HISTORY-EDUCATION

1. The International Journal of
Maritime History
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© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0843871414543443
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Venice’s policy towards the
Ionian and Aegean islands,
c. 1204–1423
Ruthy Gertwagen
Abstract
This paper discusses Venice’s policy between the thirteen and fifteenth centuries
towards the Islands in the Ionian and Aegean seas. The traditional modern
historiography attributes the establishment of the Stato da Mar or maritime empire
by Venice to the outcomes of the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) and to the partition
agreement of the former Byzantine empire between the Venetian Doge and the
Crusaders in October 1204, five months after the conquest of Constantinople by
the host of the Fourth Crusade. Being a mercantile polity, Venice preferred ports
and islands that ensured the Venetians safe anchorage on the way to the eastern
Mediterranean as well as fertile islands that produced the products required in Venice.
It is also argued that the Venetian empire was neither accidental nor philanthropic.
The Venetian government actively worked to acquire and control territories
beneficial to its own interests: to control the material and human resources of the
Adriatic and Aegean in order to protect Venetian shipping and to bring honour and
glory to the city. This paper revises these arguments and argues instead that, in the
thirteenth century, Venice lacked the economic and military resources to create a
maritime empire. While chronologically unfolding related events from the morrow
of the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, this paper argues that only from the late
fourteenth century did Venice follow a systematic policy of annexing islands that
formed its Stato da Mar.
Keywords
Aegean Islands, Byzantium, Cyclades Islands, Enrico Dandolo, Fourth Crusade, Genoa,
Ionian Islands, Partition Pact (1204), Stato da Mar, Venice
Corresponding author:
Ruthy Gertwagen, Byzantine and Modern Hellenic Studies, Haifa University, Haifa, Israel.
Email: ruthygert@gmail.com
543443IJH0010.1177/0843871414543443International Journal of Maritime HistoryGertwagen
research-article2014

2. 2 The International Journal of Maritime History
1. Frederic C. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Baltimore, 1973), pp.42-3; Elizabeth Crouzet
Pavan, Venice Triumphant: The Horizons of a Myth (Baltimore, 2000), pp.66-9.
2. Roger Crowley, City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas (London, 2011), pp.117-9.
Although some historians have reviewed it as an academic book, it should be classed as a
work of popular history, for Crowley entirely relies on the publications of other authors, some
of whom are only vaguely mentioned.
3. Freddy Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne au moyen âge, le développement et l’exploitation
du domaine colonial vénitien, XIIe-XVe siècles (Paris, 1975), pp.105-8; David Jacoby, ‘La
Venezia d’oultre mare nel secondo Duecento’, in Giorgio Cracco and Gherardo Ortalli, eds,
Storia di Venezia. II: L’età del comune (Rome, 1995), pp.263-99.
4. Sally McKee, Uncommon Dominion: Venetian Crete and the Myth of Ethnic Purity
(Philadelphia, 2000), p.22; Lane, Venice, pp.42-3, uses the term ‘naval bases’ instead of
‘ports’.
5. Monique O’Connell, Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State
(Baltimore, 2009), p.18.
