| Title | : | City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0571245943 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780571245949 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 405 |
| Publication | : | First published September 1, 2011 |
City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire Reviews
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Venice was the Blockbuster Video of medieval empires.
Like Blockbuster, Venice’s nigh-maniacal embrace of cultural homogeneity and prioritization of brand and bottom line at the expense of individual recognition and initiative led to it achieving categorical economic dominance on what, at the time, constituted a global scale. Also like Blockbuster, whose ubiquity and be-kind-rewind hegemony were obliterated in an instant by a single innovation (namely, streaming video over high-speed internet connections), Venice’s mighty trade empire went the way of VHS tapes when the enterprising Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope and found a better way to bring spices and other goods from the East to insatiable Western markets (okay, to be fair, Venetian dominance was already on the wane due to marauding Ottomans, but, still—talk about having the wind taken from your sails (that’s an apt nautical joke, people—commence guffawing).
Crowley’s account of the improbable rise of a lagoon-based collection of maritime entrepreneurs is a compelling one, even if it occasionally bogs down in the details of various sea battles. As a fairly well read student of medieval and renaissance history, I was frankly shocked at just how innovative and dominant an entity the Republic of Venice was at its height.
I confess that my growing frustration with reading about the sheer stupidity involved in starting wars ostensibly for religious reasons (never a good idea) but, in actuality, for reasons of profit and plunder made me grind my teeth a bit at various points during the narrative, but that’s not Crowley’s fault—the man’s writing history, not making it.
If you’re looking for a really interesting primer on medieval Venice, maritime trade, and the rise of merchant empires, this is a pretty delightful starting point.
If you’re looking for a list of videos I frequently rented from Blockbuster, you’ll need to look elsewhere (and no, I don’t mean the rooms that video stores tried to close off from the under-18 crowd by hanging a couple of slatted swinging doors to prevent easy access).
(I always loved walking into Blockbuster after a hot new movie came out on video; there was nothing quite like seeing a wall of 718 copies of Independence Day hanging out, lonely and eager to be rented.) -
"City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas" by Roger Crowley is a fascinating account of the Venetian empire between the years 1200 and 1500. This book is not a dry recitation of dates, names, and battles. I found it to be an engaging narrative about a remarkable city and its exploits throughout the Mediterranean.
Constantinople was the key to Mediterranean commerce during this time period. Whoever controlled Constantinople controlled Mediterranean commerce. The Venetians were the dominant power in the Mediterranean from the year 1204 (when they sacked Constantinople) until the year 1453 (when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople). Before 1204 the Venetian empire had grown steadily for several centuries. After 1453 – because of the rise of the Ottomans and the dawn of the Portuguese and Spanish trade routes to India and the Americas - the Venetian naval empire experienced a long, slow decline.
Crowley covers in detail how the Venetian naval empire grew and operated. He discusses the strategic importance of their many trading posts and ports - especially Crete. He also describes many aspects of Venetian commerce and public life, the Venetian role in the Fourth Crusade, the ongoing rivalry with Genoa, and the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in world history, naval history, the Mediterranean, or the history of commerce.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Notes:
Alternate title: City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire
Audiobook:
City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas
Written by: Roger Crowley
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
Length: 14 hours and 10 minutes
Unabridged Audiobook
Release Date: 2013-04-26
Publisher: Recorded Books -
Most of the places where we live are obstinately, resolutely earth bound: think of maundering suburbs, the plate-glass high rises of financial centres, the re-gentrified areas of inner cities. None of these suggest anything other than themselves: places where people live, sealed off from heaven above and oblivious of hell below. But there are a few places where the places of this world are suggestive of and open to the worlds above and below. Most of these are natural places, thin places where the boundaries are ill defined, but there are a few that are man made, and none more so than the city that is the subject of this wonderful history: Venice.
Even now, living off its beauty, with most Venetians reduced to living on the mainland in Venezia Mestre, Venice is not like anywhere else on earth. It has always been so, as Crowley ably tells in this book. People, outsiders, have always looked at Venice and wondered, how could it exist? A city without land, without anything in the way of natural resources, and yet for centuries it was the node of the Mediterranean, the eye at the centre of a virtual empire that tied together with the invisible thread of trade and money a state that stretched over the shifting miles of sea and penetrated deep into the trade routes that linked Christendom, the Islamic world and beyond. Venice, built on water, lived on money and sold itself as a dream.
