CHAPTER 15
Just as Venice reached the apogee of its power in the sixteenth century, so, too, did the Ottoman Turks. Yet Turkish power was greater than anything Venice or any other contemporary European power could muster.
Ruling from Constantinople, Sultan Selim I, “the Grim” (1512–20), had already crushed the Mamluk empire, thus capturing Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and the Muslim holy sites in Arabia. The Ottoman Empire now controlled three-quarters of the Mediterranean shoreline and all of the Black Sea. With so vast an empire the resources available to the Turks were truly staggering. Selim made no secret of his desire to use those resources to fulfill the dreams of his grandfather Mehmed II. He meant to conquer western Europe, thus extinguishing the last flame of Christendom left in the world.
Europeans engaged in a widespread and well-justified panic. Pope Leo X begged the monarchs to put aside their wars and band together into one great Crusade for the defense of Christianity. Diplomats and churchmen shuttled from court to court, eventually securing the approval of King Henry VIII of England, King Francis I of France, Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire, and King Charles II of Spain for a general peace and the formation of a new Crusade. In the council chambers of Europe a flurry of plans were drafted, each more optimistic than the last. The final plan envisioned a three-pronged attack on the Turks that would drive them not only out of Europe, but entirely out of the Middle East, restoring the Holy Land to Christian rule once more.
Of course, nothing of the sort ever happened. When Emperor Maximilian died in 1519, the planned Crusade became merely a talking point for the kings of France and Spain, who competed fiercely for the vacant imperial throne. When Charles II of Spain won the day (thus becoming Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire), Francis I refused to join with the hated Hapsburgs and even opened formal relations with the Ottoman sultan to oppose their common enemy. The following year, although only in his fifties, Sultan Selim died. His son and successor, Suleiman, was known to be a scholarly young man with no taste for warfare. Europeans breathed a sigh of relief. The Venetians, who had refused to join Leo X’s Crusade until it consisted of more than plans and paper, did the same.
But Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–66), as he came to be called, was both scholarly and warlike. Upon assuming the throne, he wasted little time pursuing the conquest of Christian Europe. He boldly led a vast army to Belgrade, capturing it in August 1521 and opening the way to Hungary and the German empire beyond.
Before prosecuting a major war in Europe, Suleiman decided to rid himself of dangers and distractions from Christian powers in the East. Chief of these were the Knights Hospitaller, the great crusading order based on Rhodes that had for centuries launched attacks and raids on Turkish holdings in the Aegean and Asia Minor. Previous attempts by the Ottomans to extract the Hospitallers from their island stronghold had failed, but Suleiman was determined to succeed. Much to the dismay of the Venetians, the Ottoman Empire had become a real naval power under Selim the Grim. Suleiman used that new weapon, sending almost four hundred vessels to Rhodes along with an army of a hundred thousand, which he led personally. Seven thousand determined Knights held out for nearly six months before they finally accepted the inevitable. The sultan was gracious in victory. In return for the surrender of Rhodes, Suleiman allowed the Knights to march honorably out of their fortifications under colors and with the respectful attendance of the Turkish army. They were then free to board their vessels and sail unimpeded to Sicily. Ultimately, the Knights relocated to the island of Malta, where they remained until 1799.
The fall of Rhodes sent shock waves across Europe, but nowhere more violently than in Venice. The maritime portion of its empire (known as the stato da mar), already battered by previous wars with the Turks, was in grave danger. The days when Venetian war vessels could patrol the eastern Mediterranean without fear of challenge had suddenly come to an end. Indeed, Venice was being edged out by the enormous fleets of Suleiman and the growing presence of Spanish vessels seeking out the enemies of the Hapsburgs, such as the French or the Turks. The problem became more acute in 1532 when Suleiman appointed the North African pirate Hayrettin Barbarossa (“Red Beard”) as admiral of the Ottoman navy. His policy of attacking Christian vessels first and asking questions later was obviously bad for Venetian shipping.