Introduction
According to the traditional historiography, the territorial and commercial expansion of
Venice into the Ionian and Aegean seas, the Dardanelles and the Marmara Sea, was a
product of the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204). Although not pre-planned, the partition of
the former Byzantine Empire agreed between the Venetian Doge, Enrico Dandolo, and
the Crusader leaders in October 1204, five months after the conquest of Constantinople
by the host of the Fourth Crusade, assigned territories to Venice that formed the basis of
its maritime empire.1 More recently, Crowley has argued that at a stroke the Venetian
city-state became the seat of a colonial empire, whose rationale was exclusively com-
mercial.2 Being a mercantile polity, Venice did not seek to acquire territories in continen-
tal hinterlands. Those that were assigned to her were eventually abandoned in favour of
ports and islands that not only provided the Venetians with safe anchorages on the pas-
sage to the eastern Mediterranean, either northeast to Constantinople and the Black Sea,
or southeast to Egypt, the entrepôt for Asiatic luxury commodities, but also agricultural
products required in Venice.3 Some scholars contend that it was attaining strategically
favourable ports, rather than agricultural fertility, that mattered, but when the possession
of ports was predicated on control of the interior, as in the case of Crete, then securing
the whole island was required.4 Others argue that the Venetian Empire was neither acci-
dental nor philanthropic, as Venice actively worked to acquire territories beneficial to its
own interests, which lay in controlling the material and human resources of the Adriatic
and Aegean in order to protect Venetian shipping and overseas commerce.5
This paper revises these traditional views through an examination of Venice’s policy
concerning the Ionian and Aegean islands from 1204 until the fifteenth century. It argues
that emphasizing the economic and commercial aspects of Venice’s territorial expansion
offers a biased view, a view that has been propounded by economic historians over the last
60 years and has dominated analyses of Venice as a Mediterranean power. Those adopting
this perspective have attributed to some of these territories economic and mercantile qual-
ities during the Byzantine period that in fact only evolved later, under Venetian rule; or
qualities for which the evidence is derived from early modern or modern sources. It is
telling that marine space and maritime factors, which are discussed in the present paper,

3. Gertwagen 3
6. Guillaume Saint-Guillain, ‘Les conquérants de l’archipel de l’empire Latin de Constantinople,
Venise et les premiers seigneurs des Cyclades’, in Gherardo Ortalli, Giorgio Ravegnani and
Peter Chreiner, eds, Quarta Crociata: Venezia- Bisanzio-Impero Latino (Venezia, 2006), p.1.
7. Antonio Carile, ‘Partitio terrarium imperii Romanie’, Studi Veneziani, 7 (1965), p.161.
See Figure 9 in Thomas E. Madden, Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice (Baltimore,
2003), p.185. The author is mistaken in claiming that Dandolo demanded almost the whole
Peloponnese.
8. Larry R. Wolff, ‘A New Document from the Period of the Latin Empire of Constantinople:
The Oath of the Venetian Podestà’, Annuaire de l’Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales
et slaves, 12 (1953), pp.540-1; Madden, Enrico Dandolo, pp.100-1, 171, 185.
have been neglected, even though islands have featured prominently in these economic
analyses. Moreover, historians have preferred to ignore evidence derived from contempo-
rary primary sources, leading Saint-Guillain to observe—in relation to the Cyclades
islands—that one cannot correct thirteenth-century documents according to chronicles
written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.6 This study argues that Venice lacked the
economic and military muscle to create a maritime empire in the thirteenth century, and it
was only from the late fourteenth century that it followed a systematic policy of annexing
islands to form a Stato da Mar motivated by strategic and defensive considerations.
Enrico Dandolo and the Partition of the former Byzantine
Empire
In October 1204, the islands that Enrico Dandolo, the Venetian Doge, demanded and
received by virtue of the wholesale division of the former Byzantine Empire included the
Ionian Islands, from Corfu in the northeast to Zakinthos in the southeast; large parts of
the Peloponnese, including the coastal town of Methoni; the islands of Aegina and
Salamis in the Saronic Gulf; two settlements on the island of Euboea in the northern
Aegean, Castro in the south and Oreos in the north; and the Island of Andros, to the
southeast of Euboea (see Figure 1).7
Dandolo, however, could not commit Venice to overseas territorial acquisitions
without the approval of the Great Council (Maggior Consilio), for the position of the
Venetian Doge had been transformed by the time of the Fourth Crusade into that of a
magistrate subject to the will of the Commune.8 Furthermore, the moment he took the
Crusader oath and left Venice, he ceased to function as a Doge, although he retained
that title. In other words, with regard to the pacts he made with the Crusaders beyond
his original mission, Dandolo acted as a private person and as a noble Venetian cru-
sader. One has to bear in mind that the conquest of Constantinople and the partition of
the former Byzantine Empire was not the original aim of the Fourth Crusade, but
Egypt. Furthermore, it is hardly logical that, even if he had wanted to, Dandolo would
have had the time to bring the whole issue to the attention of the Commune. Such a
subject was completely new to Venice and would have engaged the Maggior Consilio
in several long debates. Decisions regarding the conquest of Constantinople and the
Partition Pact had to be taken on the spot, where, considering the cultural mentality of
the time, Dandolo had to act as a charismatic leader. Otherwise, he would have come
out as a loser with empty hands. Similarly, as a private person, Dandolo assumed the

4. 4 The International Journal of Maritime History
title ‘Lord of Three-Eighths of the Roman Empire’—in recognition of his territorial
achievements in Constantinople and the Ionian and Aegean seas—as a personal honour
unrelated to his office of Doge.9 Accordingly, there is no documented evidence of
Figure 1. The Ionian Sea, Peleponnese and Southwest Aegean Sea.
