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In Our Time
The Venetian Empire
00:51:24
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise and eventual decline of the Venetian Empire.
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- [00:00]
Melvin Bragg
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:07]
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- [01:10]
Marcia Van Helder
BBC Sounds music radio Podcasts this is in our.
- [01:14]
Stephen Bowd
Time from BBC Radio 4 and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this edition you find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. In just a few hundred years, Venice grew from some boggy islands on a mosquito infested lagoon to roll, forming an empire from mainland Italy down the Adriatic coast, across the Peloponnese to Crete, Cyprus, past Constantinople and into the Black Sea. Visitors found it extraordinary that this city without walls, the Serenissima, could be so stable and influential, growing in wealth and spreading the so called justice of Venice. And the Venetians did all they could to keep the image up. Yet the strain of the strengthening Ottomans in Spain, France and the Habsburgs were to prove too much. And with trade shifting to the Atlantic, the power of Venice began to wane. With me to discuss the rise and fall of the Venetian Empire are Stephen Bard, professor of Early Modern History at the University of Edinburgh, Gail Christ, Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Manchester, and Marcia Van Helder, professor in Early Modern History at the University of Amsterdam. Marcia, when and how did Venice come into being?
- [02:34]
Marcia Van Helder
The origin story of Venice is a bit murky in the sense that what we know is that during the time of ancient Rome there was no such thing as a city in that northern lagoon, the north of the Adriatic Sea. It was basically barren mudflats, marshes, like you said, a mosquito infested lagoon. There were some fishermen and boatmen there, but no Real community. So the transformation of these barren marshes into a new city occurs somewhere between the 5th and the 7th century and is closely connected to the so called barbarian hordes invading the Roman Empire. So when the Huns and the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths conquer Roman territory, the lagoon becomes a safe haven in a sense for settlers from Roman cities who flee these invasions and flee the violence of these invasive hordes. So Venice is a city formed by immigrants, by refugees, and that idea of a safe haven, of a safe place becomes part of Venice's foundational myth.
- [03:38]
Stephen Bowd
Can I ask you, you studied there, right? By the Grand Canal. Can you describe this unlikely setting for a city?
- [03:45]
Marcia Van Helder
Yeah, for me, coming there for the first time, I had no clue. I mean, obviously I'd read up a bit before coming, but still arriving there really blew me away. The fact that it is still very much a collection of smaller islands only connected to one another by bridges and by reclaimed land, you still feel that it is very much an amphibious city closely connected to the water. That's one of the reasons why it never had walls in that sense. It was unique from other cities in the medieval and early modern period, which all had their walls as protection from outside enemies. And Venice relied on its lagoon. And that sense, even though now there's a bridge connecting the mainland to the city and there's a railway also connecting the city to the mainland. But that sense of almost isolation and otherworldliness is still very much part of its character.
- [04:40]
Stephen Bowd
It was associated with Byzantium and the east rather than with Rome. How did Venus first develop its identity?
- [04:48]
Marcia Van Helder
The fact that it offered a safe haven from these refugees from the Roman Empire. The Venetians then turn that connection to the Roman Empire into part of their foundational myth. So they do not have direct Roman roots like Florence, for example, Rome itself or Genova, but they see themselves as the heirs to the republican Rome because they offered refuge to these immigrants, these people who fled from the invasive hordes. And the connection to Byzantium occurs because between the 5th and the 9th century, Venice is not an independent city or an independent state. It's very much part of the Byzantine Empire.
- [05:28]
Stephen Bowd
How did Stephen, Stephen Bowen, how did Venice govern itself? How did this group of islands turn itself into a system?
- [05:36]
Melvin Bragg
Well, I mean, it's quite a tale of bloodshed, faction fighting, violence and assassination in its early years, which goes rather against the Venetians self made myth of La Serenissima, this idea of its internal stability, its lack of faction. In fact, early on in the 8th 9th centuries these figures, the Duke Surdoges, were acclaimed by the assembly, were often being assassinated or deposed, and that equally there were certain families like the Candiano and Orseolo, who were almost trying to set up hereditary monarchy within the city and within the state. So there's a real violent period, Venetian history, which the Venetians tend to gloss over later on. And what happens is that as Venice grows in wealth through trade, certain families, a range, a number of families, grew richer and stronger. And these aristocrats, they emerge as a kind of influential families who begin to check the power of the doge in different ways.
- [06:41]
Stephen Bowd
Where did the money roll in from? Because they became very rich timber.
- [06:45]
Melvin Bragg
So they're trading in the timber from the mainland at first. Then they're trading to the EAs, cloth, silks and other goods and then spices later. They benefit from being part of that Byzantine network that Marcia mentioned, and they were part of in political terms.
- [07:01]
Stephen Bowd
So they're mooching around the port in the Adriatic, going from one to another, trading from one to another, and developing wealth that way. Thank you, Georg. Venetians had Byzantium to deal with, plus Rome and the papacy, plus the Holy Roman Empire. How did they carve this up between them?
