already threatening them and the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims was soon followed by the first loss of Venetian territory, in Euboea. Although this was really the turning-point of their imperial history, they continued to acquire new possessions, pragmatically, until the end of the fifteenth century. |
1540 1566 1571 1571 1650 1669 1684-7 | Turks take Monemvasia and Nauplia Turks take Naxos and Cyclades Turks take Cyprus Battle of Lepanto Turks besiege Iraklion Turks take Crete Venice takes Peloponnese from Turks | The last three centuries of the Venetian Empire were centuries of retreat. Despite the part the Venetians played in the Christian victory over the Turks at Lepanto, and despite a brief resurgence of imperial energies in Greece, and later in action against the Muslim corsairs of North Africa, Venice was outclassed by the superpowers of east and west. With the loss of her eastern colonies one by one to the Turks, by the time of the fall of the Republic she was hardly more than an Adriatic seaport once again. |
| 1715 | Turks take Tinos | |
| 1716 | Venice surrenders Peloponnese to Turks | |
| 1785 | Venetians bombard Tunis | |
| 1797 | END OF THE VENETIAN EMPIRE |
My original research for this book consisted in the main of a protracted and indolent potter through the Venetian seas. Readers familiar with the subject will recognize all too easily my debt to less escapist scholars, but for newcomers here is a list of the books I have found most useful:
Bradford, ernle
,
The Companion Guide to the Greek Islands,
London and New York 1963.
The Great Betrayal: Constantinople, 1204,
London 1967.
chambers, d. s
.,
The Imperial Age of Venice,
London 1970; New York 1971.
foss, a
.,
The Ionian Islands,
London 1969; Levittown, New York 1970.
freely, j
.,
Naxos,
Athens 1976.
freeman, e. a
.,
Sketches from Subject and Neighbour Lands of Venice,
London 1881.
gunnis, r
.,
Historic Cyprus,
London 1938.
hazlitt, w. c
.,
The Venetian Republic: its Rise, its Growth, its Fall,
London 1915.
hill, g
.,
A History of Cyprus,
Cambridge and New York 1940-52.
hodgkinson, h
.,
The Adriatic Sea,
London and New York 1955.
hopkins, a
.,
Crete: Its Past, Present and People,
London and Salem, New Hampshire 1977.
jackson, f. h
.,
The Shores of the Adriatic,
London and New York 1906.
jongh, b
. de,
The Companion Guide to Southern Greece,
London 1972.
The Companion Guide to the Greek Mainland,
London 1979.
lane, f. c
.,
Venice, A Maritime Republic,
Baltimore 1973.
lauritzen, p
.,
Venice,
London 1978.
lorenzetti, g
.,
Venezia,
Rome 1956.
maclagen, m
.,
The City of Constantinople,
London and New York 1968.
miller, w
.,
The Latins in the Levant,
London 1908.
Essays on the Latin Orient,
Cambridge 1921.
Murray’s Handbook to Greece,
London 1884.
norwich, j. j
.,
Venice, the Rise to Empire,
London 1977.
Venice, the Greatness and the Fall,
London 1981.
paradissis, a
.,
Fortresses and Castles of Greece,
Athens 1972-6.
perocco, g
., and
salvadore, a
.,
Civiltà di Venezia,
Venice 1973.
roiter, fulvio
,
The Orient of Venice,
Padova 1982.
runciman, steven
,
A History of the Crusades,
Cambridge and New York 1951-5.
smith, michael llewellyn
,
The Great Island,
London and New York 1965.
spanakis, s. g
.,
Crete,
Iraklion 1965.
sumner-boyd, h
., and
freely, j
.,
Strolling Through Istanbul,
Istanbul 1972.
villehardouin, g
. de,
Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade,
tr. F. Marzials, London and New York 1908.
west, r
.,
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: The Record of a Journey through Yugoslavia in 1937,
London 1942; New York 1955.
young, m
.,
Corfu and Other Ionian Islands,
London and New York 1971.
yugoslav lexicographical institute
,
The Yugoslav Coast,
Zagreb 1966.
The translation of an anonymous Cretan poem on page 83 is by Michael Llewellyn Smith, from his book
The Great Island,
(Longmans, 1965). The Euripides translation on page 92 is by T. F. Higham, and comes from
The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation,
(Oxford University Press 1938). The maps on pp. 10, 33, 53, 66, 73 are reproduced courtesy of the Museo Storico Navale, Venice.
Adoldo, Niccolo, Lord of Serifos,
50-51
Adrianople Gate, the,
34
see also
individual entries
Aegean Islands, the,
see
individual entries
Alexander III, Pope,
16-17
Alfonso, King of Naples,
97
Alice, Queen of Cyprus,
101
Amorgos,
45
Anafi,
47
Angevins of France, the,
136
Arkhadi, monastery of,
84-5
Armenians, the, in Constantinople,
36
;
in Crete,
72
;
in Venice,
184-5
Arsenal, the (Venetian),
14
,
22
,
61
,
102
,
107
,
125
,
128
,
158
,
177
,
182
Lady of,
see
Cornaro, Caterina
Augusteum, the,
36
Balbi, Bernardo, Rector of Tinos,
67
Barbaro family, the,
181
Barnabotti, the,
140
Barozzi, Lord of Thira,
47
Bella Paise, monastery of,
98
Bembo bastion, the,
116
Bourtzi,
129
Bragadino, Marco Antonio, Captain of Cyprus,
109
,
110
,
111-12
,
149
,
182
British, the,
154
;
in the Aegean,
59
;
in Crete,
70
;
Byzantine Empire, the, and influence on Venice,
12
,
14
,
15
,
16
,
18-19
;
Canale, Cristofero da, Captain-General,
62
Canale, Niccolò da, Admiral,
58-60
Capello, Vincenzo,
157
Cappello, Vittore, Captain-General,
61-2
Cephalonia,
150-51
Chioggia,
61
Chios,
46
Constantine, Emperor of Byzantium,
34
Constantinople,
2
,
12
,
15
,
18-19
,
21
,
22
,
24
,
25-7
,
33
,
34-8
,
96
,
102
,
112
,
115
,
128
,
140
,
163
;
Contarini, John, Captain of Cyprus,
106
Cornaro, Marco,
94
Cornaro, Marco, Patriarch of Constantinople,
98
Coron,
116
Cos,
45
Crespi, Francesco,
50
Crete,
2
,
4
,
41
,
45
,
46
,
50
,
51
,
58
,
61
,
69-91
,
93
,
110
,
114
,
118
,
120
,
125
,
128
,
129
,
131
,
135
,
140