A History of the Crusades, (eds.), Wolff, R. L.; Hazard, H. W. University of Wisconsin Press, 1969, volume, II:
The later Crusades, 1189-1311. Fig 1, p.235.
9. Madden, Enrico Dandolo, pp.137-8, 171, 179-80, 188.

5. Gertwagen 5
10. Madden, Enrico Dandolo, p.185.
11. Carile, ‘Partitio terrarium imperii Romanie’, p.167.
12. Ruthy Gertwagen, ‘The Concept of Medieval Ports in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean:
Construction and Maintenance.The Case of Crete to the end of the 15th Century’, International
Journal of Maritime History, 12, no.1 (2000), pp.63-133; Ruthy Gertwagen, ‘Venetian
Modon and its Port, 1358-1500’, in Alex Cowan, ed., The Mediterranean Urban Culture
(Exeter, 2000), pp.125-48, 248-54; Ruthy Gertwagen, ‘Corfu and its Port in the Venetian
Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (14th and
15th centuries)’, International Journal of Maritime History, 19, no. 1 (2007), p.205; Ruthy
Gertwagen, ‘Fiscal and Technical Limitations on Venetian Military Engineers in the Stato da
Mar in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries’, in Bruce Lenman, ed., Military Engineers and
the Making of the Early Modern State (Dundee, 2013), pp.156-61.
13. Gertwagen, ‘Concept of Medieval Ports,’ 238; Gertwagen, ‘Corfu’, p.205
14. David Jacoby, ‘Creta e Venezia nel contest economico del Mediterraneo Orientale sino alla
metà del quattrocento’, in Gherardo Ortalli, ed., Venezia e Creta: Atti del convegno internazi-
onale di studi (Venice, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1998), pp.75-6.
Dandolo consulting with Venice’s Commune regarding the purchase of the island of
Crete, in September 1204, from one of the Crusader leaders, Boniface of Montferrat,
after Genoa had turned down the opportunity to buy the island.10 Privately purchased,
the island was not mentioned in the Partition Agreement.11
This begs several questions. First, what were the motives behind Enrico Dandolo’s
choice of islands in the Ionian andAegean seas? Second, why did he decide not to acquire
the Cyclades Islands in the central Aegean, and why did he buy the Island of Crete in the
southwest? It was not because the Ionian and the Aegean islands had artificial ports, built
with breakwaters and moles, prior to Venetian dominion. In fact, until the late fifteenth
century, the Venetians only built six artificial ports, starting with the reconstruction and
enlargement of the ruined Moslem port at Candia, Crete, in the 1340s. Although efforts
to build this facility had begun in the 1290s, they were frustrated by revolts of the local
population against Venetian rule. Port construction operations in Chania and Rethimnon,
along the northern coast of the island, west of Candia, only began in the 1380s. In the
Peloponnese, a mole was constructed in Corone in 1315 and in Methoni in 1358, but it
was not until the late fourteenth century that the Venetian Senate discussed port building
in Corfu, while no artificial harbour was ever constructed in the important Venetian col-
ony in Negroponte.12 This reluctance to engage in port construction and maintenance
was largely due to the heavy financial cost it incurred. Indeed, Venice only built these
ports because Venetian settlers regarded them as front-line fortifications against inva-
sions from the sea, and threatened to leave the territories if such protection was not
provided.13
Moreover, few of the territories acquired by Enrico Dandolo in the Ionian and the
Aegean regions, Crete included, which he purchased, were agriculturally fertile in the
earlier Byzantine period. Indeed, both Venetians and Genoese traded in Crete, with
Venetian merchants increasing their business on the island from the 1130s, especially
after 1150. Nevertheless, the island was of marginal commercial importance for both
Venice and the Genoese.14 The fact that the Genoese rejected Montferrat’s offer to sell it

6. 6 The International Journal of Maritime History
15. Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne, pp.314-41; Jacoby, ‘Creta e Veneiza’, pp.78-103; Ugo Tucci,
‘Il commercio del vino nell’economiacretese’, in Ortalli, ed., Venezia e Creta, pp.183-296.