In 1526 Suleiman invaded Hungary with a powerful land army and numerous cannons. The king of Hungary, Louis II, quickly organized his country’s defenses, but it was too little and too late. At the Battle of Mohács the Ottomans crushed the Hungarian forces, and went on to capture the capital of Buda and eventually to conquer the bulk of the kingdom. Hungary, the longtime enemy of Venice, was no more.
Venetians, like all Europeans, could only mourn its loss. The Ottomans had penetrated deep into Catholic Europe and there seemed no good way to stop them. Indeed, far from halting their advance, the Most Christian King Francis I of France had actually allied with the Turks in a war against Charles V and his Hapsburg empire. In 1529 Suleiman led an army of more than a hundred thousand soldiers directly into Austria and besieged Vienna itself. Torrential rains forced the sultan to leave behind his largest artillery and greatly slowed his progress. Had he had good weather, Suleiman would probably have captured the city, leaving the rest of Germany to his mercy. However, the defenders tenaciously held out, and Suleiman was finally forced to retreat. A second attempt in 1532 similarly failed.
Venice’s policy toward the Turks remained delicate. On the one hand, it was willing to answer the call to crusade, provided that other Europeans did the same. Too often the Venetians had found themselves at war with the Ottomans simply because they alone took a Crusade plan seriously. On the other hand, Venice’s Mediterranean colonies and her merchants in the East now operated in what was quickly becoming a Turkish lake. The Senate did its best, therefore, to steer a middle course, seeking above all to maintain peace. That looked like appeasement to some Europeans—and, to be fair, it was. Charles V blamed the Venetians for refusing to join his fleet, led by the Genoese captain Andrea Doria, which captured Tunis in 1535. Yet the Venetians understood that short-lived raids would not stem the Ottoman advance. Already Suleiman had established control over North Africa, had ridden triumphantly into Baghdad, and was preparing to conquer Persia. In short, Suleiman was unifying the Muslim world under his rule. It was foolhardy to poke him with a stick—even a Hapsburg stick.
Suleiman responded to the capture of Tunis with a far-reaching plan to attack the Hapsburg empire—which included Spain, the kingdom of Naples (southern Italy and Sicily), the Holy Roman Empire (Austria and Germany), the Netherlands, and the vast New World territories of New Spain. The sultan made an alliance with Francis to begin a coordinated assault in 1537. French forces would invade Flanders, while the Ottoman armies would press in from Hungary. Combined Turkish and French vessels would simultaneously wrest the kingdom of Naples from Charles. France, the very homeland of the Crusades, was actively supporting the Muslim invasion of Europe, proving that religion was no longer the only line that defined sides in the new great struggles.
To support all these naval operations, Suleiman sent ambassadors to Venice requesting that the republic join the French and the Turks. Doge Andrea Gritti (1523–38) politely declined. Apart from the problem of allying with the Muslim enemy of Christendom—something contrary to Venice’s cherished crusading past—the Venetians had no desire to see the Ottomans (or any other power) control both shores of the Adriatic Sea. Suleiman did not take the doge’s response well. After increasing taxes on Venetian merchants in Syria, he ordered Turkish vessels to further harass Venetian shipping. When a threatened Venetian warship eventually returned fire, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Venice.
Suleiman’s first objective of the war was securing Corfu, which had been part of the Venetian empire since 1386. This strategic island was crucial to Venice’s control of the southern Adriatic. A Turkish army of more than twenty thousand soldiers with many large cannons soon landed there; without immediate help, it seemed that Corfu would surely fall. And no help was forthcoming. Andrea Doria sailed his imperial fleet quietly by without challenging the Turks. In the end, though, Corfu was saved, but only by weather—the bane of Suleiman’s ambitions in Europe. Fierce rains hampered the artillery and spread dysentery among his army. After three weeks, the Turks retreated.
Venice did not fare as well elsewhere. One by one Suleiman began plucking away Venice’s Aegean colonies. Skyros, Patmos, Ios, Paros, Aegina—all fell to Barbarossa and the awesome might of the Ottoman fleets. These were brutal conquests. On Aegina, for example, the entire male population was executed and the women and children were sent to Turkish slave markets in Constantinople. Venice also lost her last two colonies on the Greek mainland, Nauplia and Monemvasia, both on the east coast of the Morea (Peloponnese). As long as this lopsided war continued, Venice’s overseas colonies were in grave danger. Finally, in 1540, Venetian ambassadors managed to make peace with Suleiman by agreeing to pay a war indemnity of 300,000 ducats. It was a bitter defeat, but at least the stato da mar survived, although reduced, weakened, and still threatened. It consisted of Cyprus, Crete, Tenedos, and six Ionian islands.
