Roger Crowley - City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas

Copyright 2011 by Roger Crowley

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in the United Kingdom by Faber and Faber, Ltd., in 2011.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Crowley, Roger.
City of fortune: how Venice ruled the seas / by Roger Crowley
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-64426-2
1. Venice (Italy)History6971508. 2. Venice (Italy)Economic
conditionsTo 1797. 3. Venice (Italy)CommerceHistory. 4. Mediterranean
RegionCommerceHistory. 5. MerchantsItalyVeniceHistory. I. Title.
D677.C76 2011 945.31103dc22 2011005529

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Maps by Andrs Bereznay

Jacket design: Anna Bauer
Jacket painting: Canaletto, The Molo from the Bacino di San Marco, 174750 (detail) (San Diego Museum of Art, Gift of Anne R. and Amy Putnam/Bridgeman Art Library)

v3.1

The people of Venice neither have any foothold on the mainland nor can they cultivate the earth. They are compelled to import everything they need by sea. Its through trade that they have accumulated such great wealth.

Laonicus Chalcondyles, fifteenth-century Byzantine historian

Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean, 10001500

Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, 12031204

Venice

The Venetian Lagoon

The War of Chioggia, June 1378December 1379

The Siege of Chioggia, December 1379June 1380

I have used a number of place names employed by the Venetians and others during the period covered by this book. This is a list of their modern equivalents:

Adrianople	Edirne (Turkey)
Brazza	The island of Bra (Croatia)
Butrinto	Butrint (Albania)
Candia	Irklion (Crete). The Venetians also used Candia to refer to the whole island of Crete.
Canea	Chania or Kani (Crete)
Cattaro	Kotor (Montenegro)
Cerigo	The island of Kthira (Greece)
Cerigotto	The island of Antikythira (Greece)
Coron	Koroni (Greece)
Curzola	The island of Korcula (Croatia)
Durazzo	Durrs (Albania)
Jaffa	Now part of Tel Aviv: Tel AvivYafo (Israel)
Kaffa	Feodosiya on the Crimean Peninsula (Ukraine)
Lagosta	The island of Lastovo (Croatia)
Lajazzo	Yumurtalik near Adana (Turkey)
Lepanto	Nvpaktos (Greece)
Lesina	The island of Hvar (Croatia)
Modon	Methoni (Greece)
Naplion	Nauplia or Nvplion (Greece)
Narenta River	Neretva River (Croatia)
Negroponte	The Venetians used this name for both the whole island of Euboea, off the east coast of Greece, and its main town, Halkida, or Khalks
Nicopolis	Nikopol (Bulgaria)
Ossero	Osor on the island of Cres (Croatia)
Parenzo	Porec (Croatia)
Pola	Pula (Croatia)
Porto Longo	Harbor on the island of Sapienza (Greece)
Ragusa	Dubrovnik (Croatia)
Retimo	Rethymnon (Crete)
Rovigno	Rovinj (Croatia)
Salonika	Thessalonki (Greece)
Santa Maura	The island of Lefkada, or Levks (Greece)
Saray	The now-vanished capital of the Golden Horde, on the river Volga, probably at Selitrennoye, near Astrakhan (Russia)
Scutari	Shkodr (Albania)
Sebenico	ibenik (Croatia)
Smyrna	zmir (Turkey)
Soldaia	Sudak on the Crimean Peninsula (Ukraine)
Spalato	Split (Croatia)
Tana	Azov on the Sea of Azov (Ukraine)
Tenedos	The island of Bozcaada at the mouth of the Dardanelles (Turkey)
Tra	Trogir (Croatia)
Trebizond	Trabzon (Turkey)
Tripoli	Trablous (Lebanon)
Zante	The island of Zkinthos (Greece)
Zara	Zadar (Croatia)
Zonchio	Later Navarino, the Bay of Pylos (Greece)

Departure

Late in the evening of April 9, 1363, the poet and scholar Francesco Petrarch was writing to a friend. The Venetian Republic had granted the great literary figure of the age an imposing house on the waterfront overlooking the Basin of Saint Mark, from where he could survey all the rich hubbub of the citys port. Petrarch was drowsing over his letter when he was jolted rudely awake.