Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
War & Spoils
Once terra firma was established, Venice set about shoring up its business interests. When
consummate diplomat Pietro Orseolo was elected doge in 991, he positioned Venice as a
neutral party between the western Holy Roman Empire and eastern territories controlled by
Constantinople, and won the medieval equivalent of most-favoured-nation status from both
competing empires.
Even at the outset of the Crusades, Venice maintained its strategic neutrality, continuing
to trade with Muslim leaders from Syria to Spain while its port served as the launching pad
for crusaders bent on wresting the Holy Land from Muslim control. With rivals Genoa and
Pisa vying for lucrative contracts to equip crusaders, Venice established the world's first as-
sembly lines in the Arsenale, capable of turning out a warship a day. Officially, La Serenis-
sima ('The Most Serene'; the Venetian Republic) remained above the fray, joining crusad-
ing naval operations only sporadically - and almost always in return for trade concessions.
Constantinople knew who was supplying the crusaders' ships, and in the wake of the
First Crusade in 1095, Venice's relations with Byzantium were strained. Byzantine emperor
Manuele Comnenus played on Venetian-Genoese rivalries, staging an 1171 assault on Con-
stantinople's Genoese colony and blaming it on Constantinople's Venetian residents, who
were promptly clapped into irons. Venice sent a fleet to the rescue, but the crew contracted
plague from stowaway rats, and the ships limped home without having fired a shot.
Meanwhile, Venice was under threat by land from Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Bar-
barossa's plans to force Italy and the Pope to recognise his authority. Back in 1154, Barbar-
ossa's strategy must have seemed like an easy win: divide and conquer competing Italian
city-states frequently on the outs with the papacy. But after several strikes, Barbarossa
found northern Italy a tough territory to control. When his army was struck by plague in
1167, Barbarossa was forced to withdraw to Pavia - only to discover that 15 Italian city-
states, including Venice, had formed the Lombard League against him. Barbarossa met
with spectacular defeat, and when things couldn't get any worse, he was excommunicated.
Venice quickly recognised that it could only handle one holy war at a time, and through
nimble diplomatic manoeuvres, convinced Pope Alexander III and the repentant emperor to
make peace in Venice in 1177.