- [07:17]
Georg Christ
As Stephen mentioned before, in order to do trade, say, in timber, you have to be on good terms with the people who control the timber. Now, the timber from the Italian Alps, the Dolomites and so on, is in the Holy Roman Empire. The goods that you mentioned before, they are trading in return from the East. So the products of the maritime silk road all the way from China, silks and spices and so on, they come from, well, a whole series of other empires, but adjacent to the Mediterranean, Islamic empires. So they have to juggle these different empires, not just Byzantium, their formal primary allegiance, but they have to develop at least affiliations, if not allegiances to the Holy Roman Empire and to Islamic empires, but also to the papacy that you mentioned. Because in the period of the Crusades, you couldn't stay just out of it. You had to partake in one way or the other. So to manage, Venice had to learn to juggle multiple affiliations to empire empires to become what I would call not so much its own empire, but I like the term rogue emporium. An emporium, a trading port that is part of several empires. And by being that, it can connect the empires, it can profit from the trades that is connecting these empires.
- [08:33]
Stephen Bowd
What changed for Venice in 1204 when you led to the sacking of Constantinople?
- [08:39]
Georg Christ
Absolutely, 1204 is a key Date, Venice succeeded in reaching some sort of apex of this policy, using its ability to provide naval support in order to leverage very generous trading conditions. If we go back for a second to Venice at its origins, the marshy lagoons, a few fishermen, bargemen and so on, they trade in salt and fish and expand their trade. There are competitors in order to deal with them, to maintain their monopolistic position. Venice starts in terms of naval capability, in terms of the size of its fleet, to consistently punch above their weight class. So with the growing fleet, they start to offer their naval services also to Byzantium, but they don't do it for free. They want trading privileges. And these trading privileges are so complete and so perfect for them in the end that the Venetians love it. But the Byzantine Greek merchants they hated and their pogroms, their attacks on Latins and especially Venetians, shortly before 1204, to make a very complicated and long story short, they conquer Byzantium, do not take it over. So Venice resists the temptation to become an empire in its own right. But Venice can basically recreate a Byzantine empire to its perfect liking. Thus the start of their colonial empire.
- [10:05]
Stephen Bowd
Thank you, Masha. What made the Venetian system so strong?
- [10:09]
Marcia Van Helder
On the one hand, Absolutely, that the maritime power base. So both having a very large navy constructed in the arsenal. So the.
- [10:18]
Stephen Bowd
The arsenal being in Venice.
- [10:20]
Marcia Van Helder
Yes, exactly. The Venetian shipyard. So the arsenal is amazing from different levels. So you have to imagine that at the time, let's say the medieval and early modern period, it occupied roughly one third of the urban space. So it's a really large part of Venice. And whereas Venice, the city itself has no walls, because the lagoon acts as a protective wall, as it were, the arsenal very much has a wall because it's secret and it needs to be protected, because this is basically the heart of the Venetian maritime power and thus of its economic and also political power.
- [10:58]
Stephen Bowd
This is where they build the most advanced ships.
- [11:01]
Marcia Van Helder
Yes, this is where they build their commercial galleys, but also where they built their navy. So it's both a combination of navy and mercantile vessels.
- [11:09]
Stephen Bowd
Is it ahead of other similar. If there are similar arsenals, as it were?
- [11:14]
Marcia Van Helder
Yes, absolutely.
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Stephen Bowd
Why is that?
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Marcia Van Helder
It has the largest workforce in the pre modern era, up until the 18th century, when the British start building ships at this level, it is very much a factory system. So it has dedicated parts within the arsenal to specific elements of the boat. So a part where the masts are constructed, where the hulls are constructed, there's a part where sails are made by women. It's Very much a working class environment, but under close supervision of the Venetian political elite. So it's very much a state industry, you might say.
- [11:53]
Stephen Bowd
Can you tell us more about the arsenal?
- [11:55]
Marcia Van Helder
Yes, a very large workforce. So an estimated, I think, 15,000 workers by the mid 16th century, that is, I have to say, at the height of Venice's conflicts with the Ottomans. So that's at a time when they're really investing in shipbuilding, I think in 1570. So that's the moment when the Ottoman siege of Cyprus starts. So in 1570, a record of 100 galleys in 60 days are produced. And to me, it's not just the arsenal as an example of, let's say, high functioning industry, but I'm very interested in the role that the arsenal workers play. So they're called arsenalotti. They're very much identified with their place of work. Their workday starts when the large bell tower on Piazza San Marco starts ringing its bell. So the entire city knows when the workday in the arsenal starts, when they take their lunch break and when the day ends. And this very specific workforce, they receive quite low salaries, at least in the 16th and 17th centuries. So the salaries are lower than they would get at private shipyards. But what makes it attractive to work in the arsenal is that the pay is guaranteed. So even when the state is not requiring ships or a large number of ships, so even when there's less work, the workers at the arsenal are guaranteed their pay and they basically can go off then and earn some more by doing other jobs. And their relationship with the Doge is really intriguing. So the Doge is a patron of the arsenal. The workers build his ceremonial barge, the Bucintoro, which is basically a very fancy galley used in lots of civic ritual. And the arsenal workers also act as guards of the St Mark area and of the Ducal palace itself. So they stand guard when the most important councils meet, they stand guard when the election of a new doge takes place, and they stand guard when the funeral ceremony ceremonies of a deceased doge happen. And they also rise up in revolt. So that really spikes quite tense moments in the 16th and early 17th century, because you have basically the palace guard with access to weaponry. So the work tools, hatchets, etc. Are quite fierce weapons. And the palace guards rises up. The policing force basically is in revolt and there's really no other power within the city that can subdue them. So they have quite a lot of bargaining power. So these are non elite workers who have, I would say, quite a lot of political sway.