16. Gertwagen, ‘Corfu’, pp.181-2; Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Senato da Mar, reg. 2 f. 187r: 25
January 1446.
17. Ruthy Gertwagen, ‘Does Naval Activity – Military and Commercial – need Artificial Ports? The
Case of Venetian Harbours and Ports in the Ionian and Aegean till 1500’, Graeco Arabica, 9-10
(2004), p.174. This paper represents the traditional vision , corrected by the current study, regarding
the establishment of theVenetian Maritime Empire as an outcome of the Fourth Crusade. Regarding
Corfu, see Gertwagen, ‘Corfu’, p.184 and n.10; Madden, Enrico Dandolo, pp.100-1, 171, 185.
to them underlines this point. Also Euboea, the second biggest Aegean island, where
Venice, from the 1250s, gradually established an autonomous quarter in the town of
Negroponte, was not agriculturally fertile and remained economically marginal for
Venice until the Fourth Crusade. Only after the consolidation of Venice’s dominion did
the agricultural fertility of Crete and Euboea improve sufficiently for their wine, raisins,
olive oil, cheese and wheat to be exported to Venice and needy Venetian territories in the
Aegean.15 On the other hand, neither Corfu nor Methoni, in the southwest Peloponnese,
enjoyed similar agricultural benefits under Venetian rule. In fact, until the late fifteenth
century, Methoni was supplied, more often than not, by Corone, its eastern maritime
neighbour, whose main income was generated by the trade in olives produced in its rich
plantations. Significantly, in spite of its agricultural fertility, Corone was not originally
included in the Partition Pact.16
The only motive behind Enrico Dandolo’s choice of territories was their strategic
location in relation to shipping lanes or rich economic and commercial centres. The
Ionian Islands lie along the sea routes that connected both basins of the Mediterranean,
and those that led from and into the Adriatic. Corfu, Levkas, Keffalonia and Zakynthos
offered fresh water, essential for sea voyages. Due to difficult navigational conditions in
the Ionian, Methoni in the southwest Peloponnese was an obligatory port of call, although
it provided neither a safe shelter against weather hazards nor fresh water. Due to their
geographical location, Corfu, in the northeast Ionian Sea at the entrance to the Adriatic,
and Methoni, at the confluence of the Ionian and the Aegean, were popular nests for
pirates and Venice’s enemies. In fact, in 1204, right after the establishment of the Latin
Empire in Constantinople, a Genoese pirate, William Porco, was based in Methoni when
he seized a Venetian ship coming from Constantinople with a cargo of Saints’ relics – a
gift of the Latin Emperor to the Pope. In 1205, Ranieri Dandolo and Rogerio Premarino,
who were commissioned by the Venetian Doge to secure Venice’s trade routes, chased
Leo Vetrone, another Genoese corsair, who had settled in northern Corfu in 1199, from
Corfu to Methoni and from there on to Corone. The capture of Vetrone in Corone pres-
aged the incorporation of this place, which had not been acquired by Dandolo, into
Venice’s maritime system.17 Corfu and Methoni were retained for defensive purposes, to
prevent them falling into the hands of pirates or Venice’s enemies.