Today, the dream lingers, and the wanderer, turning a corner into a quiet piazza or a still canal, can never entirely escape the feeling that the next turn might take him over an invisible boundary and into another Venice, one that still draws to itself all the trades of the unseen worlds, and sends them out again into all the different realms. Ghosts walk quietly alongside the water, heard in the slap of wavelet on quay and the drift of wind over the lagoon. Walk here and you walk among multitudes unseen.
One day, I will go back. I'm not sure if I will return. -
Crowley az ismeretterjesztő könyvek szerzői közül abba a szűk csoportba tartozik, akiknek az újabb munkáit lelkesülten lehet várni, hogy aztán összemérve az elsővel, a csúcsok csúcsával, azt mondja az ember: hát, egy pöttyet kevésbé jó. De ettől még várjuk tovább lelkesülten az újabb munkáit.
A Kalmárköztársaság Velence históriája – de ne számítsunk lineáris aprómunkára, ami ától cettig végigveszi egy városállam történetét. Crowley három gócpontot emel ki: 1.) a negyedik keresztes háborút, amelyben Velence álnok módon elintézte, hogy a keresztesek a Szentföld helyett Zárában, aztán pedig Konstantinápolyban kössenek ki, és ha már ott vannak, a két szép szemükért (meg az aranydukátokért) Velence nagyobb dicsőségére prédálják is fel őket, ezzel megteremtve azt a hatalmi űrt, amibe aztán a kalmárköztársaság beslisszolhatott 2.) a velenceiek Genovával vívott váltakozó, de mindig kíméletlen csatározásait, amelyek végtére is lehetővé tették, hogy a városállam önmagát tekinthesse a Földközi-tenger urának 3.) az oszmánok megizmosodását, amely birodalom végül is bevitte a mélyütést szegény kereskedőknek, elindítva őket a lejtőn. A szerző szokásos stratégiája ebből jól kirajzolódik: Crowley ugyanis egy drámai gépezet felépítésében érdekelt, amiben a főszereplő (jelesül: Velence) sajátos tulajdonságokkal rendelkezik (demokratikus, pénzéhes, a globális kereskedelem fontosabb neki, mint az ideák, gondolkodásmódja világosan elkülönül tehát a korabeli európai zömtől*) – szinte már személynek, nem is városnak tekintjük őt. A drámai gépezet pedig úgy működik, hogy okot okozat követ**, és az események íve fontosabb, mint hogy minden adatot megjelenítsünk. És ebben lehet megragadni a kötet effektíve gyenge pontját: a szerző ugyanis felemelkedés és hanyatlás eposzi léptékű krónikáját alkotja meg az én legnagyobb örömömre, de ezen cél érdekében lefarag mindent, ami ezt az ívet elcsúfítaná. Ő Velence porba hullásának zárómomentumaként az 1500-as évek elejét jelöli meg, mert így kerek a sztori – hogy hetven évvel később volt egy Lepantó, ahol a velenceiek masszív résztvevői voltak a török flotta tönkrezúzásának, ebbe a freskóba már nem fér bele. Mint ahogy nem fér bele a könyvbe az sem, ami a szárazföldön történt – Crowley-t a mediterráneum érdekli, a tengeri csaták szerelmese, a talpasok csatározásai úgy fest, nem izgatják fel***. (Az már csak az én heppem, hogy érzésem szerint Crowley indokolatlanul használja a „nacionalizmus” szót a térség Velence-ellenes mozgalmaival kapcsolatban – de ebbe ne is menjünk bele.)
De elvenni nem akarom senkinek kedvét a könyvtől, mert még ezekkel a hibákkal is káprázatos olvasmány volt: lendületes történet a kapzsiság bűneiről, melyek végül elnyerik zsoldjukat. Csak a mérce magas. De addig jó, amíg nem kell lentebb rakni.
* Itt valóban tetten érhető némi párhuzam a Brit Birodalommal.
** Jellemző, hogy Konstantinápoly felprédálását is mintha úgy interpretálná Crowley, mint kozmikus bűnt, ami nem csak Velence felemelkedését tette lehetővé, de az oszmánokét is – akik aztán, jó háromszáz évvel később, el is hozták az ítéletet a múltbéli bűnökért.
