The Rise and Fall of Venice

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Dan Snow’s History Hit – The Rise and Fall of Venice

Date: May 18, 2026
Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Roger Crowley, historian and author of City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost A Naval Empire

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the extraordinary story of Venice’s ascent from an unlikely settlement in a muddy lagoon to a global maritime superpower, and its eventual decline and absorption into the modern world. Through a lively discussion between Dan Snow and historian Roger Crowley, the episode covers the geographic, political, economic, and military foundations of Venetian power, along with its unique republican culture and enduring legacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Unlikely Foundation of Venice

• Geographical Improbability ([01:33-07:05])
  • Dan recounts his own approach to Venice by boat, highlighting its surreal, almost magical quality as a city that seemingly “shouldn’t exist.”
  • Venice was built in a “shallow lagoon” as a place of refuge from invaders after the Roman Empire’s collapse.
  • Roger Crowley: “Venice is the only city in Italy that did not exist in Roman times. It’s kind of self-invented after the collapse of the Roman Empire.” ([05:57])
  • Out of geographical necessity and desperation, the original settlers found safety in the marshes—“not even land really”—and began trading fish and salt, the only natural resources available.

2. The Creation of a Maritime Empire

• Controlling the Adriatic ([09:04-11:03])
  • Venice’s primary challenge: to control the Adriatic “our house”—critical for trade and security.
  • Roger compares Venice to early English and Dutch maritime empires, “toeholds” along strategic coastlines, not vast territorial conquests.
  • Empire based on fortified bases and a formidable navy rather than colonizing large swathes of land.

3. Unique Republican Political System

• Political Stability and Oligarchy ([12:14-16:22])

  • Venice consciously avoided the instability of monarchies through a complex system to elect the Doge (leader).
  • “The Doge is not allowed to accept any gifts from a foreign power greater than a pot of herbs.” ([14:48], Roger Crowley)
  • This system prevented nepotism, ensured continuity, and fostered broad stability.

• Corporate Culture and Unity

  • Venice seen as a “corporate body,” unified under the symbol of St. Mark, with broad participation in civic rituals for collective cohesion.
  • Roger: “Everybody is a contributor in a way... Stability and continuity.”

4. Trade, Technology, and Innovation

• Middleman of East-West Trade ([16:41-20:41])

  • Venice had “absolutely nothing” to offer in terms of natural resources, so it excelled as a middleman, controlling key “nodal trading points” like Crete, the Black Sea, and Alexandria.
  • Instituted reliable systems: just-in-time delivery for trade fairs, trusted currency (the ducat), low tariffs (3.5-5%), insurance, lodging for foreign merchants.
  • The annual trade fair and stable legal environment drew merchants globally: “The Venetian ducat... was recognized as far away as India as being a currency.” ([19:33], Roger Crowley)

• Social Structure and Civic Participation ([20:41-23:55])

  • While government was oligarchic, even women could invest in trade ventures; everyone benefitted in some way.
  • Highly skilled workers in the Arsenal (shipyard) were the “aristocrats of the working population,” enjoying pensions and employment security.
  • Strict control of citizenship and immigration preserved the state but fostered unity.

• Industrial Arsenal: A Medieval “Factory” ([25:50-29:36])

  • The Arsenal (shipyard) showcased early assembly-line techniques, breaking shipbuilding into specialisms and storing parts for rapid wartime assembly—“a prototype version of Henry Ford assembly.”
  • “They micromanaged this down to the level of forestry, into individual trees.” ([26:13], Roger Crowley)
  • Showed off Venetian innovation and industrial organization centuries before the British industrial revolution.

5. Turning Points in Venetian History

• The Fourth Crusade and Constantinople ([29:36-33:57])

  • Venice built a fleet for Crusaders but, when payment failed, redirected the expedition to sack Christian Zara and ultimately Constantinople in 1204.
  • This pivotal event gave Venice strategic trade bases, a foothold in Constantinople and the Black Sea, and “the good stuff” of booty: the famous horses and marbles displayed in St. Mark’s.
  • “The Pope accuses the Venetians, probably quite reasonably, of being dogs, returning to their own vomit...” ([31:19], Roger Crowley)

• Rivalry with Genoa & Mediterranean Power ([33:57-36:21])

  • Genoa was the principal rival, known for innovation but disunity. The rivalry nearly ended Venice during the War of Chioggia; Venice survived by reasserting control over the Adriatic.

• Rise of the Ottomans & Global Shifts ([37:17-42:52])

  • The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 was a major turning point. Venice’s trading network was gradually dismantled as the Ottomans took key islands, including Crete after a 21-year siege.
  • Portuguese explorers opened a new sea route to Asia, “putting their hands on the throat of Venice” ([41:34], Roger Crowley), undercutting Venice’s Eastern trade monopolies and hastening its decline.

• The Long Decline and Final Fall ([42:52-45:05])

  • Venice became increasingly dependent on tourism and its cultural cachet as a destination for the Grand Tour, as its relevance as an economic hub faded.
  • Napoleon’s conquest in the late 18th century delivered the final blow, with the Venetian flag ceremoniously burned in former colonies.