- [14:41]
Stephen Bowd
Yes, Please.
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Georg Christ
One reason why they would rise up in revolt was that there was not enough wine, or when it was diluted with water too much. It was always diluted, but when the ratio was wrong, the fountain of wine.
- [14:55]
Melvin Bragg
Was part of their expectation for payment.
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Stephen Bowd
Thank you, Stephen. Barn, how did Venice build up its colonies, if that's the right word, as.
- [15:02]
Melvin Bragg
Georg talked about the beginnings of that building up of the overseas estate. Mar. The overseas colonies and so on, through the conquest of Constantinople. So that obviously was a key moment in the development of their colonies, with the acquisition of Crete, for example, and with the acquisition of Mordaunt Couronne, These smaller. Yes. And Cyprus later on. So it's through involvement in crusading activity that they also develop their presence in Haifa and Jaffa.
- [15:32]
Stephen Bowd
Thank you. Georg, how would you describe Venice's empire? If it was an empire, was it like the Roman Empire? Which empire was it like or unlike any.
- [15:42]
Georg Christ
Yes, I think it is, in a way.
- [15:44]
Stephen Bowd
Which is what, like or unlike?
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Georg Christ
It is like the Roman Empire in some senses. But then Venetians and more generally, they distinguished very clearly between what they saw as the decadent Roman Empire of the late emperors from Rome as a city state, and maybe the early virtuous emperors.
- [16:04]
Stephen Bowd
When you say, like Rome had emperors, they had a Doge. We might well get him cleared up now, because we're on the track. So what did the Doge do? Where did he come from and why did he survive?
- [16:16]
Georg Christ
Absolutely. So the Doge, of course, there were debates about what is the Doge. But the consensus, and very much the Venetian propagandistic message certainly was, was that the Doge was very unlike a Roman Emperor. The Doge was Remus into Paris, the first among equals, almost within republic, an aristocratic or patrician elite, if you want, or elitist republic, for sure. Sorry.
- [16:43]
Stephen Bowd
Generally old and.
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Georg Christ
Generally old. Very old. Exactly. And Stephen mentioned this early phase, then the Doge had already arguably quite some power, and there were the fear of a family making the job or the title hereditary. And indeed, these fears continued for a long time, well into the 14th century, where we have sort of this debate, as it were, about what the Doge really is. How much power should the Doge have? Similar, maybe to debates, more recent debates about the American presidency. How much executive power should the president have and how much should this power be hedged by Parliament and so on.
- [17:20]
Melvin Bragg
I'm just going to comment on that. And similarly, gradual aging of the Doges, the average age. I think it's no coincidence that after the period in the 12th century when the Merchants, aristocrats and noble families, however you want to call them patricians in Venetian sense, move in to check the power of the Doge. They move from being, on average about my age, vigorous men in their early 50s, to men in their 70s and 80s. Well, the Venetians pride themselves on this elective gerontocracy. It's a way of making sure you don't have these strong men, as elsewhere in Italy, who are going to establish their power, are going to be too vigorous. Sorry.
- [18:02]
Georg Christ
Although some of them are quite vigorous. I don't think Henri could handle.
- [18:05]
Melvin Bragg
Yes, absolutely, Henri could handle it.
- [18:06]
Georg Christ
What's your age? When the Venetians attacked? Constantly.
- [18:11]
Melvin Bragg
Is he 90? Henry Kandeleu, when he's.
- [18:13]
Georg Christ
I don't remember exactly, but yeah, very old. Certainly over 80.
- [18:16]
Melvin Bragg
Also blind.
- [18:17]
Stephen Bowd
Marcia. Marcia Manhalda.
- [18:18]
Marcia Van Helder
For foreign observers of Venice in the late medieval and early modern period, the Doge was really a baffling figure because it's an elected head of state, but with extremely limited powers. So he's always flanked by advisors. He cannot take decisions on his own. And when they're elected, and that election is an extremely complex system, going through nine stages of lottery and voting, although usually the main candidate always becomes Doge. So the person that everybody expects will become Doge quite often does become Doge, because there's all sorts of ways to get around the lottery. But at their election, they have to swear an oath to uphold the Republic. So they swear the promesso ducale, and after the death of every Doge, there's additional regulations added. So I think by the time the last Doge, Lodovico Manin, swears his oath at the end of the 18th century, that oath covers more than 300 pages.