*** Mondjuk erre a hiányosságra gyógyír, hogy a Park Kiadó (jó szokása szerint) ismét egy alapos tanulmányt illesztett a szöveg végére, nem kisebb történész, mint B. Szabó János tollából, aki szépen kiegészíti a kötetet a maga esszéjével a magyar-velencei konfliktusról. -
Excellent tale of Venice – concentrating on its maritime empire. The book starts with the Fourth Crusade and how Venice first of all diverted the crusade to clearing the Dalmatian coast and so gaining mastery of the Adriatic and then profited greatly from the division of the spoils from the sack of Constantinople where it used its existing maritime and commercial knowledge to ensure it took control of key ports and waterways (while eschewing the land based pseudo-kingdoms that its rivals established) and started the construction of a maritime based empire. The book then goes through the change in focus of the empire to the Black Sea caused by the Pope cutting down on trade that was aiding Muslim advances (and leading tot eh sack of the Crusader states) and a Byzantine Empire weakened and no longer reserving this trade for itself. The book then covers the fight near to the death with Genoa (which lengthy war effectively killed off any chance of a Crusader and enabled the Ottoman threat to grow). After that period Venice entered something of a golden period and Crowley devotes some chapters to the organisation of the empire, of trade and of maritime affairs and to showing how Venice was uniquely focused on commerce and profit with no division of aristocratic, political, legal and trading classes. The finishing chapters cover the Ottoman threat and eventual series of defeats leaving Venice’s naval power largely gone – Crowley clearly subscribes to a view that a greater focus of Venice and its aristocracy on wealth and land holdings were ultimate causes of its defeat. However the books end is when the Portuguese discover a sea route to the Indies so destroying much of the case for Mediterranean sea power and trading access to the Levant and Egypt. The very last pages of the book divert into speculation that as well as setting up trade routes Venice gradually began to import raw materials to the West changing the balance of payments and contributing the rise of the West over the East.
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'City of Fortune' is a fun book of popular history telling the story of the rise and fall of the Venetian seafaring empire. It covers the period roughly from 1200 to 1500. It is part of a 3 book series with the other two covering the Fall of Constantinople and the Ottoman-Christian sea battles of the XVI century.
The book is very easy to read as the author is a very talented storyteller. It feels more like reading a story rather than a history book.
It is important to note that this is not a history of Venice but rather of the Venetian sea empire. As such the book focuses on a few major events in the colonial history of Venice and then glosses over the rest. About a quarter of the book deals with the Fourth Crusade, the siege of Zara and the siege and fall of Constantinople in 1204. While this is indeed a momentous event that launched Venice's empire, it seems to take up way too much space. The other conflicts that are detailed are the Genoese-Venetian wars, especially the War of Choggia and the Venetian-Ottoman wars. The post 1500 period is very briefly mentioned with events such as the fall of Crete and the fall of Cyprus. However, there is no mention of the major Venetian-Ottoman Morean war (1684-1699) when Venice recaptured the Morea and some Aegean islands as well the Second Morean war of 1714-1718 when the Venetian sea empire in the Aegean effectively ended.
When it comes to more serious historical details the book is quite lacking. For example, the author uses the moniker of 'Wolf of Rimini' when referring to Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. However, there is no evidence to show that he was actually called that, it is actually a modern invention from the XXth century from a historical fiction book written by Edward Hutton.
Overall this book can be read as an introduction to to the history of Venice. But it is by no means complete or exhaustive. -
Roger Crowley's Empire of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World was one of my top ten reads in 2011. His latest book, City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire provides the prelude to the events described so well in Empire of the Sea. In telling the story of Venice's rise from backwards lagoon to the dominant commercial martime empire in the 1400s he tells the story of the Mediterranean and all of the powers which contested for dominance.
Crowley's relation of the Fourth Crusade, which in 1201 was intended to proceed to the liberation of Jerusalem, is astonishing. The Crusaders essentially travelled on ships rented from the Venetians as they were the only power capable of providing the quality and quantity of shipping necessary for the journey. Although the Venetians constructed enough ships to carry a crusader army of more than 30,000 men, only 12,000 men showed up in Venice, the others travelling from other ports. As the Venetians had halted much of their commercial trade to build and crew the fleet they were now short of money. The Venetians demanded that the crusaders who had shown up in Venice pay the entire amounf owing. Some knights reduced themselves to poverty in an effort to pay. The Venetians then had an idea. Why not do some looting on the way to Jerusalem? Despite admonitions from the pope to not make war on Christian nations, the Venetians diverted the fleet to lay siege to Zara, a city in nearby Dalmatia, that was now allied with Hungary. After reducing Zara and being excommunicated by thr Pope (a fact the Venetian command neglected to pass on to their passengers) they putatively set sail for the Holy Land, There was just one more stop to make. Before anyone quite understood how the fleet was now besieging Constantinople. On April 13, 1204 the Crusaders succeeded in breeching the walls and sacking Constantinople. None of the Crusaders ever made it to the Holy Land but the stage was set for the final schism between the eastern and western wings of Christianity.
