Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Maps of the Byzantine and Venetian worlds
- 1 Venice: the Byzantine province
- 2 Venice: the Byzantine protectorate
- 3 Venice: the ally of Byzantium
- 4 Venice: the partner of Byzantium
- 5 Byzantium, Venice and the First Crusade
- 6 The parting of the ways
- 7 The calm before the storm
- 8 The Fourth Crusade
- 9 Venice in Byzantium: the Empire of Romania
- 10 Venice: champion of a lost cause
- 11 Byzantium, Venice and the Angevin threat
- 12 Byzantium, Venice and Genoa
- 13 Conflicting interests and competing claims
- 14 Byzantium, Venice and the Turks
- 15 Byzantium: the victim of commercial rivalry
- 16 The profit and honour of Venice
- 17 Jewels for an island
- 18 Byzantium in thrall to the Turks and in debt to Venice
- 19 Byzantine optimism and Venetian vacillation
- 20 Byzantium the suppliant of Venice
- 21 The worst news for all of Christendom: Venice and the fall of Constantinople
- 22 Legacies and debts
- Byzantine Emperors
- Doges of Venice
- Bibliography
- Index
16 - The profit and honour of Venice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 April 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Maps of the Byzantine and Venetian worlds
- 1 Venice: the Byzantine province
- 2 Venice: the Byzantine protectorate
- 3 Venice: the ally of Byzantium
- 4 Venice: the partner of Byzantium
- 5 Byzantium, Venice and the First Crusade
- 6 The parting of the ways
- 7 The calm before the storm
- 8 The Fourth Crusade
- 9 Venice in Byzantium: the Empire of Romania
- 10 Venice: champion of a lost cause
- 11 Byzantium, Venice and the Angevin threat
- 12 Byzantium, Venice and Genoa
- 13 Conflicting interests and competing claims
- 14 Byzantium, Venice and the Turks
- 15 Byzantium: the victim of commercial rivalry
- 16 The profit and honour of Venice
- 17 Jewels for an island
- 18 Byzantium in thrall to the Turks and in debt to Venice
- 19 Byzantine optimism and Venetian vacillation
- 20 Byzantium the suppliant of Venice
- 21 The worst news for all of Christendom: Venice and the fall of Constantinople
- 22 Legacies and debts
- Byzantine Emperors
- Doges of Venice
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The year 1354 was the point of no return for the Byzantine Empire. In that year the Ottoman Turks put down their roots on European soil at Gallipoli. In that year John Cantacuzene, who had tried to contain the enmity of the Turks and to loosen the stranglehold of the Italians, was forced to abdicate. His policies had failed. The Venetians no less than the Genoese opposed his efforts to reconstitute a Byzantine fleet. They had too much to lose. Andrea Dandolo, who died in 1354, had faithfully recorded his view of the changing nature of the relationship between Byzantium and Venice. From being a province of Byzantium, Venice had graduated to being a protectorate, an ally and a partner. By the time of Dandolo's death Byzantium had long ceased to be the senior partner in the relationship. It was scarcely a partnership at all. Neither could live without it. But the profit and the honour went all to Venice. It was to uphold these two principles that the Venetians went to war with Genoa and browbeat the Byzantine Emperors into regular renewals of the commercial privileges on which their profits depended.
Dandolo had lived to see the colonial empire of Venice, the empire within an empire, firmly established. Before the Fourth Crusade the Venetian quarter in Constantinople and the trading stations in the Byzantine world had led a precarious existence, dependent on the goodwill of the emperors, the good behaviour of their inhabitants and the caprice of the Greeks among whom they lived.
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- Byzantium and VeniceA Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, pp. 283 - 295Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989