6. Venice as a Modern Analogy

• Enduring Legacy and Lessons ([45:45-46:44])
  • Venice is compared to modern city-states like Singapore—small, resource-poor, but globally significant due to strategic location, rule of law, and connectivity.
  • “Small population, no natural resources, highly educated, but living in a complicated political world. So those small state kinds of entities are places who look to Venice as a model.” ([45:58], Roger Crowley)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Founding Venice:

  • “Venice is the only city in Italy that did not exist in Roman times. It’s kind of self-invented after the collapse of the Roman Empire.”
    — Roger Crowley ([05:57])

• On Venice’s Empire:

  • “They come to call the Adriatic our house... Without the Adriatic, they're literally dead in the water.”
    — Roger Crowley ([09:04])

• On Stability:

  • “The Doge is not allowed to accept any gifts from a foreign power greater than a pot of herbs.”
    — Roger Crowley ([14:48])

• On the Venetian Ducat:

  • “This was the dollar of its day. It was recognized as far away as India as being a currency.”
    — Roger Crowley ([19:33])

• On the Arsenal:

  • “It's sort of like a prototype version of Henry Ford assembly... They micromanaged this down to the level of forestry, into individual trees.”
    — Roger Crowley ([26:13])

• On the Fourth Crusade:

  • “The Pope accuses the Venetians... of being dogs, returning to their own vomit and Constantinople is sacked.”
    — Roger Crowley ([31:19])

• On the Portuguese Threat:

  • “He who has Malacca has his hands on the throat of Venice.”
    — Roger Crowley ([41:34])

• Modern Parallel:

  • "Small population, no natural resources, highly educated, but living in a complicated political world. So those small state kinds of entities are places who look to Venice as a model."
    — Roger Crowley ([45:58])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Venice’s Surreal Geography and Origins: [01:33–09:04]
• Building a Maritime Empire: [09:04–11:03]
• Political System and Stability: [12:14–16:22]
• Trade and Economic Innovation: [16:41–20:41]
• Civic Participation and the Arsenal: [20:41–26:13]
• Arsenal as Proto-Industrial Complex: [25:50–29:36]
• The Fourth Crusade & Expansion: [29:36–33:57]
• Clash with Genoa: [33:57–36:21]
• Ottomans and Global Trade Shocks: [37:17–42:52]
• Decline and Fall: [42:52–45:05]
• Modern Analogies and Closing Reflections: [45:45–46:44]

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Final Thoughts

Dan and Roger wrap up with reflections on the continued fascination Venice holds for us today, both as a historical marvel and as a case study with enduring lessons for modern globalized “city-states.” The episode promises a future look at the age of Spain and Portugal, which would further eclipse Venice’s influence—a tale of maritime empires shaping the world.

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Episode recommendation:
For anyone curious about how the improbable city-state of Venice became a global economic powerhouse—and why its story still matters—this episode is a masterclass in lively, accessible history.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

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[Dan Snow]

It's a city floating on a silver disc in a world where everything is converging, where skyscrapers, crowds, skylines. You can walk into the same coffee shop on six continents. This is a place apart. It's a place of magic and beauty. I have sailed a little boat into Venice and it just doesn't feel right. It feels like it shouldn't be allowed. But in you go. You sail from the Adriatic just in to sail in from the ocean through the narrowest of entrances in the thin, low lying barrier islands, past the Punta Sabioni lighthouse. You just keep going. And there it is. There it is. Venice. You can tie up your little boat in the marina by the San Giorgio Maggiore church, right opposite St Mark's Square. It's actually the best kept secret. You pay a few pounds, a few bucks, a few euros, you can stay there overnight. You have the best view in the world. Or you keep cruising a little bit further on. You actually just sail into the Grand Canal itself. Straight on up until you get to the Ponte della Academia. That's the first bridge across the canal as you come in from the east and only then do you have to turn around. There you are, surrounded by glamorous speedboats and Hollywood stars and all sorts of people and you're in Your little battered old sailing boat. You turn around and head out again. It's one of the greatest things I've ever done. You approach Venice as it should be approached, not by some hellish car, some nasty aluminium box driving over some horrible road bridge, no, but with the tickle of a southeasterly, blowing you up the Adriatic and into the city. For this is a city of the sea. It was the beating heart of one of history's great maritime empire. Oh, and when it was so at its height, medieval Venice would have been a sight to behold. Buildings springing from the surface of the water. The furnaces on the lagoon island of Murano firing glass makers tinkering coloured wares sparkling in front of their shop fronts. The hustle and bustle of the port. The groaning ships laden with spices and goods from all over the world. Venice, the epicenter of Mediterranean trade. It was always a city that shouldn't have been possible. In fact, it's one of the worst places in Europe in which to build a city. And it's testament to the desperation of those pioneers that they did so. In around 421, Venice was begun. It was built into the mud flats of a shallow lagoon. There was no farmland, no obvious natural resources to sustain them. It was. And yet, somehow, this became one of the richest and most powerful places in medieval Europe. And it was different as well. In an age of kings and emperors, Venice took an alternative route. It built a republic where a doge ruled but never alone, checked at every turn by councils and law, restricted in his ability to accept gifts from foreigners. And from this unlikely foundation, Venice did something extraordinary. It became the great middleman. It became the trading hub. It sat between east and West. It channeled silks and spices and luxury goods from Asia and the Islamic world into Europe. And all of that depended on a formidable navy, one that was built in a vast state shipyard capable of turning out vessels on an industrial scale. This was a modern maritime superpower. For centuries, it stood well near the center of the world, but like all powers, it wanes. Eventually. Everything fades away, folks. Venice fell into decline. It was eventually strangled to death by Napoleon, who threatened to bombard the city with his gunships. Joining me today on Dan Snow's History Hit to tell this incredible story of the rise and fall of Venice is the brilliant historian, Roger Crowley. I've been a big fan of his books for years. He's the author of City of How Venice Won and Lost A Naval Empire. And he's going to help me explore one of the most extraordinary success stories of medieval history. Not just of medieval history, in fact, of global history. Enjoy. Roger, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