Despite this lamentable behavior, the story of the sack of the city was indescribably brutal, the tale of the Venetians and their commercial republic is fascinating. Unlike any other city in Europe there was no feudalism, no king, and because it was a lagoon there were no big landed estates. Crowley shows us how Venice dominated trade in the Mediterranean for more than 250 years. The enterprise only collapsed when the Portuguese and other west Europeans began sailing around the horn of Africa and eliminating the need for the Venetian middlemen. City of Fortune and Empire of the Sea are both great histories. Crowley's style is energetic and much of the book has a velocity more common to a fictional thriller. I'd recommend reading City of Fortune first and following that with Empire of the Sea. Through both books is the thread of the simmering and then open conflict with Islam that was to dominate the western world for so many centuries. -
I loved the subject matter of the book. I am glad to have read it. But it was not an enjoyable read. Something about the order bothered me. It seems that he was going chronologically, ( he was) but all of a sudden he would go back and forth. I have read many history books in my life, and studied history, but something about his back and forth lost me. It felt disjointed.
It was however a book based on original sources and I appreciated the effort and the information, it was just not fun, and usually history is fun for me. -
Well.
I visited Venice a number of years ago, and was entranced by it. I often wondered how it stayed so "classical" - how did it retain so many of the medieval buildings so many centuries later...
Because it became obsolete and a backwater no one wanted to invest in...
This is the story of how this impossible city - with no land, no agriculture, and no way of supporting its population - became the richest and most important city in europe... and then fell to nothing.
This is a city and culture that was unapologetically capitalist. The entire state was run like a huge financial enterprise, it's government was composed of the richest merchants, and everything was run to optimise their profit. They trader with everyone (even when threatened by excommunication for trading with muslims), they "hijacked" a crusade to raid their commercial competitors and supported foreign rulers who gave them trade agreements.
It almost feels like a cautionary tale - although who in today's world should take the most notice I am not sure (everyone?)
Not quite as enjoyable as
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire as this book covers a longer time period, and there are more diverse personalities the author tries to follow. But still very engrossing. -
Crowley's book on Venice is about the Stato da Mar, and as such, is exactly one of the things I've been on the lookout for.
The first section starts with Venice's mercantile rise, and then goes into the story of the Fourth Crusade. He's fairly neutral on everyone's participation later on, but it's interesting to see a version that's sympathetic to Venice for the beginning of it all. He doesn't quite out-and-out blame Villehardouin for it either, but his over-inflated request for transport to the Middle East is the beginning of it all. Crowley points out that Venice effectively stopped all trade for a year to gather and build sufficient transport for the promised crusading army, which put them in a profit-or-perish position when the bill came due.
The second part talks about the small empire Venice picked up from this... and the long series of wars with Genoa, including a fairly lengthy description of the War of Chioggia. This is even more the centerpiece of the book than the Fourth Crusade's taking of Constantinople, and almost felt like it got a little drawn out, though I'm sure that's nothing compared to how the Venetians felt. At any rate, the entire subject is one I wish I could find more on in English.
The last part of the book is on Venice's thankless war against the Ottomans, and is every bit as interesting as the rest of the book. As ever, there are interesting missed opportunities, but here the entire conflict is one I don't know much of. Certainly, the loss of Negroponte and the Battle of Zonchio aren't anything I recall hearing of before. At any rate, Crowley concentrates on this part, and finishes in 1503, before things like the loss of Crete, and finishes with some prescient quotes from a couple of Venetians on what the Portuguese discovery of a route to India was going to do to trade.
As ever, this is a very engaging narrative history, and is full of anecdotes and quotes to help it all come alive. This time his subject is one that gets less attention in English, which makes it even better. -
You have to give Roger Crowley his due: he is a great writer of narrative history. City of Fortune details Venice's golden age from 1200-1500, when the city-state ruled the seas in the the eastern Mediterranean and was powerful enough to conquer the Byzantines. With multiple European nations' armies participating in the Fourth Crusade, and with Venice providing the transport and the navy, the Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204. With the loot, the territories and the trading rights that the crushing of the Byzantines brought to Venice, the Venetian empire was on its way. Venice was essentially a commercial empire, which acquired ports and islands all over the the Adriatic, the Aegean, the Black Sea and stretching all the way to Cyprus and the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East. But they were not interested in acquiring a land empire. They never cared to rule the hinterland of Greece or Croatia or Albania or Syria -- they just wanted the coastal ports where they could trade and provision their ships. They were a great naval power, the most powerful one of their age in the entire Mediterranean, but for them military spending on fortresses and warships was just a cost of doing business. As an imperial power, their model was more like that of the Dutch (we just want to make money as global traders) and less like that of the British (we want to claim as much of the planet as we can in order to be self-sufficient in our empire on which the sun never sets).