The Venetians had no more trouble with Suleiman. They continued to do business in the Ottoman Empire and enjoyed several decades of peace and prosperity. As the power of the great European kingdoms grew in the mid-sixteenth century, the likelihood that the Turks could advance much farther west diminished. Suleiman had twice failed to capture Vienna, and his later attempt to destroy the Knights Hospitaller on the island of Malta in 1565 similarly failed. The great sultan died the following year. He was succeeded by a hedonistic son, Selim II (1566–74), known as “the Sot” because of his predilection for good wine. The new sultan quickly made a truce with the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian II.
Selim and his advisers appear to have decided to focus on softer targets for expansion, and in that capacity Venice’s maritime empire naturally recommended itself. In 1570 the Sublime Porte (as the Ottoman government was known) informed the Serenissima (Most Serene Republic, as the Venetian government was known) that it must immediately hand over the island of Cyprus. This rich and important island had been a Venetian possession for more than eighty years. It was said that Selim coveted the fine Cypriot wines, yet that has the tinny ring of a bad joke rather than indicating a genuine motive. If wine is all he was after, he need only have asked and the Venetians would have gladly delivered whole oceans of it to his table with many blessings. For all his debauchery, Selim knew that a sultan must wage jihad, and it only made sense to do so where the possibilities of success were best.
In Venice the Senate defied the Ottoman ambassador, promising to defend Cyprus with the full might of the republic. The Arsenale quickly geared up for wartime production, and within a few months a massive fleet of more than a hundred vessels had been assembled, each flying the winged lion of St. Mark. The Senate also sent an alarm across Christian Europe, calling for aid against this latest attack of the Turks. Predictably, only those powers with something to lose by Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean responded. Pope Pius V (1566–72) outfitted twelve vessels. King Philip II of Spain (1556–98), the son of Charles V and inheritor of the Hapsburg empire (minus Austria), sent a fleet of fifty vessels under the command of Giovanni Andrea Doria, the great-nephew of the famous Genoese admiral. It was an impressive fleet of nearly two hundred major vessels that assembled at Crete. However, there were incessant delays in getting under way. In part these were the fault of Doria, who did not trust the quality of the Venetian ships and men. In the end, the armada never made it to Cyprus, leaving the Venetians to their fate.
The Turkish invasion forces, which ultimately numbered some two hundred thousand soldiers, captured Nicosia, the Venetian capital of Cyprus, after a siege of several months. Governor Nicolò Dandolo was beheaded, the city sacked, and the people killed or sold into slavery. Because Famagusta was the best-fortified city, the Venetian captain general Marcantonio Bragadin decided to make his stand there. The charismatic Bragadin knew that his people could not forever withstand the might of the Turks, but he put his hopes in the fleet that was said to be assembling at Crete. Those hopes were, of course, misplaced.
The long, grueling siege of Famagusta began on September 17, 1570. Venetian artillery pounded the attackers as well as the siege towers that they built. The Turks responded by sapping the walls and periodically launching major assaults, assisted by powerful artillery bombardments. Bragadin and his soldiers defended the city bravely, but as the months dragged on without significant relief from the West, he faced severe shortages in food, gunpowder, and men. Finally, on August 1, 1571, almost one year after the siege had begun, Bragadin asked for terms of surrender. The Turkish commander, Lala Mustafa Pasha, was delighted. The capture of Cyprus was taking much longer than had been expected, and Sultan Selim in Constantinople had registered displeasure. Mustafa granted the inhabitants of Famagusta terms not unlike those given to the Knights Hospitaller when they surrendered Rhodes. In return for peacefully handing over the city, the people would be free to depart unmolested and honorably. Venetians and any others who wished to leave the island would be escorted by the Turkish fleet to Crete. It was a good deal, sealed with the signet ring of the sultan himself.