[Roger Crowley]

Thank you very much, Dan. I'm delighted to be with you.

[Dan Snow]

If you were going to build a great, magnificent, powerful world city, would you necessarily think, look at that lagoon and think, oh, that's a great place to do it. Tell me about the geography of Venice.

[Roger Crowley]

Well, absolutely, you wouldn't think stuck at the top of the Adriatic with a cul de sac, but in fact, it wasn't a cul de sac. From the Bronze Age onwards, it's been a corridor, a trade corridor, connecting Central Europe with the Eastern Mediterranean and places beyond. But there were predecessors actually to Venice. There was Adriaof, which Greek town, which was a trade hub, gave the Adriatic its name. But it's now 15 miles up the Po, which has been silted up. It was then followed by a Roman city called Aquileia, which again had the same function of the transmission of goods to and from the Mediterranean into Central Europe. This is destroyed by Attila The Hun in 421, I think. So there's always been a role for a commercial hub at the top of the Adriatic and this is the one which Venice is going to inherit. Venice is the only city in Italy that did not exist in Roman times. It's kind of self invented after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

[Dan Snow]

So that's the sort of the regional geography. What about the precise place where Venice is? Because there are nice fields and orchards around it and places where you can grow food. I mean, tell us where they established what would become the city of Venice.

[Roger Crowley]

Well, this was a flight, really, from the collapse and the terror of the end of the Roman Empire and the Huns kind of ravaging through that part of the world. So it was really a desperate safety measure to put yourself in the lagoon offshore, where you can't be attacked easily, to start building these extraordinary fragile huts on stilts in this shallow water. And obviously they've got nothing. You know, they've got no land. They've got. The only resources they've got really are fish and salt. And these are really the beginnings of their trade, selling fish and salt to people roundabout. So you could certainly say it's unpromising. But the only way forward for these people, once they had established themselves in one form or another, was going to be through trade. And the trade that they are going to develop over a period of time is going to be that which effectively controls the Adriatic. Obviously they don't know this in the early stages. Venice is self invented. It comes up with its own story about how it was created on March 25th of 421 A.D. at noon. So it not only creates its own economy over a period of time, but it creates its own story because it has no story, it has no sense. And everything that it constructs is going to be really something that is either borrowed, begged or stolen from somebody else over a period of time.

[Dan Snow]

So isn't that amazing? So they head out to the marshes, the most marginal piece of land they can find, not even land really, and they build a settlement of huts on stilts, try and get away from the Hunnish cavalry and various other people. But it works. Does that geography protect it? Is it rather a clever move? I mean, take me through the first of decades and centuries of Venice's rise.

[Roger Crowley]

Well, obviously they're safe, because unless you've got a maritime competitor, nobody can really get at you and nobody really bothers about you. The process of, for the Venetians, is actually as they expand down the coast of Italy, trading, they start to rub up against the eastern shores of the Adriatic, which is sort of Slavic. And if they wish to develop a trade, they're going to have to meddle with these people. There's a big pirate confederacy on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. So developing the ability to, in effect, wage war on a maritime level to control the Adriatic is the essential step for them. And this will develop over a number of centuries. They come to call the Adriatic our house. And the moments of their existence, which are the most fragile for them, are going to be those times when they are bottled up in the Adriatic. And it does happen. So controlling the Adriatic is critical, absolutely critical, and really reducing it to a kind of Neo colony. And this is really what happens over the first few centuries. And eventually they will have Corfu, which they call the door of our house. But geopolitically, controlling that Adriatic is everything to them. Without the Adriatic, they're literally dead in the water.

[Dan Snow]

They are. So, Roger, is it a little bit. We think of some empires, an army spreading across wide open plains and conquering territory. In big colour on the map is Venice a little bit more like the early English empire. It's toeholds, it's sort of little forts and important promontories all the way down the Adriatic coast, its islands like Corfu. So perhaps it begins as a warehouse for trade, then you have to provide a security force, then you might as well take over the city or the headland. Is that how this empire starts to Expand down through what is now Croatia and into places like Greece.

