Venice was created in the fifth century A.D. by refugees
from the destruction wrought by wars and invasions in northern Italy.
First there was the war between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines.
Later the Huns under Attila, after their defeat in Gaul, marched south
passing through the passes to the east of the Alps and destroyed the great
cities of Aquileia and Padua. Some of the refugees fled to the mudflats
in a lagoon formed by the estuaries of three rivers of northern Italy.
A coastal current of the Adriatic Sea piled up mud and sand in long, thin
islands that left a protected lagoon. There the refugees
constructed houses of wattle and daub on posts driven into the mud. They
wove tree branches together and anchored them with stakes to protect the
house pilings from the action of the waves. They constructed boats and
fished the open sea. For trade with the mainland, the refugees dried sea
water to get salt. The economy prospered.
In the year 528 A.D. the secretary to the Ostrogothic king of Italy
wrote of Venice,
By 548 A.D. Venice was powerful enough that the Emperor Justinian in
Constantinople sought the aid of Venice in his war in Italy against the
Lombards. From the security of their location the Venetians could
shift from being refugees to being aggressors. They began to take
control of trade in the Adriatic Sea. They were not without competitors
and they had to contend with pirates on the Dalmatian coast across the
Adriatic from Italy.
The Venetians suppressed the pirates and established trading stations
where the pirates had their bases. They were called colonies but they were
in actuality conquered territories inhabited by Slavs that from time to
time rebelled against Venetian control.
The rule of the Venetian Republic was unique. While Venice was no
democracy there was a concerted attempt to maintain a degree of equality.
The city's administrators were selected from a designated elite but any
attempt on the part of these administrators to aggrandize power was severely
punished. The top leader was called the Doge, a president elected for life
by an elaborate set of four stages of selections of electorates. Each
electorate selected by vote the electorate to select the next stage until
the fourth stage in which an electorate of 41 chose the Doge (duke) of
Venice. The business of the government of Venice was business.
James Morris in his The World of Venice(p. 42-43) captures the
spirit of the sharp-dealing enterprises of the Venetians:
Nor did he allow any soft Christian scruples to affect the conduct
of the campaign. The agreed fee for the job was 85,000 silver marks,
payable in four installments, plus a half of all booty: and for this the
Venetians were to ship 33,500 men to the Holy Land, with their horses,
keep them in provisions for nine months, and contribute their own quota
of soldiers and warships to the war. The Frankish army duly arrived in
Venice, and was encamped upon the island of the Lido. The ships and
supplies were ready as promised. The Venetians, who had some doubts
about actually taking part in the holy enterprise, were encouraged in
their enthusiasm by a round of liturgy and pageantry. The imperturbable
old Dandolo, practically blind and almost ninety, became a crusader and
declared his intention of leading the fleet in person. But when it came
to the crucial point of setting
sail, the Crusaders did not have the money to pay the final installment
of 34,000 silver marks.
Old hands at unfulfilled contracts, the Venetians were undismayed.
They first set a watch upon all the approaches to the Lido, to ensure
that the knights-at-arms did not slip away, and they made a proposition
of their own. The Crusaders could still be shipped to the Holy Land,
they said, if they would agree to stop on the way and subdue one or two
rebellious Venetian colonies on the Dalmatian coast, thus securing the
Republic's trade routes through the Adriatic. The Franks accepted these
unorthodox terms, the great fleet sailed at last, and the Dalmatian
ports were subdued one by one: but the Venetians still had further profits
to exact. Dandolo next agreed with the adaptable Crusaders to make
another diversion, postpone the humiliation of the infidel, and capture the
Greek Orthodox Christian bastion of Constantinople, with whose Emperor
the Venetians were, for one reason and another, angrily at odds. Led by
the old blind Doge himself, they stormed the 400 towers of the city, deposed
the Emperor, loaded their ships with booty, and divided the Empire among
themselves. The Crusade never did reach the Holy Land, and the temporary
fall of Byzantium only strengthened the cause of Islam. But from a simple
breach of contract, brilliantly exploited, the Venetians became
'Lords and Masters of a Quarter and a Half-quarter of the Roman Empire.'
The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 stifled the
Venetian commerce in the eastern Mediterranean and the Portuguese voyages
to Asia broke the Venetian monopoly. Venice continued to exist as an
independent city-state until its conquest by Napoleon in the early
nineteenth century. In the latter part of the nineteenth century Venice
joined Italy.
There lie your houses like seabirds' nests, half on sea and
half on land...Your inhabitants have fish in abundance: the same food
for all, the houses alike; and so envy, that vice which rules the world,
is absent there. All your activity is devoted to the salt works, whence
comes your wealth. Upon your industry all other productions depends; for
there maybe those who seek not gold, yet there never lived a man who
desires not salt. For your gains you repair your boats, which like horses
you keep tied at your doors. Fishing is the means of livelihood, salt
the industry, democratic equality the social note.
When the Fourth Crusade was launched in 1202, the Venetians
were asked to ship the Frankish armies to Palestine. "We come in the name
of the noblest barons of France," said the emissaries to the Doge Enrico
Dandolo."No other power on earth can aid us as you can; therefore they
implore you,in God's name, to have compassion on the Holy Land, and to
join them inavenging the contempt of Jesus Christ by furnishing them
with ships and other necessities, so that they may pass the seas."
The Doge returned the classic Venetian reply, "On what terms?" he asked.