Strategic motives underpinned Dandolo’s choice of territories in the Aegean. In the
northern Saronic Gulf, vessels could find shelter in Aegina and the Salamis Islands
against the strong prevailing winds.Aegina Island provided a convenient transit place for
goods bound to Athens and the Gulf of Piraeus, on the one hand, and on the other, to the
bay of Salamis in the northeast Saronic Gulf, thence, via Cape Sounion, to the island of

7. Gertwagen 7
18. Rod Heikel, Greek Waters Pilot (Cambridgeshire, 1994), pp.174-6, 189-92.
19. Gertwagen, ‘Does Naval Activity’, pp.170-4; Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne, pp.77, 87.
20. John Pryor, ‘The Geographical Conditions of Galley Navigation in the Mediterranean’, in
Robert Gardiner and John Morrison, eds., The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared
Vessels since Pre-Classical Times (London, 1995), pp.209, 213.
Negroponte/Euboea.18 Due to the limited manoeuvring abilities of both naval and com-
mercial vessels, as well as the difficult navigation conditions along Negroponte channel,
Karystos, at the southeast of the island, enjoyed strategic importance as a port of call. A
variety of documents show that, in spite of the increase in the late thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries of the dimensions of both naval and commercial ships, and the improve-
ment in their sailing capabilities, they never ventured from Negroponte to the northeast
Aegean Sea towards the Dardanelles. Instead, they always returned to the southeast to
Karystos.FromtheretheyproceededtothenortheastviaDoroStraitsbetweenNegroponte
and the Island of Andros to the Dardanelles and thence, to Constantinople and the Black
Sea. The difficult sailing conditions in Doro Straits, due to strong prevailing northern
winds and currents, accentuated the importance of Karystos Bay and the Island ofAndros
as ports of call in northerly or southerly voyages. Oreos, on the northern part of the Island
of Negroponte, was also selected by Dandolo for its strategic location at the head of the
Bay of Almyros, where the Venetians had economic interests and assets.19
Enrico Dandolo’s selection of islands clearly points to seagoing experience, either of
his own or of the Venetian merchants who participated in the Fourth Crusade and must
have advised him. These men would have been acutely aware of the limitations of mer-
chant vessels (naves) and various types of mercantile and warlike galley. Due to their
hull configuration, all of these vessels found it difficult to sail against prevailing winds
and contrary currents, notwithstanding the improvements in hull design and rigging (in
naves) that occurred from the late thirteenth century. Galleys could indeed make their
way by rowing, but then they were in danger of capsizing and sinking in heavy seas. This
danger was attributed to their low freeboard, which prevented them from heeling too far.
The galleys would have found the waves of 0.5–1 metres challenging and waves of 1–2
metres beyond their capabilities.20 These vessels could not stay on sea long enough to
protect strategic passages at the gateways to or from the Adriatic, Ionian or Aegean seas,
or between the islands. Control through possession of key locations, such as those sought
by Enrico Dandolo, was therefore vital.
A conspicuous orientation towards Constantinople is a feature of Enrico Dandolo’s
territorial choice. Indeed, the articles of the Partition Pact regarding the Dardanelles and
the Sea of Marmara clearly show that the factors that informed his decisions in these
areas were consistent with those in the Ionian and Aegean seas. In the Dardanelles, he
wanted Lapseki, in the northeast, and Gallipoli, in the northwest, for their strategic loca-
tions on the European and Asiatic sides of the Straits, respectively (see Figure 2). During
the prevailing northerlies, both Gallipoli and Lapseki provided shelter, but during strong
northerlies, as the modern navigation guide for yachts recommends, it is advisable to go
from Lapseki to Gallipoli, since in that particular part of the Straits the force of the winds
is weaker on the Asiatic side. At Gallipoli, the current is relatively weak, at between 1

8. 8 The International Journal of Maritime History
21. Rod Heikel, Turkish Waters Pilot (London, 1992), 36. It should be noted that, due to the force
of the prevailing northern winds and contrary current, a modern navigation instructions book
for yachts recommends to such vessels, especially to low powered ones of seven ton powered
by 17 H.P. diesel, but also to those with powerful engines, to plan carefully the entrance into
Figure 2. The Northeast Aegean, Dardanelles and Sea of Marmara.