[Roger Crowley]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, you could take Venice as a prototype model of small state maritime empires, of which Britain was one and the Dutch are another. They hold very little territory. They're not a large population. They cannot colonize on a large scale. What they need are bases, strategic bases, a network which they expand out into the Mediterranean over a period of time, which will allow them to trade goods with people across the eastern Mediterranean. There are never very many Venetians in their empire. I mean, Crete is probably the most heavily actually colonized place. But this lightweight maritime network, and obviously this depends upon maritime force. Your military and commercial carrying facility is critical. So attending to the details of the sea, both in terms of the bases that you construct and your supreme ability at shipbuilding and sailing are critical. If you want to say one thing about the Venetians is that they're sailors,

[Dan Snow]

and that's what we like about them on this podcast. So, Roger, we won't melt everyone's brains with the political complexion of Europe in the 500 years after the sack of Rome, but we've got Byzantines, we've got Goths, we've got Germans, we've got everyone fighting it out in Italy. We've got Italian players as well. Does Venice just sort of slightly sit back and watch them all hacking each other to death and sit there safe in its lagoon, just growing rich off the trade and eventually establish its own independence?

[Roger Crowley]

I think that's a reasonably good account of it. I mean, they haven't. Can't put boots on the ground because there aren't very many of them. And it's not until the 16th century that they start to have any territorial presence in Italy. So they pass this by. On the whole, their competitor are going to be other maritime powers and particularly Genoa. But the mayhem of Italy and everything that goes on there really is kind of not their business. They really do not want to get involved, and this makes them outlier of what's going on. And all kinds of interesting relationships with the biggest power player in Italy, which is the papacy, I suppose the Venetians, you know, say we're Venetians first, then Christians kind of thing. And they're in continuous trouble with the papacy for not doing X, Y and Z. And they will not brook interference from outsiders. Therefore, they look at the Pope, sought absolute spiritual authority over Venice, and Venetian said, no, look, we're just not having this. So they're routinely excommunicated for not doing something or other. And also the other element of it, I tend to think of Venice in a way as being like a sort of corporate body, and your corporate logo is Saint Mark, really. And clustering around, unifying around this figure of St. Mark is really important to the Venetians. They cannot afford to have internal disputes, factional disputes within city. They haven't got a feudal system, so they have a nobility, but they haven't got a peasant class whom they can control. Everybody is a contributor in a way. And it's only occasionally there's one Doge who tries to do a deal, a sort of couple with other powers. Marine faleiro in the 1300s, who was executed. And they construct their political system very carefully to avoid any one person getting control of this city. So the election for the Doge process, 15 people would elect nine people who would elect seven people elect, 11 people who would elect the Doge. And. And the aim of this was to stop any one group filtering into a position where they get control of the lobby which will elect the Doge. So it's a very complicated but very sophisticated process. The Doge is not allowed to accept any gifts from a foreign power greater than a pot of herbs. So this fear and this one episode with one Doge who went rogue was one of the reasons why they've got incredible political stability, which everybody supports, and stability and continuity.

[Dan Snow]

Right. So you might have a wonderful king or queen elsewhere, but then they die and their children are completely hopeless and will fight each other. Is this an advert for peaceful transmission of power and a government that is controlled, albeit by an oligarchy, but where there is a. You have to have an element of consent?

[Roger Crowley]

Yeah, absolutely. It is. It is an advert for. You don't get nepotism in the system. Generally, people who in the end will be elected tend to be people who have done great things in the Venetian Empire. They come with a good track record of being CEO part of the Venetian Empire, but it certainly prevents any kind of nepotism, and it's unruffled, really, throughout the centuries.

[Dan Snow]

Interesting. So they've come up with a. A fascinating political solution that really suits them. They're invulnerable to even your mighty kings. They can't march a big army across that lagoon. But the question, Roger, is what have they got to trade? Are these building ships that are very good at carrying other people's trade? They haven't kind of producing in themselves, right?

[Roger Crowley]