- [19:18]
Georg Christ
This hedging of the Doge's power contrasts with how the Doge is presented in terms of his clothing, for instance, and parts of the attributes or objects he's carrying around. That is the image of the Doge presented in diplomatic protocol, where he's presented almost like an emperor, so golden clothes, parasol and so on, so imperial symbols. So there again you have this flirting with the imperial, but at the same time, this very clear hedging of the power of the Doge, and also, of course, hedging of the imperial ambitions, which are never formally expressed.
- [19:55]
Stephen Bowd
Masha, come back to you for a minute or two. What would a visitor have made of Venice about this time? The Sinissima, as it's called when they.
- [20:03]
Marcia Van Helder
Saw it in the Middle Ages. It's a crucial part of the pilgrimage route towards The Holy Land. So even from the Middle Ages, it attracts a lot of travelers and also merchants, of course. And then by the late 17th century and 18th century, you get the grand tourists and many of them are like we might be today, quite dazzled by the amphibious nature of the city, by its very particular light, the way that the light reflects on the water and on the buildings. But I think that one of the other elements that's really striking is the bustling commerce. So the fact that it really is one of the largest mercantile centers of the world at its apex, and that it's extremely cosmopolitan. So you can find people from all regions of Europe and well beyond to Japan, North Africa, parts of the Ottoman Empire, in Venice as.
- [20:58]
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- [22:00]
Stephen Bowd
Stephen, how did the Doge keep his popular support, which he seems to have done?
- [22:04]
Melvin Bragg
Yes, I mean, so we've heard about the pageantry and I think you know this, the presentation, there's this sense of the Doge, the pageantry, the kind of grandeur, the charisma, if you like, of the Doge is something which allows them to keep their popularity or at least enforces this idea of their identification with the state. State. One of the key ways in which they keep popularity is by ensuring the grain supply. A little bit like Roman emperors in that way. And when the grain, sometimes this is out of their own private funds.
- [22:32]
Stephen Bowd
They don't have grain in the Mosquito originate.
- [22:35]
Melvin Bragg
No, it has to be imported from quite further and further and further afield in the Mediterranean. And when that fails, there are state granaries and they also exploit the mainland empire. They move into the mainland empire from beginning of the 14th century, what is the mainland empire? So they attempt to take Ferrara at first and they fail there, but they then progressively swallow up Padua, Treviso, Verona, Brescia. So it's an empire on the mainland which stretches all the way to the borders of Milan into Lombardy, as we'd see it today. So it is a very extensive mainland empire. And one of the reasons they do that is for the grain. So they're in an exploitative, colonizing relationship. So the Doges, when the Doges fail to provide the grain, they are really unpopular. We have one case in the 16th century of Doge, who provided bread which was made out of millet rather than out of the preferred grain. The preferred grain. And when he died, the chant went round the city. The millet Douge is dead. Hooray. The millet Douge is dead. So it was quite. He became very unpopular because he had failed.
- [23:49]
Stephen Bowd
Was he been popular before he died or.
- [23:51]
Georg Christ
I don't know.
- [23:52]
Melvin Bragg
Marcia, we can safely say more about this episode.
- [23:56]
Marcia Van Helder
This is Doge Loredan. He's not very popular at all, unfortunately. He did not even really want to be elected, but it was a tied vote between two more popular candidates, and he was elected as something of a dark horse and considered already quite weak when he took office. And it's true what Stephen said, actually his funeral has to be rerouted, so his funeral procession has to be rerouted because there's Venetians waiting at the church where the mass was supposed to be held, waiting with their loaves of bread, which they wanted to basically launch at the Doge's buyer.
- [24:34]
Stephen Bowd
Georg, what image was Venice projecting at this time at home and abroad? And what was he trying to project?
- [24:42]
Georg Christ
More importantly, Venice was definitely drawing on the elements that Martje already mentioned. The dazzling nature of Venice, the wealth of its trades, all the goods of the world congregating in Venice, its safety without walls. So this image of sort of Venice as almost blessed, particularly blessed location. But then it also emphasized the element that you just mentioned that in these marsh lagoons there was not much to do. So there was a frequently recurring saying that was used in diplomatic language and many other occasions, that the particular location and condition of Venice is such, without fields, without wines, without any other productive assets, that it can only engage in the exercise of trade, that is, practicing trade, so that there's no other way for Venice to survive than to trade in order to justify, for instance, these cozy relations with multiple empires, the continuous trade, even in times of crusades. So they use that and they try to promote that sort of insight into the necessity of trade for Venice. But then they also, of course, have to play up to counterbalance this. There are crusading credentials. So to emphasize that they are actually doing Crusades, they are not just dealing with the infidels, they are supporting the Pope. They're good Christians. What helps is that increasingly in the 14th century, there is sort of a bifurcation of Crusades. We have now two crusading enemies. We have the traditional Egypt and Holy Land sort of southeastern orientation. But then we have also the Turkish entities and eventually the Ottomans rising up as an alternative target for Crusades. And that is great for Venice, because then they can say, look at what we are doing. We are fighting the Turks much more than you do, so you better shut up. Then also, of course, again, linking back to the Civitas and sort of Roman antiquity, they promote this image of the perfect republic that balances out the disadvantages of monarchy, democracy and aristocracy in the stable. And that's something that's very much emphasized not just by Venetians, even foreigners. Florentines are praising Venice for the stability of its institution, its perfect constitution of an oligarchic or. Well, they would say aristocratic republic.
