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After the Romans, no European power has had a longer-lasting imperial presence in the Mediterranean than Venice. For six centuries its citizens traded, settled and waged war throughout the eastern seas and funnelled wealth back to their glittering city. Venice remains one of the most colourful of historical topics, yet its Mediterranean empire, the Stato da Mar, which stretched down the Adriatic, across the Aegean, round the shores of Greece to the Levant and Constantinople has not been the subject of any recent account.
Doges of the Sea will trace the curve of this imperial story. It is framed by two of the great collisions of world history – the crusades and the rise of the Ottomans. Between these titanic contests lie three centuries of Venetian power. From 1200 to 1500, Venice ruled the Eastern Mediterranean. Year after year the great merchant galleys ploughed the blue waters, putting in at a string of harbours and islands, all badged with the lion of St Mark, and brought back the merchandise that made the city fabulous: spices, silk, diamonds, cotton and slaves.
In this brilliant arena, the Venetians fought sea battles, raided coasts, besieged and defended bastioned cities and participated in the great iconic events of Mediterranean history. They orchestrated the hideous sack of Constantinople in 1204, fought at Lepanto in 1571, endured the epic twenty-five year siege of Heraklion in the seventeenth century and blew up the Parthenon in the eighteenth. The Venetian colonial enterprise was peopled by extraordinary figures: merchants, adventurers, forgers, spies, military cowards and naval heroes. The story is also a narrative about profit motives and the mechanics of trade, wealth and bankruptcy, ship design and art, colonial administration and social life in the Stato da Mar. Doges of the Sea will restore the rich story of Venice’s sea empire to its rightful place in Mediterranean history.
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