No, I mean, there's absolutely nothing. They've got absolutely nothing which is of value to people. There are two elements to this. I think you're right. One is that they fine tune the whole business of shipbuilding, maritime technology and power with one part of it. The other is that they are essentially middlemen. And the middlemen need bases across the Mediterranean from which you operate. So over a period of time, the Venetian Empire, I like the British Empire. If you think of the British Empire, you know, sort of Gibraltar, Malta, Aden, Suez, Bombay, these kind of little points. And then same with the Portuguese. They couldn't control much territory, but their aim was really to get control of key nodal trading points over the centuries. And these become very important to them. So Corfu is important. They get a couple of useful little bases on the south coast of the Peloponnese. The big one is going to be Crete. Crete is really their only full blown colonial experience. A foothold in Constantinople, in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov. And these are tiny footprints, but they're controlled. And generally these are very heavily fortified. These provide the opportunity to move goods across the Mediterranean. They study the whole technology, if you like, of buying and selling very carefully. The merchants are extremely well informed. And what they do is they understand supply and demand. And supply and demand is if you want people to come and buy from Venice. And this is what they did. They wanted to have very large trade fairs at regular intervals. You have to have just in time delivery. So they would send out galleys on different trading routes. Some would go to North Africa, some would go to Constantinople, the Black Sea. There would even be a Flanders route which would see Venetian vessels in the Thames. And the aim was that these ships were timed to come back for the annual trade fair. And the annual trade fair brought in people from all over Europe. And this is where they bought and sold and they taxed quite lightly. They didn't rip people off. They understood that a 3.5 to 5% tax on all goods coming into the country. So they understand these various elements of wealth just in time delivery, having the goods stable. Currency, which was the Venetian ducat, which was the most reliable currency in the whole of the Mediterranean. Gold coins. 3 1/2 grams of pure gold. If you clipped this coin, you'd be executed. And this was the dollar of its day. And it was recognized as far away as India as being a currency. The Indians thought that the picture of the doge kneeling before St. Mark was actually some kind of Hindu God leaving that one side. So that they've nailed down all the key elements here. Currency, just in time having the goods, treating people reasonably. They have lodging houses for merchants coming from all over Europe. For these fairs and this is kind of like the souk of Europe and they would sell anything if there was a market for it. Ground up mummies from the Valley of the Kings sold as a medicinal cure, you know,

[Dan Snow]

and I suppose like the British Empire later, like at the Aden, like in Singapore, Hong Kong, you go there if you're merchant, because you're not going to get your warehouse nicked by capricious monarch or his drunken son. There's the rule of law, there's insurance, there's brokerage. It's a good place to do business. And you think, well, let's just put our trade through Venice. Well, actually, chances are we'll get our goods on time and we're not going to get ripped off.

[Roger Crowley]

Absolutely. And they did have a Jewish community who were very important in the fiscal arrangement because they were useful money lenders. But certainly the fidelity of Venice, its deals, its currency, was recognized across the whole of Europe.

[Dan Snow]

So it's a republic, there's a sharing of power, unlike elsewhere. Does that stretch down to normal citizens, men and women? Are they part of this project? Do they have any say or are they economically empowered?

[Roger Crowley]

They probably wouldn't have any say in the electing of the doge. This would have been probably the wealthier commercial families. But they had a stake and anyone could have a stake, for example, in a commercial enterprise. If a galley is going to go to Alexandria to buy spices, even women could put a little bit of money into this venture. So everyone does have a stake here actually. Obviously there's a trickle down of wealth as well, but they're not a voiceless minority. Venice also provides a lot of employment, particularly in the arsenal, which has a very large, very skilled labor force. These are the aristocrats of the working population, very skilled people, each of whom had their own specialisms in various parts of the whole fabrication of ships. Some guys are very good at making awesome. Some people cast cannons, you know, blah, blah, blah. And the arsenal Nilotti, which are about, I think about 2000. They even had pensions at the end of their working lives. Even if they were beyond work, they could just totter down there and do nothing. They would still be paid. So everybody generally, they do have a stake. They also control immigration very carefully. Although there's this sort of commonwealth of Slavs and people down the coast of Adriatic who are quite important for extraction of products, particularly timber. It's very difficult to become a citizen of Venice, you know, if you're not a born Venetian. So, you know, this is controlled as well. But Generally everybody, everybody buys into this project and the logo of Saint Mark is kind of in everybody's mind. The fidelity to this and the great festivals of the year like the Ascension Day festival, when the Doge gets into the Golden Barge and goes out into the lagoon, into the Adriatic and drops a ring in the sea to say we marry the sea. Everybody would have participated in that. And there was a great place of ceremonial and all kinds of stuff going on around St. Mark's Square. And everybody has a part in this. So I think we could say there are occasional incidents, but very few incidents at which there's any sign of insurrection within the city. The genius with which they constructed this, really, I suppose it was evolutionary rather than somebody saying, right, let's have a little model of what the perfect state looks like and then we can carry it out. And I think the base of this was because of the ecological insecurity of Venice. Rising tides could wipe out your city. That everybody had to pitch in to barricade this city against the sea as much as anything else. So everybody has a stake in survival on this fragile ship. You could call it.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to Dan Snow's history at Folks talk about Venice. Don't go away.

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[Roger Crowley]

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[Dan Snow]

You mentioned the arsenal there. The arsenal is where they build these ships. As you say, they build oars and cannon and everything. The arsenal always presents me with a bit of a problem because when we say the industrial revolution began in Britain and the first factories are in Britain, US Brits get very excited about that in the 18th century. The Arsenal looks a lot like an industrial process, doesn't it? Way before that. Tell me a bit more about that and how they build these ships.

