Venetians

by Paul Strathern

  This massive state-run enterprise also enabled the introduction of necessary modifications across the fleet, such as powerful rudders, streamlined hulls and compasses to assist in the reading of charts. Soon merchant ships – formerly cumbersome vessels powered by sail alone – had evolved into massive galleys, capable of transporting 150 tons of cargo. These were powered by 200 oarsmen, so that they could keep up with the naval galleys that protected them against pirates on the increasingly large convoys to the Levant. These would soon be leaving Venice at the rate of one every two months and consisted of as many as 200 ships. At its height, the Venetian fleet would have 36,000 sailors manning 3,300 ships.

  The Arsenalotti, as the workers became known, would over the coming centuries hone their assembly-line production to a fine art. When the young Henry III of France visited Venice in 1574, he was shown the Arsenalotti laying down the keel of a galley, and was then taken for a meal. When he had finished his dinner, he marvelled to see that an entire galley had been assembled, rigged out and armed in just two hours. Conditions in the Arsenale were more like those in a factory of the Industrial Revolution than a craftsman’s workshop of the medieval era. During the early years of the fourteenth century the Arsenale was visited by Dante Alighieri, who was so struck by what he saw that he incorporated it into a scene in his Inferno:

  As in the Arsenale at Venice

  They boil in winter bubbling pitch …

  One man hammers at the prow, another at the stern,

  This one shaves oars, that one rigging twists,

  Still others make the mainsail and the mizzen …

  Fire … thick boiling pitch with great bubbles black as ink,

  Rising and bursting in a seething tide …

  Working in the heat of the forges, and assembling the galleys beneath the burning sun, proved thirsty work for the industrious Arsenalotti, and a free wine fountain was provided for them to slake their thirst. At the height of the Arsenale’s productivity this fountain accounted for more than 13,000 gallons of wine in a year, with individual workers consuming as much as a gallon a day. Even though the wine would certainly have been watered down, this nonetheless marked a prodigious consumption. The Arsenalotti were a proud breed, who were recruited exclusively from the three neighbouring parishes of the Castello district. They regarded themselves as superior to other workers of the city, and certain privileged employment was restricted to their number. Only Arsenalotti were permitted to form the bodyguard of the doge, or make up the force of rowers required for the doge’s barge, the large golden ceremonial Bucintoro (from bucio in oro, or ‘barque in gold’). Likewise, only Arsenalotti were considered sufficiently skilled and trusted to be employed in the city’s Mint, or to be retained by the corps of city fire-fighters.

  The setting of the Arsenale at the eastern end of Venice overlooking the lagoon is both formidable and spectacular. Its high pink-brick walls look down over open water and surrounding inland canals, which combine to give it the appearance and defensive strength of a vast moated castle. Its architecture includes ancient and modern in characteristic Venetian fashion: the magnificent landside gateway to the Arsenale was one of the first examples in Venice of Renaissance architecture, whilst two of the nearby stone lions represent spoils of war dating from earlier centuries. One was seized from amongst the sacred sixth-century BC ruins on the island of Delos, while the other, captured from Piraeus (the port of Athens) is marked with graffiti of runes carved by eleventh-century Viking mercenaries employed by the Byzantine emperor.

  In the aftermath of the plague all Europe suffered from a huge depletion in manpower. Household servants, manual labour in the fields and the cities – all were in short supply. Venice found itself ideally placed to remedy the gap in the market. From as early as the eleventh century the Venetians and the Genoese had shipped slaves from the Black Sea to the markets of the Levant and Egypt, with a number ending up back in Europe. Now they were able to utilise these trading contacts to purchase larger numbers for transport to Europe. Although several papal edicts had been issued against slavery over the centuries, these were ignored during the post-plague years. Venice soon led the lucrative trade in importing Slav, Caucasian, Armenian and Georgian slaves, purchased from Tartar merchants at outposts on the Black Sea, such as Sinope and Trebizond, as well as Nubians purchased from Egyptian caravaners in Alexandria (although these black slaves seldom reached Europe, as they were mostly sold for work in the sugar plantations of Cyprus and Crete). This pitiful trade had originally relied upon a regular supply from Tartar merchants buying up young men and girls sold by their impoverished families in mountain villages of the Caucasus and other remote eastern regions. Now, such was the demand for slaves in depleted Italy that the young men, women and children on the market often represented the entire able-bodied population of mountain villages, who had simply been rounded up by the Tartars. This trade proved hugely profitable for the Venetian traders, who could realise as much as 1000 per cent on the purchase price of each slave. Whereas the changes to citizenship laws during the plague saw the Republic jettisoning long-held ideals in the name of pragmatism, the opportunistic acceleration of their participation in the slave trade represented a colder element in the Republics character – the willingness to jettison morality for the sake of profit.