A ceremony was planned for August 5. Bragadin, dressed in his crimson robes of state, was accompanied by his senior officers and about two hundred other guards of honor. With the Ottoman forces looking on, they proceeded out of the gates and into the pavilion of the pasha. They brought with them the key to the city and a gift of rich silks. Seated on a velvet stool, Bragadin formally relinquished control of the city and asked Mustafa to transport them to Candia (Heraklion, Crete) as he had promised. Mustafa made a few inquiries about missing Turkish prisoners and reports that food, wine, and oil in the city had been destroyed, but these were mere trifles. What really concerned him came next.
You all want to leave, and I have put at your disposal the galleys of the Gran Signore [sultan]. Who among you will stay as security with me to see that these galleys and caramusalini [vessels] come back, now that your fleet is in Candia? You must give me a hostage, and let it be one of these Venetian gentlemen.
Bragadin responded, “But, my lord, this is no part of our accord. You promised to send us all off in freedom and to give us the ships to take us.” Mustafa admitted the truth of this, but insisted that the deal must be altered. If he sent his fleet to Crete and it was destroyed there, the sultan would quite literally have his head. He could not take that chance. Bragadin responded, saying that the Venetians would keep their part of the bargain and so should the pasha. He pointed out that after the surrender the Venetian commanders and soldiers were now private citizens. He had no authority to order any of them to become a hostage. The concept of such liberty seems to have been lost on Mustafa. He responded that if the Venetians would not leave an officer, then let one of the officers order a captain to act as hostage. But, Bragadin reiterated, the captains, indeed all Venetians, were free men, no longer under any obligation to obey their former commanders. Besides, a prince should uphold his word. Hostages were not part of the bargain.
At this Mustafa exploded in rage. He stood up, clapped his hands, and turned toward Bragadin, saying, “And so you have written to Candia in order that your fleet may be on the watch, because you will surrender on agreement to be escorted to Candia, so that according to some such plan we should lose this entire armada, the property of the Gran Signore. Tie them all up!” With that, the pasha’s men produced rope and bound them all. Mustafa then clapped his hands a second time and the slaughter began. With only a few exceptions, all the Venetian commanders and soldiers in attendance were cut down, along with all the Christians from Famagusta who had come to watch the ceremony. Hundreds of Venetians who had gone to the harbor expecting to board vessels were placed in chains and shipped off to the slave markets. In the pavilion, with the bodies of his men strewn around him, Bragadin stretched out his neck and commended his soul to Christ. Mustafa ordered his ears and nose cut off and then threw him into a cell to rot.
During the next week Mustafa tried to quell the violence that he had initiated. After all, the sultan would not welcome the conquest of the city without a population of taxpaying inhabitants. It appears that Mustafa received word of a Christian armada made up of Venetian and Spanish vessels forming at Sicily. He likely concluded that this was sure evidence of Bragadin’s treachery. This was the fleet, he believed, that would have destroyed the Turkish vessels had he been foolish enough to send them to Crete. Bragadin was roused from his cell and given to the soldiers as sport. He was forced to carry a large sack of soil on his back while trumpets heralded his progress. His tormentors demanded that he convert to Islam, but he refused, saying, “I am a Christian, and thus I will live and die. I hope my soul will be saved. My body is yours. Torture it as you will.” He was then tied to a chair and hoisted up the main yard of a Turkish galley for all to see and mock. Next, he was taken down and brought to the city center, where he was tied to a pole and flayed alive. He endured the tearing of his skin from his flesh without a murmur until the executioners reached his stomach, when he cried out, “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit!” and died. After his skin was completely removed, the Turks stuffed it with straw and hung it from the city gates.
