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
1 - Venice: the Byzantine province
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 imperial province of Venetia and Istria at the head of the Adriatic Sea was as old as the Roman Empire. It had been the tenth of the eleven regions of Italy marked out by the first emperor Augustus. Encircled by the foothills of the Alps on the north and itself encircling the sea, its southern border in Italy was fixed by the river Po, to the south of which, on the Adriatic shore, lay the imperial naval base of Classis or Ravenna. Its main cities were Padua, Aquileia and between them Opitergium or Oderzo. It was a mainland province whose inhabitants saw no promise in the muddy islands and lagoons on to which they looked. Fish could be caught there and salt could be collected. But no one could have foreseen that the islands would have a greater future than the continent. It was said in later years that the Veneti or Venetici were so called both in Greek and in Latin because they were a praiseworthy people. It was a scholarly but fanciful etymology. For in truth the original Veneti were neither Greek nor Latin but Illyrian.
By the fourth century AD, when Constantine the Great became the first Christian Emperor of the Romans, the christianisation of Venetia had already been assured by the establishment of a bishopric at Aquileia. The province lay much nearer to Rome than to the new capital of the civilised world set up by Constantine on the site of the ancient Byzantium. But it was still a mainland province of the undivided Roman Empire.
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- Information
- Byzantium and VeniceA Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations, pp. 1 - 19Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989