- [27:11]
Marcia Van Helder
Yeah, I was thinking, because Georg said blessed location, and I think it might be important to underline that. That's taken quite literal in the sense that the Venetians see their city as under the direct protection of St Mark the Evangelist, with this idea that at the start of the 9th century, two merchants from the Venetian region took the body of St. Mark, which at the time was in Islamic Alexandria. They took the body and they stole it. Indeed, they smuggled it under a load of pork, smuggled it out of Alexandria and brought it to Venice, and thereby fulfilling prophecy. This idea that Mark had once preached in the lagoon and that he had received a vision from an angel which had said that he would one day find his final resting place here. And so this idea of the protection of St Mark, identified as a lion, becomes intrinsically connected to the Venetian self image and to the image that they propagate abroad.
- [28:11]
Stephen Bowd
Stephen, do you want to come in?
- [28:12]
Melvin Bragg
Yes. And of course, the Basilica of St. Mark, which we all the tourists see today, it's a reliquary. It's a beautiful jeweled reliquary for the relics of St. Mark, as well as being the doge's private chapel.
- [28:24]
Marcia Van Helder
Exactly. Because that's an important point, because by having one of the evangelists as its protector and main saint, Venice positions itself as equal to Rome, the city of St. Peter and it also allows them to discard St. Theodore, which used to be their protective saint, very much connected to Byzantium. So by adopting Mark, by giving the body to the doge, using the basilica, which is the chapel, formally, it's just a chapel of the ducal palace. It's not the church of the bishop, which is really on the periphery of the city. So they give a religious blessing, really, to the republic, to the political entity of Venice as independent republic.
- [29:10]
Georg Christ
Absolutely. I can only concur. St. Mark is really interesting. I mean, the church as a civic basilica, so almost trying to blend New Jerusalem, New Rome, the republican virtue of Venice and its Christian virtues. And just to add on the relics. Yes, St. Mark is full of relics, but the city is full of relics. And Venice is, of course, among other things, it's also transporting pilgrims to the Middle East. So that further reinforces the Christian credentials, if you want, of Venice.
- [29:42]
Stephen Bowd
Marcia, we've talked about the stability and the republicanism and the envy that other people have of that. But when there was unrest, how did they deal with it?
- [29:53]
Marcia Van Helder
It's actually something that we're still debating because for quite a long time it was quite difficult for historians to see just how much unrest or how much contestation was going on.
- [30:04]
Stephen Bowd
Why?
- [30:05]
Marcia Van Helder
I think that has to do very much with the very specific nature of the Venetian archives. So, in a sense, how the political system produced archival records. So, on the one hand, we can see that a republican system in theory, invites a lot of debate and discussion, but in the official documents, that debate is never included. So you only see the decisions taken and the voting results. And a very similar form of archival politics is used, I think, when recording contestation within the city of Venice itself. So that means that it's never discussed explicitly, only alluded to. For instance, if large demonstrations or contestation on the Piazza San Marcos on the main square in the heart of the city, if those demonstrations have caused benches or market stores to be thrown on a bonfire, the bonfire is not discussed, the demonstration is not discussed in the official records, only the costs of replacing these benches and market stalls. So it's a very oblique way of dealing, let's say, on paper, with contestation. Now, this goes hand in hand with policing efforts on the streets. So there's definitely, like Stephen said before, there's protests against the Doge sometimes in hunger years. So when there's a famine, people try to batter down the doors of the large grain warehouses, also located in San Marco. And again, you won't find these events mentioned in the official records, but you will find them in, for instance, the correspondences of foreign diplomats. Because Venice was a diplomatic center in and of itself. It attracted ambassadors from Spain, from the papacy, from France, England, from the Ottoman Empire. And all these diplomats ride home and they include matters of high politics, but they also quite frequently discuss the social stability or lack of social stability within the city.
- [32:12]
Stephen Bowd
Thank you, Stephen. How and when did the Venetian colonies start to slip away, as it were?
- [32:19]
Melvin Bragg
When the Ottoman Empire is expanding westwards in the Mediterranean.
- [32:23]
Stephen Bowd
Can you give us some dates?
- [32:25]
Melvin Bragg
Cyprus is lost in the 15, I think it's 1575. 76. There's a long siege of Cyprus, about 23 years. That's a siege in Crete, at Candia. Yes, in modern day Heraclo, in the middle of the 17th century. Yes. Extraordinary. 23 years. Yeah, 23 years siege. It shows that the fortifications that the Venetians, the money they spent, which was large, often on fortifications as well as on shipping, were incredibly strong, well developed, often technically on the cutting edge. And they build these in the mainland empire and overseas. But yes, the Venetians, their shipping gradually becomes a little bit more outdated. They do develop new types of shipping, but the resources that are required to defend their colonies just aren't there. They're hugely in debt and so they're very vulnerable.