Crowley focuses by far the greater part of his narrative on goings-on outside of Venice itself. He talks about events throughout their far-flung outposts and the seas over which they sailed, but the institutions and politics of the city itself are for the most part just backdrop. The reader gets a lot of commercial history -- trade routes, commercial practices, goods traded, commercial rivalries with other trading nations -- and even more military history -- lots and lots of naval battles and sieges of coastal fortresses -- but not so much about the political institutions that made Venice such an almost unique republic in its age.
As to why Venice eventually waned as a great power, that is as interesting as why the city rose in the first place. Two primary factors led to Venice's decline. First, the Ottoman Empire conquered the remnants of the Byzantine Empire (primarily Constantinople itself) in 1453 and then proceeded to conquer most of the lands surrounding the eastern Mediterranean, from the Middle East to almost the gates of Venice itself, and in the process took away the city's trading ports and its access to markets. Second, the Portuguese (and in short order the Dutch and British as well) pioneered new sea routes to the Orient and took over the trade in luxury goods, particularly spices, that had filled Venice's coffers for centuries. By the beginning of the 1500's, Venice's sun was setting, even though it endured as an independent state until 1797, when Napoleon's armies put an end to it.
I enjoyed the book very much and finished it within a day. Although not the primary focus of the book, it was fascinating to learn why it was that Venice was a republic with strong rule of law and a set of quasi-democratic (for the hereditary elite if not for the common people) institutions. Sometimes, it's a good thing to be an island state with very little land but lots of trading acumen and a very large fleet, for both war and trade. It spares you all the drawbacks of a landed aristocracy with standing armies always at hand to put down unruly peasants and merchants alike. Instead, you get something that begins to look like the modern world: strong political institutions, well-defined rules, and a focus on making money through trade instead of accumulating land to make money through grinding down the peasants. It's a great read. -
entertaining account of crucial moments from Venice's past and its heyday as a sea power until history (in the guise of the Ottoman Empire dominance of the seacoast and later subjugation of Egypt which under the Mameluke regime was the main commercial partner of Venice after Byzantium lost its Eastern trade and Portuguese voyages to India and the east which opened the Oceanic route for the Atlantic powers) turned against it in the 1500's and it slowly descended into a minor also-ran state by the 1600's, though still flourishing as a playground for the new powerful masters of Europe like the English, French or Austrian nobility
not a comprehensive account but more of a vignette based story featuring colorful characters, naval battles, internal turmoil, diplomacy and spying
part of a "tetralogy" - so far - that also covers the Fall of Constantinople (very good book), the rise of the Portuguese Empire (good though i expected better) and the battle of Lepanto (which surprisingly turned out to be less important than thought at the time - for that see the Noel Malcolm book Agents of Empire as I have not yet read the author's take on it)
popular history as "non-fiction" - fiction that keeps one turning the pages; definitely recommended with the caveat not to expect a "serious, in depth" history -
190212改為kobo繁體版
--
碰上鄂圖曼帝國
歐陸沒有一個國家有辦法
尤其是義大利的城邦共和國
威尼斯硬撐了快一世紀已經很不容易了
但最後還是輸給了土耳其人
這本也沒提多少威尼斯的政治制度
還是只能看海都物語QQ -
Roger Crowley and Venice, you can just hear my money flying away from me, but I don't care. I knew after finishing 1453 that I just had to read this man's collected work because I have yet to find a popular history writer who has the level of depth, narrative ability, balanced historical bias, and general concern for the puplic and professional face of History. Plus, I mean, like, it's Venice dude.
City of Fortune did have the same level of Dynamism that 1453 had, but this book is still an amazing introduction to the most serene republic of Venice and history. Taking a wealth of scholarly work and producing a history that feels relevant and dynamic and interesting but Crowley has an ability with words as much as he does with facts and information. This book tells a story about the Republic of Venice and contextualizes it with its time and tries to understand why the leaders and average peoples managed to create a mythos of themselves that last for centuries. Venice is, according to Crowley, the first modern city and he argues it quite effectively
My only real beef with this book is that Crowley's endnotes only apply for his direct quotes and I would have liked to have seen more concern for tracing certain details back to their sources, and his ending feels a bit abrupt.