  In Venice, slaves had originally been sold at what is still known as Riva degli Schiavoni (literally ‘landing stage of the Slavs’, the word ‘slave’ being derived from the Slav name). Once purchased, slaves were deemed to be the property of their owners, and were listed on tax returns as chattels along with domestic animals and furniture. Despite such callous disregard for human dignity, slaves were for the most part treated with a degree of humanity by their Italian masters. Many slaves from Venice were exported to cities such as Florence and Rome, where they entered households and undertook domestic duties like any other servant. As such, they would often dine at the family table and suffered no more or less than the usual affection or maltreatment meted out to the vulnerable country girls who made up the lower retinue of servants. When the banker Cosimo de’ Medici was working in Rome he impregnated his slave girl, whereupon she was sent home to the family mansion to give birth, and her son was treated in much the same way as any other illegitimate offspring of a well-to-do family in Italy; he was educated and then sent to a nearby city to take up a position that had been secured for him in the Church. Such consideration was certainly not the norm, but it was not exceptional. Slaves who had served a family loyally over the years would sometimes be set free in their master’s will, just as Marco Polo had done with the Tartar slave he brought back with him from the East. On the other hand, the Venetian authorities did on occasion purchase slaves to make up numbers in the galleys, though this was only as a last resort. Youths from artisan families traditionally volunteered for a term in the galleys, where (if they were lucky) they could become rich through a share in the spoils of war. The men who manned the oars were also expected to fight in naval engagements, which made the authorities wary of seconding to the galleys slaves whose patriotism was liable to be suspect.

  After a post-plague truce lasting barely two years, Venice soon found its galleys becoming involved in an increasing number of naval skirmishes with its Genoese counterparts. By 1352 the situation had escalated to outright war. Leading adversaries in this lengthy war would emerge from two distinguished families – the Pisani of Venice and the celebrated Doria of Genoa (who had already provided Lamba Doria, the victor of Curzola).

  The kingdom of Aragon in south-east Spain, wishing to drive the Genoese from the western Mediterranean, chose to ally itself with Venice, and in February 1352 Nicolò Pisani led their combined fleets north up the Aegean Sea to confront the Genoese fleet in the Bosphorus under the command of Paganino Doria. Here Pisani was provided with further Greek naval assistance by the Byzantine emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, who felt threatened by the fortified Genoese colony just north of Constantinople on the other side of the Golden
Horn, the narrow stretch of water leading off the Bosphorus. Making full use of his home-port advantage, Doria withdrew his fleet into a line across the narrow mouth of the Golden Horn, thus ensuring that he could not be outflanked and attacked from the rear, breaking his line. By now a winter storm was raging, and the wind and waves rendered Doria’s position all but impregnable. But to Pisani’s dismay the Aragonese admiral Ponzio di Santa Paola then proceeded to launch his ships into a frontal attack on the Genoese, which soon resulted in catastrophic losses. Pisani realised that he had no alternative but to advance in support of his foolhardy ally; meanwhile his Greek allies hastily retired from the battle. As the storm continued and night fell, the Venetian and Genoese fleets battled it out. Incendiary arrows and missiles had set alight fires in both fleets, and these quickly passed from ship to ship in the high wind. Chaos ensued, with ships grappling and men fighting in the garish glare, often unaware who was friend or foe. As dawn broke, the remnants of the Venetian fleet found themselves battling against wind and current and were forced to flee. By now Paolo was dead, while Pisani had lost most of his galleys and 1,500 men – a colossal loss given the recent predations of the Black Death.

  Technically, the Genoese had won the Battle of the Bosphorus, but in terms of men and galleys their losses were on a par with those of the Venetians. On the other hand, they were now in a position to force the Byzantine emperor Cantacuzenus to grant them certain exclusive trading rights, especially in the Crimea and the Sea of Azov – the termination of lucrative trading routes to the Orient. Venice had now lost all access to the Black Sea as well as access to Byzantine ports in the Aegean. Venetian ascendancy in the eastern Mediterranean looked to be under threat. Many in Venice wished to see Pisani summoned home and put on trial for his life. Instead he was merely subjected to the interrogation of an official inquiry, which eventually exonerated him. Desperate to regain his honour, in the summer of 1353 Pisani switched his tactics, leading a Venetian fleet into the western Mediterranean. The Aragonese were bent on wresting Sardinia from the control of Genoa and had begun to blockade the port of Alghero on the north-western coast of the island. As luck would have it, Pisani turned up just as the Aragonese were expecting the arrival of the Genoese fleet and they immediately handed overall command of the new joint fleet to Pisani. By the time the Genoese arrived, Pisani was ready for them, and on 29 August 1353 – just eighteen months after his humiliating loss at the Battle of the Bosphorus – he redeemed himself by inflicting an overwhelming defeat on the Genoese fleet. Of sixty galleys, only nineteen managed to limp back to Genoa.

  This was a blow from which the Genoese were unable to recover: they had now suffered catastrophic destruction of manpower and galleys in two successive major battles, and Venice controlled the Mediterranean, thus cutting off the city of Genoa from its lucrative trade with the Black Sea and the Levant. Notably in this instance it had been the ambition of an individual, rather than the calculated will of the Venetian authorities, that had reversed the Republic’s fortunes. Just months earlier Venice had stood on the precipice of disaster, and now its bitter rival was crushed.