- [33:18]
Stephen Bowd
Gael, can I come back to question? When the Venetians conquered a place, they didn't become Venetians, Romans conquered places who became automatically Roman. That didn't happen with the Venetians.
- [33:31]
Georg Christ
Yes, absolutely. So it really depended on the actual deal, the actual treaty that was made. I mean, some places were conquered, such as Crete, although ceded by the Latin emperor of Constantinople against the sum of money, but it had to be conquered nevertheless. And then a different modus operandi applied. But you could argue that Crete is a special case, the special case of something akin to an early modern settlement colony where Venetians are transplanted from Venice to Crete, where there is a Venetian duke, the Duca di Candia, Duke of Crete, who is administering the island. But even there we have an integration also of local elites, Greek speaking elites, and we have a strong continuity of Byzantine culture and also law. And then when we look at terra firmament, very different deal. So there's really, at least formally treaties with these cities. They record carefully and their law code of the specific city. Often that happens precisely when Venice is taking over. So it's about preserving their. Well, I won't say independence because they're now under Venice, but to preserve as much independence as they can, because often there was a choice, either Venice or A local signore, that is despot if you want, or tyrant, or becoming part of a territorial state. So Venice was sometimes maybe just the lesser evil, and allowed, depending on the circumstances, these different polities to preserve as much of the status quo as possible. And that was, in a way, the strength of the Venetian system. And certainly that was a great benefit for a lot of the polities under this Venetian umbrella. But according to some colleagues, that also was the big disadvantage because it prevented Venice from becoming an integrated state or early modern empire.
- [35:29]
Stephen Bowd
MARCIA was it inevitable that Venice was going to decline?
- [35:32]
Marcia Van Helder
It held on much longer than they themselves might have imagined, because one of the crucial elements is that commercial foundation, so their role as a link between east and west, having a monopoly on certain trades, specifically in the spices and pepper trade, for example. And so when the Portuguese, at the end of the 15th century, start of the 16th century, start a circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope towards Asia, that is also seen by the Venetian as an undermining basically of that commercial foundation. Now, it would take at least another century before they really saw that trade slipping away, mainly because of the East India companies, established first by the Dutch in 1602 and then by the English. And so it's the rise of the Atlantic empires, the Dutch, the French, the Spanish, and also, of course, the English, that really signals the end of Venice as a maritime and commercial superpower. So in that sense, the late 17th century and 18th century, also, with the loss of the colonies to the Ottomans, really signifies the end, you could say.
- [36:47]
Stephen Bowd
Stephen, as a case study, what attracts people, scholars these days? What's fascinating to them about Venice?
- [36:54]
Melvin Bragg
There's been a long fascination with Venice that goes back to the period, the medieval, early modern period, well into the modern period. First of all, in terms of the qualities which we've been highlighting today in terms of longevity, it's very long lasting. In terms of its apparent stability, it's an internal stability, its strangely mixed constitution with its monarchical, democratic and aristocratic elements. And indeed, it's been called a sort of Elizabethan political science fiction by one writer, which signifies the kind of fascination that contemporaries had with it. And I think a lot of that has carried on into the modern era as well. Venice often seemed to be an unusual case or out of step with the supposed classic process of state building or modernization and so on. I think a lot of the fascination people have is from this oddity and strangeness of Venice. Obviously, nowadays scholars try to say, well, Venice wasn't so different, and look at the ways in which it does conform or echo processes and places that we see elsewhere. But nevertheless, I still think there is that oddness, the strangeness, that amazing jarring feeling as you, as you reach Venice, which makes it still fascinating for scholars. There's also 50 miles of archives.
- [38:23]
Marcia Van Helder
Yeah, that's both a blessing and a curse.
- [38:26]
Stephen Bowd
Georgia still see today traces of the influence of Venice politically, commercially, whichever way. Where is it? If it is. Where is it?
- [38:39]
Georg Christ
If we take something visual, very visual, the lions, the winged lion of St. Mark, we find it still all over the former Venetian empire and of course in Venice. Everywhere in Venice, but not only in Venice and in the former Venetian colonies, we find it also in places that are really at the very fringe of Venetian influence, or you could say firmly outside of it, such as in Basel, on the house of a merchant. And of course, art historians have argued the Aedes merchant had connections with Venice. Maybe he had, but it's not necessarily the case. It could also just be that the winged lion of St. Mark became a symbol for not just Venice, but things that allegedly Venice stood for, such as freedom of trade, liberal trading order, republican virtue and so on, so forth. And that's maybe the reason why we find it also in the logo of the Asigorazioni Generali, which started in the Austrian period or period of Austrian occupation in northern Italy and had duly, of course, the Austrian double eagle as their logo. 1860, when the direction in Venice fell to Italy or came under Italian rule, they went for the line of St. Mark. And that brings us to the idea. Yes, what does this line stand for? Republican virtue, liberty and so on. And this idea, this maybe remaking of Venice in the 19th century mind, in the Victorian minds. And we think of Ruskin, who establishes Venice as the successor of the Phoenicians and the predecessor of the British Empire, and exalts the virtues of medieval Venice and admonishes the British public. Look at what happened when they gave up the medieval virtue, including the Gothic style, and became decadent. And if you don't watch out, this will happen to you as well.