Still, I loved this book and it's only inspired me to learn more about the Serene Republic. I would offer this book to anyone beginning the history of Venice because it's not only a satisfying and effective introduction, it's an incredible book, and Crowley remains, indefinitely, my man. -
3.5 stars
Who knew Venice was such a player for much of the last millennium.
Some very brief notes:
flying bridges and shipboard catapults
In 1204 Constantinople and the Byzantine emperor were divided amongst the crusaders and the Venetians made out the most handsomely. Many of the artifacts that they carefully pillaged ended up back home in Saint Mark's Basilica.
For the next several centuries they were the princes of the sea. The Venetians were given most of the Eastern Mediterranean to govern including western Greece and 3/8 of Constantinople. Over the next two centuries the people of Crete would foment no less than 27 revolutions and uprisings against the controlling Venetians.
The Bosporus is the seventeen mile strait that connects the Black Sea and the Mediterranean and Constantinople only existed because of the great fisheries and the strategic value of connecting these two great waterways. In the 13th century the Genoese and Venetians fought over the Bosporus.
In the 14th the Black Death had greatly decimated the civilized world. In 1350 and the 3rd Genoese-Venetian War, the Venetians only had thirty-five ships in Constantinople as opposed to hundreds just a few decades prior.
But for the next several centuries it was the Venetian boat building prowess and mercantilism that kept them at the top of Italy's regions. -
I think this is by far the best history book that I've read thus far (which probably tells you that I haven't read many). It may be because I found the subject interesting with plenty of battles, colorful characters and a major clash between two great empires - one dying and one just born. I think that Mr. Crowley did a wonderful job at painting a very interesting picture of the Stato da Mar in its period of glory and its decay; he offered military, economical and geopolitical details with explanations as to how they influenced the outcomes and backed them with plenty quotes from historical sources.
.....
I Should make a mention that the book is written mainly from the view-point of the Venetians, so the analysis does not cover much of the historical background of those suppressed by the Venetians or their rival powers, so if you want to find out more about say what had weakened the Byzantine empire and allowed the Latins to conquer so many of its territories, or about how the Ottomans came to raise their empire then you're going to have to cross reference another book. -
I've always been interested in Venetian settings, mostly because I enjoy twisty politics, and Italian city-states, and Venice in particular, are great for that sort of thing. But I'm pretty sure I added this one to my TBR after getting a glimpse of the oddities of Venice in
Virgins of Venice: Broken Vows and Cloistered Lives in the Renaissance Convent and wanting to see more beyond the cloister wall (somewhat in keeping with the theme of that book). I'm so glad I did, because I hadn't realised just how odd Venice was in a feudal/medieval-Europe sense. Not feudal at all, for starters, and far more a commune and a trading concern than a traditional imperial power (and yet, acting in similar ways). In any case, this was fascinating, and full of both broad views of sweeping systems, and individual bits of stirring and heartbreaking action.
It was also great fun to play "spot the inspiration points", for KJ Parker, and for Terry Pratchett (Ankh-Morpork is very Venetian, even though it's not actually at all what people would usually use the descriptor "Venetian" to denote), and I was so busy with those points that I turned a page and ran straight into an entire Guy Gavriel Kay plot, and then spent a long time laughing at myself. -
I learned a lot about events I had been mainly unfamiliar with. Venice kept itself comparatively cut off from the politics of Italy and the rest of Europe, where my reading tends to focus. CITY OF FORTUNE opens the door to the Middle East. Venice's trade with the expanding nations of Islam made Venice a center of European wealth for centuries, until Portugal found the way around Africa and cut out the many middlemen of the luxury trade. After that Venice became a backwater of European trade, but survived in decline until its conquest by Napoleon. Crowley explores other factors in Venice's rise and fall, such as the evolving political attitudes of the city.
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When I visited Venice, my first thought was, "Who the devil thought this would be a good place to build a city?" After reading this, my perception of Venice as the most unlikely of cities is reinforced.
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A difficult book to rate. While the subject matter is fascinating, if you're not inclined towards detailed histories the 425 page blow-by-blow details can become tedious or worth skimming over.
The subject matter is one I was previously ignorant of:
Venice in it's heyday (1200 CE to mid 1400's CE) was the preeminent trading power of Europe, the preeminent maritime power of the Mediterranean, and the preeminent colonizer of the Mediterranean.