  This defeat was not only disastrous in terms of commerce, but threatened the very lives of the Genoese themselves. The city had by now spread over much of the thin strip of agricultural land between the mountains and the sea, forcing it to rely upon outside trade for its grain supplies. These were usually obtained from the Levant and from the fertile Lombardy plains in the territory of Milan to the north. But now even Milan had turned against Genoa. Giovanni Visconti, the Lord and Archbishop of Milan, saw this as his chance to overcome Genoa, and in return for supplies the Genoese were forced to sign a humiliating ‘treaty’ with Milan, which virtually made the city a vassal of its powerful northern neighbour. This was a strategic masterstroke by Visconti, who thus denied the Venetians the chance of destroying Genoese power once and for all and threatening Milan in the process. Instead it was now Milan that became the overwhelming major power in northern Italy, and in doing so threatened Venice.

  Venice realised this danger and quickly organised a defensive league of inland cities between it and Milanese territory. Gerona, Mantua, Verona and Padua were all bribed to sign up, with Charles IV of Bohemia agreeing to be paid as commander of the league’s forces. According to the Venetian historian Lorenzo de Monacis, writing some sixty years later with access to the relevant documents, all this was accomplished ‘at almost incredible cost’. However, the Venetians underestimated Visconti of Milan, whose even greater financial inducements soon dissolved the league, allowing Charles IV to retire from his command with a further 100,000 ducats in his pocket. Even so, Visconti was not yet ready to take on Venice and despatched a peace mission to the city.

  This mission was led by the forty-nine-year-old poet and scholar Francesco Petrarca (now known as Petrarch), who would later develop a special relationship with Venice. At this time, he was the most celebrated intellectual figure in Italy since Dante. Twenty years previously he had been crowned ‘poet laureate’, complete with laurel wreath, in a ceremony at the Capitol in Rome that had not been performed since ancient classical times. He was an early champion of the new humanism, which sought a rebirth of classical learning, with its emphasis on human enquiry and action, rather than the religious authority and spiritual aspirations of the medieval era, which he referred to as the ‘Dark Ages’. For this reason Petrarch is often regarded as the father of the Renaissance.

  He had a wide circle of humanist friends, which included Guidone da Settimo, the Archbishop of Genoa, as well as the Doge of Venice, the scholarly Andrea Dandolo.* Indeed, as early as 1351 Petrarch had written to the Genoese and to Doge Dandolo suggesting that the Venetians and the Genoese should desist from waging war against one another, join forces and sail to the Canaries, the Orkneys, Thule (in Greenland) and the regions of the extreme north and south. But this remarkably prescient advice had fallen on deaf ears – not until two centuries later would gold be discovered in West Africa and serious exploration would reveal the New World and a passage around Africa. And despite Petrarch’s close friendship with Doge Dandolo, his peace mission to Venice would be met with equally deaf ears. Petrarch blamed himself for what happened, but there is no denying the anger he felt at his rejection:

  When many words had been wasted, I returned as full of sorrow, shame, and terror as I had come full of hope. To open to reason ears that were stopped and hearts that were obstinate was a task beyond my eloquence, as it would have been beyond that of Cicero.

  Yet Venice had good reason to reject Petrarch’s offer from Archbishop Visconti. Despite Genoa’s apparent submission to Milan, it had unexpectedly decided to revive the war of its own accord, carrying the fight right into Venice’s back yard. Early in 1354 Genoese galleys made a lightning strike into the Adriatic, laying waste the Venetian islands of Curzola and Lesina (modern Hvar), before disappearing back into the Mediterranean as swiftly as they had appeared. Venice at once decided to pursue the war with renewed vigour. Over the winter, their depleted fleet had been restored by the production line at the Arsenale, enabling them to mount two separate naval expeditions. The first was a squadron ordered to seal off the mouth of the Adriatic by mounting a constant patrol across the sixty-mile channel between Otranto on the Italian mainland and the island of Corfu, to prevent any repeat of this incident. The second was a fleet of fourteen galleys under the command of Pisani, which were ordered to liaise with nineteen further galleys from Venetian ports along the Dalmatian coast and as far afield as Crete. Pisani was then to hunt down and destroy the Genoese squadron responsible for the attack, as well as any other Genoese shipping it came across on the open sea. Having picked up his reinforcements, Pisani at once set sail for Sardinia, the scene of his former triumph. He knew that the Aragonese were still blockading Alghero, and surmised that Genoa would soon rally all its available naval forces to relieve the port.

  This proved to be a fatal blunder. The arch-tactician Paganino Doria, who had sailed f
rom Genoa with the remnants of the city’s fleet, eluded his rival and completely outmanoeuvred both Venetian fleets. In a superb piece of seamanship, he managed to slip past the Venetian patrol at the mouth of the Adriatic without his ships being detected, and then headed north up the Adriatic towards Venice. In August 1354 he made landfall on the Istrian peninsula, attacking the Venetian port of Parenzo (modern Poreč) less than forty miles south of Venice itself. Here he set fire to buildings and added insult to injury by desecrating the great sixth-century Euphrasian Basilica, carrying off the bodies of St Maurus and St Cyrillus.*