- [40:37]
Stephen Bowd
Stephen, the word republican has been mentioned several times in this discussion, but it hasn't been developed. What do you have to say about Venice and its consequences?
- [40:47]
Melvin Bragg
Just to pick up on Georg's point, it's seen as a decadent version of republicanism and aristocratic republicanism. I mean, decadence has its attractions. So you're asking about why people are fascinated by Venice? Well, clearly many go for carnival, go for the kind of excess of that and its associations With Casanova, with gambling, with that kind of exciting life. But in the 18th century, when the framers of the Montesquieu and philosophers and the framers of the American Constitution were looking for examples of republicanism, they were interested, some of them were very interested in Venice as an example. It seemed to be. It lasted a long time. There were all these checks and balances in terms of the different parts of the constitution. It was mixed. But Montesquieu, I think, eventually decided it was a decadent sort of aristocratic oligarchy and should serve as a lesson to be avoided, I think, if you wanted to avoid the danger.
- [41:46]
Georg Christ
So absolutely. But I think also Fortescue, he felt there was a puzzle or sort of a big problem how to design the perfect constitution. And that Venice, yes, it was aristocratic, but it was still a republic. At least they managed to stay away from absolute monarchy. So in that sense, maybe there was something to it. And I think in that sense, it reappears in Tocqueville, for instance, Tocqueville's critique of what he perceived as sometimes dangerously populist democracy in America, that he contrasts it in a quite complex way, from what I understand, and with the Venetian, more elitist republic.
- [42:27]
Stephen Bowd
Well, finally you, Marcia, have you anything to add?
- [42:31]
Marcia Van Helder
Yeah. I'd like to come back to your question to Stephen about what the most interesting themes are in terms of research nowadays. And I think I was thinking of two themes. So, on the one hand, it's the relationship with the Islamic part of the Mediterranean, which is, as we've heard, it's both tense, it's pragmatic in the sense of all the treaties that are established, but it's also quite productive in the sense that Venice has a large contingent of immigrants and merchants from the Ottoman Empire, both Islamic and non Islamic. And you can see the influence not just of the Byzantine art and architecture, but also of Islamic art and architecture in the city today. And the other theme, which is very topical, is the environmental history of Venice. So we started with that unattractive lagoon. And we've discussed how a new city develops from those muddy waters. And we have to imagine that all through those centuries, people were constantly having to build, rebuild, excavate canals, had to manage that very particular city and the way in which it was entwined with the waters surrounding it. So I think in terms of environmental history, Venice is really quite a unique city. I usually shy away from this idea of Venice as unique. I think it is very much part of a larger European and Mediterranean history of cities and city states. But I Think in terms of environmental, its relationship with its surroundings. It is quite stunning and fascinating.
- [44:05]
Stephen Bowd
Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Marcia Van Helden, Stephen Bowd and Georg Christ. Next week, it's a 17th century and the priest George Herbert, the great and influential devotional poet. Thank you for listening.
- [44:19]
Melvin Bragg
And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.
- [44:26]
Stephen Bowd
What would you like to have heard that we didn't talk about?
- [44:29]
Marcia Van Helder
Well, I think that environmental dimension that's really fascinating and it's both on point in terms of where historical scholarship is moving towards and intrinsic to the history of Venice. And I think the other element that may have gotten a bit of a short shrift is the religious culture and civic culture of Venice.
- [44:53]
Stephen Bowd
Because the Doge was a prince of the Church as well as being a leader of the. The politics, wasn't he?
- [45:00]
Georg Christ
Well, of his church. Yeah, of his church. And that is interesting because you have like, almost like a mocking of church structures. They're the Procuratori di San Marco, which are senators. There are no canons, as you would have, as in a similar function in a cathedral. It's a secular mocking of an episcopal institution and they're eminently important for the state. Yeah. So of course they're in charge of St Mark, but not only. They're also in charge of interstate estates without an heir, and they are in charge of many things. So the state is crafted around this religious institution that is, however, not really has no proper status within the church, which has a very clear hierarchy of churches. Right. Yeah, yeah.
- [45:48]
Marcia Van Helder
So I think it's really intentional that the basilica, being the most dominant church within the city, is officially the Chapel of the Doge. And the Bishop of Venice is really relegated to San Pietro in Castello. So it's really on the periphery. And again, that's intentional. Like Georg says, it is a statement about the relationship Venice wants to have vis a vis the papacy. And that also means that there are occasions, especially at the start of the 17th century, when there are quite extreme conflicts between Venice and the Pope. And another part where you can see that is that the Inquisition as it functions within Venice, it consists for one half of clerics and the other half patricians. So again, here you see that the political elite very much wants to keep control over religion. A religion needs to be in support of its own civic identity.