Venice built a merchant empire based on the spice trade. Spices went overland from India and China to the Middle East from where the Venetians sailed them back to Venice. In Venice the city traded and bartered them in international trade "fairs" to buyers from across Europe.
As a maritime power, Venice built troop transports and ferried troops for the rest of Europe to the crusades. Or, if it suited Venice, it diverted those crusaders for its own military goals, e.g. Venice rerouted crusaders to sack Constantinople (at that time still the seat of the Eastern Orthodox church) during the fourth crusade.
To support its trading empire, Venice colonized and ruled over many Greek and Mediterranean harbours and islands, including a long harsh rule over Crete.
Spoiler alert: For me one of the most interesting aspects of the story was how Venice lost its power. The current business jargon is to speak of "business disrupters", particularly in the jargon of today's hi-tech industry, as though this was a new concept. Venice's decline is just one of a string of examples of how old the concept of business disruption really is. In Venice's case, the disrupters came from two sources. The Ottaman empire broke their naval power and took away many of their land bases. And, Portugal opened up the direct sea route to India, making the expensive overland spice route obsolete.
So, a great subject, if you have the patience. If long histories and patience are not your strong suit, this book may not be for you. -
This is an enjoyable history of a unique medieval empire—a republic based on trade. There is much wonder to be had that the things chronicled in this book actually did occur-- the old blind doge waving is banner outside the walls of Christian Constantinople in 1204, the yearly sensa (a ritual that takes place on an enormous gilded ship by which a doge confirms Venice’s connection to the sea), the just-in-time precision of the muda (a word which could be thought of as describing a trading enterprise's regular timetable and cargo), the sea battles and sieges (Crowley is guaranteed to give you good sieges and sea battles, and that stuff is like chocolate for me), the ports of the Levant and Venice's relationships with the Mamluks and Ottomons (I found it fascinating that foreigners from different city states had walled off quarters in the Mamluk trading cities like Alexandria), the fierce and violent rivalry between Genoa and Venice, the description of the Black Sea (whose center contains no islands, and whose hydrogen sulfide depths contain no life, and preserve the wooden hulls of sunken ships perfectly), far off Tana built on the north east shore of the Black Sea during the time of the Mongol Empires, the spies, merchant explorers, pirates, cargos... Here’s to the Lion of St. Mark and the gold ducket!
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Venice today is an Italian-Disneyland that provides little instruction as to its former economic grandeur and empire. This book provides a riveting description of the Stato del Mare’s rise to glory, its trading brilliance, its imperial expansion to every corner of the Western Mediterranean and its ultimate defeat due to maritime innovations and the failure of Christian Europe to put aside its petty differences and unite against the Moslem tide. The depictions of the battles and far-flung frontiers of the East are reason alone to read this brilliant story.
This book also provides an interesting counter-point to the latter volumes of the J.J. Norwich Byzantium trilogy that render a withering verdict upon the Most Serene Republic. Either way, it is truly depressing to again re-visit the tragic fall of Constantinople to the Turks while the most of the West stood idly by after years of in-fighting and back-stabbing which crippled the last Roman Empire.
Nobody writes history like this author. This book is a must read for anyone interested in how modern commerce was invented or anyone who enjoy a well-told story. Highly recommended. -
I decided to read this book after really enjoying Crowley’s “Conquerors”, a history of the forging of the Portuguese mercantile empire. While interesting this book was definitely more than a bit verbose. Crowley tracks the growth of the Venetian maritime empire between their part in the Latin conquest of Constantinople in the early 13th century and the Venetian losses to the Ottoman empire by the end of the 15th century. While his desire to instill suspense by detailed descriptions of the many battles fought by Venetian forces is understandable, the sum of this style over several hundred pages is more than a bit tiring. He tacitly acknowledges the messy history of Venetian gains and losses by choosing to describe some battles while simply listing the ports gained/lost at other points. I couldn’t help but feel that the book could have been equally useful and a better reading experience if he had avoided detailing any of the battles and simple kept the focus on the discussions of the larger push/pull factors that enabled this small Italian city to carve one of the first mercantile maritime empires.
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Nobody but nobody writes history like Roger Crowley. I've now read all of his books and hope he writes more. I find military history mildly interesting, but only if the author makes clear why the material is significant to the lives and circumstances of real people. Crowley covers the history of medieval Venice, which might seem like a smallish topic until you realize, thanks to Crowley, that the role Venice played in the fate of Constantinople, Alexandria and other major cities, the critical element the Venetians became in the major events of medieval times and then you realize that what you have just learned brings so many other issues in European history into focus. Crowley's writing is so vivid, so lively, that you will hear the riggings creak and hear the shouts of the sailors. I feel like I've walked in St Mark's square, talked face to face with the wise blind Doge, Dandolo. This is popular history done right.