[Roger Crowley]

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Dan. I mean, it's sort of like a prototype version of Henry Ford assembly. They worked out all the features of shipbuilding and they divided them into specialisms. So you have guys who make oars, you have guys who make ropes, you have a rope walk where they just make ropes. And these are color coded according to their use. Quality control is everything. Because the Venetians, they've fine tuned this down to the basics really, that a snap rope can lead to a shipwreck and the loss of a whole ship full of valuable goods. So what they did was they assembled all the parts of these ships. They have two types of ships, effectively the war galley, which is kind of fast rowing boat with sails. And then the merchant galley, which was a bigger ship, was the bulk carrier of goods, which also had oars for maneuvering, but was basically a sailing ship. That was a ship which actually brought in the goods. The war galleys protect the Venetian fleet, but they'd broken this all down into bits. So when it came to war, what they tend to do was the dry store all the parts that you needed, like the hulls, the oars and so on. And when it came to a war, they would put all these together incredibly quickly. And the party piece, when Henry iii, I think of France in front of him, the arsenal constructed a galley in front of him in the course of a meal. And they were driven nuts when they tried to ally with the Spanish during the time of the Ottoman War. The Spanish took forever to get their ships together because they didn't have enough rope or they didn't have the right sort of masts. And they micromanaged this down to the level of forestry, into individual trees. So you need some trees which are ideal for masts. You need other trees which will provide the curved skeleton of the hull. You know, they've really micromanaged this. That evolved over a longish period of time. It was, you know, it just blew people away when they saw it. The one thing they didn't get quite right for a while was that actually making gunpowder in this place wasn't exactly brilliant. And they had a couple of disastrous explosions. And in the end they decided, oh, well, I think we better take gunpowder manufacture off into Murano or Burano, one of the little islands in the lagoon. They haven't got it quite right. But in the end, people had never seen anything like this. It's protected by a huge wall which was manned day and night by watchmen, because obviously this could be a prime target. The watchman had to give the call to the next watchman, and if they failed to do it, they'd be removed. The lion of Venice has on it an open book saying, peace to you, Mark. The Venetian arsenal has the lion of Venice over its gate, but the book is shut. This is, we're ready for war. But there's three things really going on here. One is the Rialto, where the merchandise is sold. This is the Great Souq. One is the Doge's palace, the center of administration, and one is the arsenal. And they're almost within shouting distance of each other, about 300 yards away from each other. So this is a very unified basis and example of how these bits work together.

[Dan Snow]

Tell me about the Fourth Crusade. So 13th century, got one of the many Crusades heading to the Holy Land, as the Europeans described it, to try and revive Christian fortunes there. And Venice gets very, very involved.

[Roger Crowley]

Yeah, this is an extraordinary tale of mission creep. Crusaders turn up in Venice because they know this is the place for ships, and they strike a deal to take 35,000 crusaders to the Holy Land. 85,000 marks, which is an awful lot of money. Venice agrees to the deal. It involves a year's work and half the male population of Venice in the construction of ships. This actually is kind of a founding moment, actually, in the development of Venetian shipbuilding. The problem is that the guys who came along, did the deal, assumed that 35,000 Crusaders would all come to Venice, but they don't. They come from other places. And when it comes to departure, they can't pay. They haven't got the 85,000 marks. And so from the beginning, the Crusade is in trouble. The Venetians are extremely worried. They've stopped all trade for a year to build these ships. And as they set out down the Adriatic, you start to get all kinds of mission creep goes on. Firstly, we decide that we need to duff out some Christians in a place called Zara on the shores of the Adriatic. They go on and it becomes. It's quite difficult to explain, but I think in the background of this, everybody knows that Constantinople is a red apple, one of the most desirable, wealthy places in the world. And they kind of find a pretender to the throne of the emperor of Constantinople. And for reasons which are pretty still obscured, I think to many people they deviate and decide that there's been an injustice for the pretender and we need to replace the present emperor with this emperor. So they end up sacking Constantinople. This is an extraordinary feat of mission creep. The Pope accuses the Venetians, probably quite reasonably, of being dogs, returning to their own vomit and Constantinople is sacked. I mean, it's not only the Venetians, there are various other factions involved who are kind of interested in this. But out of this for Venice comes an awful lot of things that they want. Venice doesn't want land. A lot of the Byzantine Empire is divided up into lots to various little baronies in Greece and so on. Venice doesn't want. It wants bases. So what it gets out of it are very useful pieces of strategic harboring on the south coast of Greece, Negroponte, which is along island Evia, the islands of the Aegean, and most important of all, Crete. So this provides the Venetians with a complete trading web for trading, like the Genoese, they also get a foothold in Constantinople. This is valuable not only for trading in Constantinople, but then they can start trading up the Black Sea and, and into the Sea of Azov. So they now on this basis have that complete little network of small state maritime hubs which we talked about earlier. And so from the Venetian point of view, this is a critical turning point in their fortunes. They're now connected everywhere. They can trade with the Muslims in Alexandria, they can trade with the people in the Black Sea, they can control the sea in many ways. They can control the east, the Mediterranean.

[Dan Snow]

Extraordinary that Constantinople has held out against Muslims against quote, unquote barbarian forces coming down from Central Europe. And then it falls to this Venetian crusader force in the 13th century. It's extraordinary moment. And the Venetians don't just get islands, they get a bit of loot as well, don't they? They get some nice statues which many people will be familiar with.

[Roger Crowley]

Oh, they do they get the bric a brac that is on the front of St Mark's there are the four horses which came from the hippodrome. There are various little statues of emperors. There are people on the tops of columns. All sorts of pieces, interesting pieces of marble crop up. Icons. Yeah, they took the good stuff.