- [46:49]
Melvin Bragg
Yes. Although I did read, I do seem to recall that when you analyse the attendance lists and so on, did the patricians sometimes, not often turn up in Effect the clerics had a free hand and Rome was slightly back channeling instructions and so on to them Adventists. But I did want to pick up on that in terms of religious relationships in the states and. And spatial relationships as well in terms of the ghetto, the Jewish ghetto. And of course it's Jews fleeing the mainland of Venice at the beginning of the 16th century during times of war they come and find refuge in Venice much like the original Venetians had. And they are allowed to stay in the city, whereas previously they'd only been allowed to stay for fairly short periods of time. And so they're set up in a part of the. The city where there was a foundry. So that the derivation of ghetto is thought to come from that the idea of gitare to cast or through the foundry that's set up in the northwest part of the city, very much in the fringes, far away from the civic heart. But it becomes, it grows and population becomes quite a very important part of the fabric. I think over the centuries it becomes a place of tourism as well. It's the kind of list of things to see and to do. You visit the treasury of San Marco, you visit the wherever and then you go and see the ghetto and it becomes this kind of symbolic. It's symbolic of I suppose, Venice protecting. Because as Marcia said at the beginning, it is a city that foreigners mention, as visitors mention as being full of refugees, immigrants and foreigners while.
- [48:35]
Stephen Bowd
Are you going to finish? Yep, please do.
- [48:37]
Melvin Bragg
Marceau, would you say. What about the mythic argument that. The argument was often presented that the aristocrats all had a stake in the system. So that's. The patricians are defined by their membership of the great Council and their membership of certain families within that great council. And therefore you don't find internal revolution from them. And then in terms of popular revolt, you don't find popular revolts because the people have a stake in Venice, because they know that justice will be administered fairly, for example, or they will have a stake in the squally, these charitable organizations, the confraternities and in the trade bodies. That was often, sometimes presented as reason for its stability. I wonder what you just curious to know what your thoughts are on that. Is that all mythic or do you think it's play a part?
- [49:30]
Marcia Van Helder
I think it's both mythical and real. So I think because it's a relatively large political elite, I think all these patricians are quite well connected to what the Venetians at the time called the popolani. So the popular inhabitants, so the non elite inhabitants of Venice because they had them as their servants, they rented out houses to them. There quite often are extensive economics ties as well, much more than you will find in other aristocratic circles in other countries or cities. But I think the relative size of that political elite means that the system that they absorb these claims from non elite inhabitants. So I think rather than sort of acceptance, which is popular acceptance of patrician rule, which is very much the mythical ideal, I think the patrician system reacts politically to the demands made by the non elite inhabitants. It's much more reactive, I think than what we've considered it to be before.
- [50:43]
Georg Christ
Yes, just one quick thing on the decline. I think we have to keep in mind that overall, well, you could say the world is growing, world economy certainly is growing. So when it's not so much declining, I would argue then staying what they are, so relatively they decline. But I will say there is decline. For instance, there's a massive expansion of the administrative apparatus which might also explain the social cohesion because now everybody and their dog have a stake in Venice because there's so many offices, so many little jobs. There are always new ones, but the old ones don't go away. And the other thing is like what we talked about is the shape of the Venetian or this quite elusive sort of nature of the Venetian empire or political realm could be an interesting model maybe for us now that nation states, increasingly centralized nation states struggle to finance this enterprise, this onion shaped structure or layered structure where we have cities and we have like a layer, a sort of a loose layer on top and that it's more locally and ad hoc, negotiated. And thirdly, in terms of trade connectivity, again, this model of empires interlocking rogue emporia shows us there is an alternative to top down international organizations or initiatives like the maritime Silk Road today that is dominated by one player. It can be several players that are working together to produce global connectivity.
- [52:12]
Stephen Bowd
Well, thank you very much. That's plenty to chew on. Thank you very much.
- [52:17]
Georg Christ
Do you want your coffee?
- [52:18]
Marcia Van Helder
Thank you, thank you.
- [52:21]
Stephen Bowd
Yeah, I'm a little. Tea? Yes, please.
- [52:23]
Georg Christ
Coffee please. In Our Time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson and it's a.
- [52:28]
Melvin Bragg
BBC studio's audio production.
- [52:32]
F
Hello, this is Danny. It's been too long, but I am back and I wanted to let you know about something very special that is going to be happening on the Uncanny podcast feed this October. As we all know, this is the month of Halloween, that most ghostly time of year. And to celebrate I am going to be doing a Halloween Advent calendar every single day During October I will be dropping a brand new mini case into the Uncanny feed, each one under two minutes long. A tiny bite sized nugget of terror, an email from a listener recounting an experience they believe may have been paranormal. But is it? There will also be video versions of the stories on all of my social media channels. The episodes will last and every single morning, 31 stories in all, leading all the way up to Halloween. And there might just be some special Halloween surprises to come too. So that is the Uncanny Halloween Advent Calendar on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. Join me if you dare.
- [53:41]
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