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Venice Republic: Beginning and Rise
| Venice's history as an autonomous state began some time during the early Middle Ages, after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and continued in all its originality for more than 1,100 years until the Napoleonic era. Venice lay at first on the fringes of the Byzantine empire, acting as a trading and shipping center on the lagoons and rivers up to the plain of Padua, and as a center ofdistribution for goods from the East. |  |
| After the year
1000 Venice became a great Mediterranean naval power, and her role
as intermediary between East and West was strengthened. With the conquest
of Constantinople in 1204 she became the dominant power in the Levant.
The Republican system of government developed in the city-state led
it as well to supremacy in the Italian peninsula. At thebeginning
of the 15th century Venice made huge conquests on the mainland, although
her interests lay only partly in this direction. The rise of the great
modern monarchies transformed international politics, and spelled
the end of the medieval states. In spite of pressure from the Ottoman
empire in the East and from Spain (and later Hapsburg Austria) in
the West, Venice was able to survive through diplomatic skill, by
adpating her trade to the new conditions created by the opening of
the ocean trade routes, and by developing her manufacturing industry,
thus ensuring continued prosperity. Venice's complex history is more
Mediterranean than Italian. It is bound up with developments in the
Balkan peninsula, the Danube area, the Levant, and with the Islamic
world as much as with the Holy Roman Empire, the Church, the maritime
republics of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the powers of western Europe.
The main turning points in her history are summarized here.
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