Sultan Selim was well pleased when Mustafa Pasha later presented him with not only Cyprus but also the heads of the Venetian commanders and the skin of Marcantonio Bragadin. But his pleasure was fleeting. For the armada that was assembling in the West really was aimed against the Ottoman Empire. Pope Pius V had declared a Crusade, offering the usual indulgence for those who took the cross in defense of the faith. More than half of the two hundred vessels of this new Crusade fleet were Venetian. The rest were from the pope or Philip II’s domains. The commander of the fleet was the young and charismatic Don John, the illegitimate son of Charles V. The crusaders were further inflamed by the news they received from Cyprus. The passion and death of Bragadin inspired them all, but especially the Venetians.
The Crusade set sail and encountered a Turkish fleet of about equal size off Lepanto in Greece on October 7, 1571. What followed was one of the most famous naval engagements in history. The Battle of Lepanto lasted approximately five hours. It was, in a real sense, Christendom’s last Crusade. For nearly two years Catholics across Europe had prayed the Rosary for the success of the mission, which Pope Pius had specially commended to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For several hours before the attack all the crusaders on the vessels prayed the Rosary, begging God to give them victory through the intercession of his mother. As the Christian galleys approached the Turkish lines, Don John ordered all flags to be lowered and the standard of the Crucifixion to be raised on every ship. They were no longer Venetians, Genoese, Neapolitans, or Spanish. They were Christians. The zeal of the crusaders, with the images of fallen Cyprus still burned into their mind, was plain. It brought them to victory that day. The crusader ships smashed the lines and captured the Turkish command vessels, including that of the pasha himself. By the end of the day the Turks had lost 113 vessels, the Christians only 12. The crusaders captured 117 Turkish vessels, freed fifteen thousand Christian galley slaves, and looted extraordinary riches from the pasha’s ship. In one glorious engagement, the bulk of the Ottoman navy had been destroyed.
The Battle of Lepanto had an electrifying effect on Europe. It was the first time that a major attack against the Ottomans had actually succeeded. Europeans had long come to see the Turks as nearly invincible, but Lepanto proved otherwise. Church bells pealed across Europe, even in Protestant countries where the very concept of Crusade was abhorrent. For one brief moment Europeans were united again in a common faith and a common victory. In Venice, lamentations for the fallen heroes of Cyprus were replaced with cheers of “Victory! Victory!” Venetians were proud of Lepanto, but like Don John they credited the intercession of the Virgin for the stunning success. Pope Pius V declared October 7 henceforth to be celebrated as the Feast of Our Lady of Victory. It is still celebrated by Catholics today as the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. In Venice, this certainty was immortalized in the powerful painting Battle of Lepanto by Paolo Veronese. Above the warring fleets, which are almost an afterthought in this composition, are the heavens in which the patron saints of the states that joined the Crusade are seen imploring the Virgin to assist the valiant Christians below.
A few years later, a Venetian survivor from Cyprus was doing business in Constantinople. There he managed to steal the skin of Bragadin, which had been placed in the Ottoman shipyards. It was brought back to Venice, received as a returning hero, and buried with full honors in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. The stunning monument, which depicts the Venetian martyr’s death, still holds his remains today.
The Battle of Lepanto held great psychological importance for all Christians, but especially for the Venetians. In truth, though, it had little lasting effect. Selim ordered the fleet to be rebuilt, and so great were the resources of the Ottoman Empire that it was done within the year. The battle itself had been, by the standards of the time, rather old-fashioned. Cannons had played only a minor role in the engagement, since the majority of rowed galleys could not accommodate them. Instead, the real action took place with handguns or close-quarters fighting between galley crews. This type of warfare was not much different from that practiced in naval engagements during the Middle Ages. By contrast, the navies of France and England boasted massive galleons with long rows of heavy cannons belowdecks. These powerful warships did not engage the enemy directly, but fired devastating broadsides, destroying them from afar. Although the Venetian Arsenale would produce these powerful ships of the line, it did so only much later, and Venetian sailors never fully mastered them.
Venice is commonly described as entering its period of marked decline after 1600. It is worth remembering, though, that Venice’s decline, like that of its enemy the Ottoman Empire, was relative, not absolute. Very little in the Republic of St. Mark was shrinking. Yes, the stato da mar had lost much, but an energetic rise of industry made up for those losses. Venice remained a place of commerce, culture, and learning. Its fleets were larger in the seventeenth century than they had ever been before. Its nobles were for the most part wealthy aristocrats with grand palazzi in Venice and magnificent villas on the terra firma. It boasted a solid government, a sound currency, and a content people. In short, Venice prospered.