[Dan Snow]

They took the good stuff back to Venice. Amazing. What about regional rivalries? We've got Genoa, you've mentioned. They go after each other, don't they? The 13th and 14th centuries. And then you get the coming of the Ottomans. The Venetians are. They're often at war, aren't they?

[Roger Crowley]

They are. Genoa is the main rival in the Mediterranean, the same kind of maritime base. The Genoese are very different to the Venetians. They're great individualists, actually. Their political system is a basket case with various noble factions taking over. And it's very unstable. But they're very innovative, actually, the Genoese. Things like gold, currency, stern rudders, maritime insurance, public clocks. These are things invented by the Genoese, so they're very interesting. It comes to a head. There's fighting across the eastern Mediterranean between the Venetians and the Genoese, particularly in Cyprus. Wherever the two meet, somebody summed up the difference between the Venetians and the Genoese. Unfavorable to most. The Genoese are like donkeys. When you hit them, they will scatter. The Venetians are like pigs, when you hit them. They all cluster together, the two. But Venice's near death experience happens at the end of the 14th century when the Genoese establish themselves just down the coast from Venice and effectively barricade the Venetians into their own lagoon. They're also in league with the Hungarians as well. The War of Chioggia. And it's almost the end of Venice because they're slowly being starved to death. And in the last minute they managed to turn the tables on the Genoese and Chioggia. But the lesson there is really, if you can't control the Adriatic, you are dead in the water. And this was as close as they got, really, before the end of the Venetian Republic with Napoleon pitching out a few hundred years later. But these two, the Venetians and the Genoese, I mean, they both traded in Alexandria, but the Genoese, when they were being ripped off, they got very angry and carried out some military enterprises. The Venetians were much more subtle. They used diplomacy, they worked around them, they found solutions and so in the long run, they kind of win out over this commercial contest.

[Dan Snow]

More Venice coming up after this.

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[Roger Crowley]

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[Dan Snow]

Another great rival emerges in the eastern Mediterranean, particularly the Ottoman expansion. You get these extraordinary battles taking place between the Ottomans and the Venetians. These Venetian fortresses that have been built on these islands that you've mentioned is 1453. The important turning point there. Constantinople falls to the force of Islam, the Turks and they keep pushing on from there.

[Roger Crowley]

It definitely is. Dan? Yeah, at this point the Ottomans who are not a maritime force but they're very good at co opting people and they're the lands that they conquer, Greece particularly, they develop navies from this point on and we start to see the Ottomans kind of pushing into the Mediterranean. The Venetians, who are fastidious, study the Ottomans in enormous detail as to how to deal with this. They're very good at diplomacy, but it's difficult dealing with the sultan. Venetian said dealing with the sultan is like juggling a glass ball. You know, it's easy to drop, but they're diplomats at their fingertips. They trained up people to speak Ottoman Turkish, to try and soften up themselves and they provided gifts. But the Ottomans advance and advance into the Mediterranean and we're going to see the Venetian colonies or empire slowly dismantle bit by bit. We're going to see Evia, which is on the east coast of Greece taken. That was an important base. We're going to see them scoop up the islands. The big one comes is going to be Crete. Crete is the only place that the Venetians actually occupied on a colonial basis and where they actually settled. Crete was the hinge of their maritime empire. It was the base for voyages to Alexandria. And when the Ottomans come for this at the start of the 17th century, this is a critical moment. The siege of Heraklion turned out to be the longest siege I think in world history, 21 years. But the Ottomans get it and at that point we start to see the collapse of the Venetians ability to trade. They're being slowly, slowly bottled up. And this is the point really at which because they have nothing else apart from trade, it's becoming more difficult. And despite their diplomatic juggling game with the Ottomans, they cannot win this. And it's getting to the. It does get to the point where Ottomans are on the coast of the Adriatic, almost within distance of Venice. And this is the sort of the existential moment for Venice, really, where it's becoming harder and harder for them to manage an empire. At this point they start to. There's quite a famous painting of the lion of St. Mark. And St. Mark's lion for the first time has his. Although he's got bodies in the sea, his paws are on the land. And at that point the. They're starting to expand modestly into territory in Italy as well. So at this point we're going to see the start of the long decline of Venice.

[Dan Snow]

And I suppose you give a sense that the Ottomans encroaching, the Ottoman Empire becomes so big and indeed starts to occupy lots of bits of Eastern Europe. So trade, if you want to trade with Eastern Europe, you can start to go through that Ottoman Empire. I suppose the Ottomans can start to corner that trade by creating that one vast, reasonably homogenous empire. But it's also the poor Albanicians are getting it from the other direction as well. Some Europeans, because you're obviously a huge expert in the Indian Ocean. Let's quickly just rehearse the fact that one of the most unholy and fascinating alliances, I think, in history is the fact that the Portuguese erupt into the Indian Ocean and start bypassing that trade route that traditionally goes across the Indian Ocean into what we now call Middle East, Northeast Africa from Alexandria and then to Europe. The Portuguese can take it all the way around in their own hulls. And so you get. The Venetians kind of align themselves with Muslim nations trying to get the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean. Fascinating.