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Primarily about La Serenissima's development as a sea power, it's eventual domination of the Eastern Mediteranean and the eclipse of its infuence by the Ottoman Empire. Not a book to read if you are interested in the politial institutions or society of Venice, but good for what the author's focus.
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Having visited the spectacular city of Venice several times, it has been on my list to read a history of the Stati del Mare for some time. Roger Crowley’s “City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas” fit the bill perfectly for this read. While the book does not cover the breadth of Venetian history (for example, only touching on the mythical roots of the origins of the city built upon sand flats in a lagoon), it covers the most important period of time which formed Venice into the fantastical city we find today. Beginning with the Venetian attack upon Constantinople in 1204 and ending with the finality of the Ottoman-Venetian war in 1503, the book covers the amazing rise of this city built upon trade, and ends with its sad decline, succumbed to forces from the east and west. Venice truly was a city built upon trade and commerce; however, it is worth noting from the book how such city-states inevitably fall prey to the same tides of war as any other nation. As such, Venice built a powerful navy, and used it to great effect to secure their navigational rites of the sea. Another thing that the book did a great job of describing was how the influence of Venice in the Easter Mediterranean, along with its famous and frequent wars with Genoa, played a significant role in the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and the rise of the Ottomans. It also describes in detail the challenges Venice faced in maintaining its many colonies spread throughout the Mediterranean Sea; a challenge many other European nations would discover for themselves in the years ahead. Overall, this was a wonderful and engaging read. For any person interested in the Stati del Mare, this book is highly recommended.
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Book 2/26 2023: City of Fortune
I often find the thought of pure history books tedious, as I simply can't process all the names, dates, and events.
This book was not that - it was an engaging telling of the rise and fall of the Venetian naval empire in the Mediterranean sea, and beyond.
It was easy to read and laid out the major events well. The Venetians, like many empires before and after them, seemed to have a spectacular rise to the height of their powers as they cornered a market, followed by a devastating fallout, as a new big power came into town (in this case the Ottoman empire, and, as an economic rival; the Portuguese).
One of my expectations going into the book was to learn about the history of how the city of Venice came to be - it being such an unlikely and unique place in the middle of a lagoon. I'd have to reread it to confirm, but this seemed to be glossed over, and I am non the wiser in this aspect after having read the book. I suppose the book cannot be faulted for this as it is intended as an history of the naval empire of Venice, and not a comprehensive history of the place.
Overall an accessible window into the period and an enjoyable read. -
City of Fortune (and misfortune) provides a fast paced and fairly interesting history of the rise of the Venetian empire and the commercial wealth it created. The city's prosperity rested on nothing tangible - no land holdings, no natural resources, no agricultural production or large population. There was literally no solid ground underfoot. Venice survived on trade and lived in fear of the severance of its trade routes. Crowley refers to Venice as the first "virtual economy". The book starts off with the role Venice played in the disastrous 4th Crusade (c.a. 1000 A.D) and end with its demise once trade routes to India and the Spice Islands bypassed the Mediterranean Sea (c.a. 1500 A.D.). There is also much about piracy, empire building (and holding and losing), commerce, difficult diplomacy with the encroaching Ottomans, and vicious squabbles with the rival Genoese.
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An entertaining and informative retelling of 500 turbulent years of Venetian history. City of Fortune charts Venice's rise, dominance and fall in a highly readable account. Roger Cowley focuses on three keystone events. The brutal, bloodthirsty Fourth Crusade and Siege of Constantinople in 1204 were the catalysts for opportunistic Venice's military and economic ascent, and these chapters are shocking in their depiction of the Crusaders' savage cruelty. Then there follows the long-running war, sometimes cold sometimes hot, with its great Italian city-state rival, Genoa. The last quarter of the book deals with the rising threat of the Ottomans, led by the formidable, imposing Sultan Mehmed II and his equally worthy successor, Bayezid II.
Roger Cowley covers Venice's military history (excellent, the battle scenes as thrilling as a novel), its economy (detailed if a little dry), but oddly not so much on Venice politics. Apart from the memorable Enrico Dandolo most of Venice's Dogi are barely mentioned by name.
In summary, City of Fortune is popular history at its best.