But it did not prosper as much as the emerging powers, such as France or England, and that was the problem. These kingdoms boasted colonial empires that stretched across the globe, bringing riches and every sort of commodity to their markets. Their economies surged, which in turn allowed them to field larger armies and develop new and more effective weapons. Relative to these powerhouses, which experienced a worldwide growth unprecedented in human history, Venice was in serious decline. So, too, were the Ottomans. Although they went from victory to victory, the Turks could not keep pace with the rapid technological, scientific, and economic growth taking place in western Europe. No one could—not even the greatest empires of the New World, Asia, or Africa. For Venetians, who lived in western Europe but whose gaze was traditionally on the East, it became increasingly clear that at least in terms of pure power, they were being left behind.
In one respect, that of revolution, the Venetians were quite content to be left behind. The rise of the middle class in Europe had begun. During the seventeenth century new segments of society that were well off, well educated, and non-noble chafed against a medieval system of hereditary privilege, resulting in an increasing demand for reform that sometimes turned violent. The English had executed their king, Charles I, and abolished their monarchy in 1649. Venice, a middle-class society without a monarchy, landed nobility, or peasantry, was immune to these particular pressures. But it was not immune to calls for reform, the most effective of which were aimed at the Council of Ten. Originally charged with investigating and prosecuting treason, corruption, and espionage, the Ten had expanded its reach into other aspects of state expenditures and even foreign affairs. Since membership in the Ten was inherently transitory, the power grab can be attributed to the cittadini secretaries and staff of the body. Like congressional staff in modern America, these professionals held long-term government positions and were therefore eager to see their own power grow.
In 1582 and 1583 the Great Council curbed the power of the Ten, returning foreign affairs solely to the Senate. Because the Ten was still charged with investigating criminal activities at all levels, it established a subcommittee of three men who would deal with the Senate or the doge. These three were called the State Inquisitors. In time, their duties expanded to include crimes committed by any nobles. The Ten and the Inquisition continued to operate under strict rules of law, although by modern standards their methods might seem questionable. Because secrecy was of the utmost importance, the accused were usually not informed of the charges against them. They had no right to face their accusers and there were no appeals. The nobility naturally disliked the Ten, but there was no arguing with its efficiency. It sometimes made mistakes, as it did in 1622 when it executed Antonio Foscarini for selling state secrets. But it was quick to admit them and attempted to make amends. In an age of Enlightenment, though, foreigners found the mysterious Ten, its inquisitors, and its bocche dei leoni distasteful. So did some of the more progressive-minded Venetians. But attempts to reform the Ten in 1628 and 1762 failed for the simple reason that the body worked well. With a powerful patriciate, equal justice for all Venetians was possible only if accusers of important men could be guaranteed anonymity. The Ten had kept the government stable for centuries. Venetians were loath to lose it when the world around them was so unstable.
As European powers were establishing colonial empires on a global scale, the Senate contented itself with trying to hold on to what it had, while attempting, whenever possible, to restore what was lost. It fought various little wars in the seventeenth century against the Hapsburgs and various pirates. In 1645 the Turks attacked Crete, a Venetian possession for more than four centuries. The siege of the capital, Candia, would last for the next twenty-two years. The Venetian fleets scored impressive victories against the Ottomans, and even managed to reclaim some areas of Dalmatia. Because of its long duration, the defense of Crete became a celebrated cause in Europe, the subject of much talk and writing, but only a little assistance. Finally, in September 1669, the captain general of Crete, Francesco Morosini, surrendered the island. Venice was allowed to retain some small bases there and on two other islands, Tinos and Cerigo (Kithira). Along with Corfu, that was all that remained of Venice’s maritime empire.