[Roger Crowley]

Yeah. I mean, the signal moment was the spice trade was very important to the Venetians via the Mamluks in Egypt, that when the Portuguese get to Malacca, a Portuguese writer said, he who has Malacca has his hands on the throat of Venice. And there's almost a day in Venice when they hear that the Portuguese have gotten to the Indian Ocean and there are bank crashes actually, because they realize that this is really an existential threat to the wholesale of the kinds of luxury goods, the silks, the perfumes, the gold, the spices, is now under threat. And indeed, you can start in a way to see the Mediterranean itself becoming almost a backwater for a much larger pan global game that's going to develop. And certainly I think the moment when the Portuguese make it into the Indian Ocean is a very, very important turning point. And as you say, they're looking for support from the Ottomans at this point to do something in the Indian Ocean, which they do make some attempt at. This is a moment, I think, when the decline of Venice is registered. You can almost register it to the day when they got the news that the Portuguese were there.

[Dan Snow]

But Venice holds out, and in the end, it's that man who reorders Europe, and it's in virtually its entirety. It's Napoleon Bonaparte who delivers the final blow. Just quickly take us right the way through to the end, because Venice has still been largely invulnerable. So you can take away its trade, but it's still there. No one's conquered it. But then what happens?

[Roger Crowley]

Well, as I say, it gets involved in the politics of Italy and has land holdings in Italy. You can see it morphing. I mean, it's still trading within the Mediterranean, but it's become still a commercial and financial hub. And quite quickly, it's becoming a tourist resort. Actually, by the 17th century, people want to come here, they want to see it, they want to spend their money here. So it's a long, slow decline. They still hold onto the Adriatic. The Adriatic is somewhere they plunder for all kinds of resources for shipbuilding, for stone and so on, and trading within that perimeter. And the one place the Ottomans try several times to take but never take is Corfu. So they've still got an entrance into the Mediterranean and they're still trading. But increasingly it's becoming a cultural phenomenon in Europe. And obviously by the time we get to the 18th century, it's the place of the Grand Tour, with the Venetians still doing very well. Out of people coming, it helps to have as many saints in your city as possible. They're very good at stealing saints from people having stir in St Mark. They've got a bit of a St Nicholas, and these are very good because the faithful will come to your city to be involved. So it's a long, slow decline into gentility, you could say. And when Napoleon comes and trundles off with the four horses, it is the end. But you could see down the coast in a lot of the places that have been Venetian colonies, great sadness. On one of those places, they had great ceremony and they burnt the Venetian flag and wept because it had been there forever and was part of their cultural melange of Adriatic cultural life. So it's a long, slow collapse.

[Dan Snow]

You know, Roger, as you've been talking, there's so Much wonderful stuff in this history. There's thought provoking moments for those of us in the world today, but also it's a wonderful bit of history because it's the world's most popular tourist destination. Everyone loves Venice.

[Roger Crowley]

It is extraordinary, isn't it, actually? I mean, I think the only time to go is February. Venice invented the package tour, actually, of taking people to the Holy Land, all included on a Venetian ship. Dreadful food, awful conditions in the dorm, but they've really only got themselves to blame for defecting tourism in all kinds of ways, and they traded on that.

[Dan Snow]

We've made lots of modern parallels in this, but it does seem very like a kind of Singapore, Hong Kong today. I mean, Singapore a better example, I suppose. Very small, but with an enormous economic and commercial clout.

[Roger Crowley]

I think that's right. I had a conversation with some political people in Singapore about looking for the parallels between Singapore and Venice and what were the lessons they could learn from its growth, but also from its decline. Small population, no natural resources, highly educated, but living in a complicated political world. So those small state kinds of entities are places who look to Venice as a model. And I think you're right, Dan. I think it's an absolutely valuable kind of analogy for such places as Singapore.

[Dan Snow]

Thank you so much. We're so talking about mighty land empires with huge armed forces. And it's fun to talk about a different. A different model of empire, a different model of polity. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

[Roger Crowley]

Thank you very much, Dan. It was really interesting.

[Dan Snow]

Thank you so much to Roger Crowley for coming on the pod. We're going to have him back in the summer later this year to actually, actually sort of pick up the story, really, and look at how the rise of Portugal and Spain as the next great maritime powers would help to throw Venice into the shade. The story of how Spain and Portugal's race to get to the Spice Islands of Indonesia in the 16th century changed the world. And you know the best way of making sure you don't miss that, and that is hit following your podcast player. Do that right now. And you're also going to want to focus this summer. It's all going to pop off on Down Slow Knows History, as the older millennials say. We're going to be looking at the rise and fall, the Roman Empire. We're talking to Mary Beard. We're going to be explaining everything you know about the Odyssey just to get you in the mood for the big movie. And we're going to be heading to the jungles of Belize to discover ancient Maya temples. We got everything you need for a mega summer of listening, so hit follow now. See you next time.

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[Dan Snow]

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