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VENETIAN STATE GALLEY ROUTES IN THE MID-14005
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'-----------------------------------------------------' ~ Columbus had been born. The Byzantines had run a strong, successful show-an effort based on sea power and the vital trade route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, which they controll ed by the position of their capital city. For a while, they reconquered parts of the Roman Empire from the Germanic tribes which had overrun it when it came apart at the center. They even set up an administrative capital at Ravenna on the Adriatic not far from Venice. And thi s proved of intense significance for the future , as Venice, with Byzantine support, managed to hold out against the Gennanic conquerors ofltaly. Growing from a community of Roman exiles and fishe1man living in the swamps at the head of the Adriatic , Venice built up an effective sea power which suppressed piracy and began slowly to take over much of the carrying trade of the Byzantine Empire, effective heirs to the Greek system. As G. V. Scammell put it in his classic study of maritime empires, The World Encompassed, "as Byzantium grew feebler and its enemies more numerous, Greek commerce came into Venetian hands ." In the ensuing centuries, the Greek Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire was battered by the flood tide oflslam in the east and by the rising monarchies of Catholic Europe in the west. Its capital, Constantinople, was the most glorious city of the Western world. Its highly trained fleets and armies won battle after battle against seemingly overwhelming odds. But fighting off incursions from both east and west, it gradually lost its land base, becoming completely dependent on its seaborne trade-which after about 1000 AD was largely in the hands of the rising Italian city-states led by Genoa and Venice. By the year 1204 the Venetians diverted the course of one of the crusades mounted against Islam and took Constantinople, installing a Catholic regime. Genoa then plotted with the di spossessed Byzantines to retake the city for their Eastern Orthodox faith, which they did. And while all this went on, the 12
accumulated encru sted wealth of the emp ire gleamed like a Byzantine mosaic, incredi bly rich , static, reflecting past glories rather than any vision of the future. That future, of course, rested with the rising Italian citystates that had been doing the work of the empire, carrying its cargoes and even fighting its battles on occasion. In a phrase familiar to Americans, the Byzantine Empire had become a pitiful helpless giant by the time the Ottoman Turks stormed into Constantinople in 1453, putting an end to the last surviving bastion of the old Roman Empire.
Italy's Maritime Republics Take Over Genoa and Venice were then left to struggle for mastery in the caITying trade of the Mediterranean. First one, then the other, had the upper hand . A new spirit was sweeping over the Italian cities in this time, a classic rev ival of culture, learning, and progress-the Renaissance! And it was in fact a rebirth of Greek and Roman ideals, rediscovered in new learning of the time. This movement was based, as in ancient times, on the rev ival of seaborne trade, the stimulation of ideas and energies, and the creation of new wealth which that multifarious commerce breeds. The principles of capitalism worked to the benefit of all, as developing technology and strengthened soc ial organization ass ured success for these cities in practically all they undertook. Venice won its struggle with Genoa and took a dominant position in the Mediterranean sea trades. Venetian dominance was to wane slowly in coming centuries, as the state turned to inland territorial battles and an off-and-on hot war with the Turks over the Greek, Cretan and other trading bases. The wealth of Venetian capitalists increasingly went to investment in land rather than in the risky maritime trades. G. V. Scammell discusses this, and Clark G. Reynolds, founder of the North American Society for Oceanic History, has expressed what happened SEA HISTORY 73, SPRING 1995