In 1683 the Ottoman Empire launched the first major offensive against western Europe since the days of Suleiman the Magnificent. The grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, led a large army to Vienna itself, which was crushed by a combined army of Austrians and Poles. The European victors insisted that the time was ripe to undo the Ottoman conquests in the West and called on Venice to join the effort. There was serious reluctance in the Senate to opening a new war with the Turks, but also a desire to win back what had been lost. Besides, as some argued, if Venice refused to take part in an anti-Turkish campaign that was already on the march, then it would be well remembered later when Venice needed help against the Muslim foe. While the Poles and Austrians liberated Hungary, the Venetians, under the command of Francesco Morosini, waged war in the Aegean and the Morea. The Venetians recaptured a number of Greek islands and even established themselves again on mainland Greece. After capturing Corinth, Morosini’s forces moved on to Athens, which they bombarded. As it happens, the Turkish governor of the city was using the Parthenon, which was at that time a mosque, as a storehouse for gunpowder. When a Venetian mortar went astray and pierced the roof of the Parthenon, it ignited the powder and caused a terrific explosion. The ruins of the Parthenon that one sees today are the result. After capturing Athens, Morosini ordered some of its antiquities to be sent to Venice. These were the days of Venetian “lion collecting,” when captured sculptures were often sent home as trophies. Morosini sent two large lions from Athens’s Porto Leone to Venice, where they still gaze patiently out near the entrance of the Arsenale.
The war with the Turks ended in 1699 with the Treaty of Karlowitz. As a member of the effort, Venice had a place at the negotiation table. For the Turks, Karlowitz represented a humiliating defeat—the first time in their history that a sultan had accepted a permanent territorial loss. According to the treaty, Austria received Hungary and most of Transylvania, Poland took Podolia, and Venice reclaimed most of Dalmatia and the Morea (Peloponnese). Karlowitz taught the Ottomans that they could no longer challenge Europe’s great powers. Venice, however, was another matter. In 1714 a large Turkish fleet descended on the Peloponnese and quickly ejected the Venetians. They pressed on to Corfu, which was once again saved, this time by Venetian resolve and the willingness of Charles VI of Austria to declare war on the Turks. Hapsburg assistance was a double-edged sword, though, for when Charles made peace in 1716 he forced Venice to do the same, despite the Venetians’ strong desire to reclaim the Morea.
Thus ended the last war between Venice and the Turks. In truth, they no longer had much left to fight about. Without colonies in Greek waters or on the Greek mainland, Venice had returned to its traditional home, the Adriatic Sea. And even that it could no longer call its own. Although the Adriatic was legally recognized as Venetian waters, the great powers routinely ignored the technicality. In May 1702 the annual Marriage of Venice to the Sea ceremony on Ascension Day was canceled because a French war fleet had sailed dangerously close to Venice during the War of the Spanish Succession. The ominous irony was not lost on observers.
Venetian commercial shipping continued its own decline in the eighteenth century, yet still remained healthy. British, French, and Dutch merchants did business directly in Constantinople, where they had the clout to extract good tariff rates from the Porte. Venice lacked that clout and so her merchants in the East competed at a disadvantage. Although all commercial shipping in the Adriatic was no longer required to dock at Venice, duties were still collected as if it was. This important source of income for the government was threatened in 1719 by Charles VI’s proclamation that Trieste was henceforth a free port, where goods could make their way into or out of Austria and points northward without paying duties or tariffs. Venice remained the preeminent port in the region, but it was no longer the only port in the region.
Since Venice in the eighteenth century could not seriously challenge the great European powers, and since those powers frequently challenged one another, the Senate adopted a new policy of strict neutrality. This was difficult in northern Italy, where French and Austrian monarchs so often vied for power. But Venice’s diplomats managed it. Dwarfed by the might and the economies of the great powers, the Republic of Venice nevertheless prospered. At almost 150,000 people, the city of Venice was as large as it had ever been—although now tiny compared with Paris, Berlin, or London. Another nearly two million people lived in Venice’s mainland territories, where agriculture flourished, boosted by the cultivation of corn (maize). Amazingly, the Republic of Venice had become a food exporter!
It had also become something more. In its unique beauty, its impressive antiquity, and its flourishing culture, Venice was no longer just a place, but a destination. It was not just a city; it had become an icon.