A History of the Crusades, (eds.), Wolff, R. L.; Hazard, H. W. University of Wisconsin Press, 1969, volume, II:
The later Crusades, 1189-1311. Fig 2, p.123.
and 1.5 knots.21 In other words, vessels heading for Constantinople, after entering the
Dardanelles, would follow theAsiatic coast until Lapseki and then proceed, via Gallipoli,

9. Gertwagen 9
the Dardanelles, via the SE of the straits and then to proceed northwards following the Asiatic
coast to avoid the strong northern current in the mid-straits channel and along the European
side. Only on the return journey a yacht can follow the European coast to take a full advan-
tage of the northern current. Heikel, Turkish Waters Pilot, 30; Heikel, The Black Sea Pilot,
(London, 1969), VI, pp.85, 43, 96-7.
22. Heikel, Black Sea Pilot, VI, p.45.
23. Carile, ‘Partitio terrarium imperii Romanie’, pp.160, 161 map.
24. Heikel, Black Sea Pilot, VI, p.53.
25. Carile, ‘Partitio terrarium imperii Romanie’, pp.160, 161 map.
26. Gertwagen, ‘Harbours and Port Facilities’, p.111.
27. Carile, ‘Partitio terrarium imperii Romanie’, p.161, n.183.
28. David Jacoby, ‘The Venetian Privileges in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: Twelfth and
Thirteenth-Century Interpretations and Implementations’, in David Jacoby, ed., Commercial
Exchanges Across the Mediterranean (Aldershot, 2005), no. V.
29. Madden, Enrico Dandolo, p.179.
30. Madden, Enrico Dandolo, pp.198 and n.60, 195.
into the Sea of Marmara. Here, depending on wind and weather conditions, the best way
was—as it still is for sailing yachts—to sail among the Marmara Islands and along the
Asiatic coast to Constantinople. The Marmara Islands, notably Imrali and the Princes
Islands, provide shelter from storms on their southern coasts, and at times when the
northerly winds blow strong. The Islands of Paşalimani and Marmara protect the Asiatic
coast from the northern current, when its flow is intensified by the strong Etesian winds.22
However, Dandolo left these Islands to the Crusaders, and tried instead to acquire
Heraclea in the northwest of the Sea of Marmara.23 From the point of view of navigation,
Heraclea lacked any artificial facilities to protect vessels against the prevailing norther-
lies and contrary currents. It was a dangerous anchorage, while the sea route from south-
west of the Sea of Marmara to Heraclea, and vice versa, was hazardous.24 However, like
Oreos in Negroponte, Heraclea controlled economic assets, mainly the grains of Rodosto,
to which it served as a maritime exit. Indeed, Dandolo requested all the hinterland
between Adrianople, Rodosto and Heraclea.25
Dandolo’s focus on the Constantinople route is accentuated by his neglect of the
Cyclades in the central Aegean, which point towards the southeastern Mediterranean and
the Crusader Levant.26 Indeed, the Cyclades, as indicated by Carile,27 were not included
among the islands identified by Dandolo in the Partition Pact. As Venice already traded
intensively with the Crusader Levant, where it had established quasi-autonomous quar-
ters,28 this probably reflected Dandolo’s personal interest. In other words, due to his very
advanced age of 85, Dandolo, with his new title—‘Lord of Three-Eighths of the Roman
Empire’—was intent on retiring to Constantinople. Unlike Madden,29 I argue that
Dandolo’s pretext of old age in his appeal—as a private man—to the Pope to release him
from his Crusader oath after the conquest of Constantinople, was part of his intent to set-
tle in Constantinople. However, his appeal was denied and he died shortly afterwards.30
If that is so, then why did Dandolo buy the island of Crete, with its negligible com-
mercial importance? Crete’s location in relation to the sea lanes that led to the Aegean
was marginal at the time. Only after the gradual recovery of the Byzantines, whose cen-
tre was at Nicaea in Anatolia, south of the Sea of Marmara, and who took control of the

10. 10 The International Journal of Maritime History
31. Gertwagen, ‘Concept of Medieval Ports’, pp.183-91.
32. Madden, Enrico Dandolo, pp.196-7.
33. Gottlieb L. F. Tafel and George M. Thomas, Urkunden zur älteren Handels-und
Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig (Vienna, 1856-1857; reprinted Amsterdam, Hakkert,
1964), I, p.559.
34. Wolff, ‘New Document’, pp.550-1.
35. Luigi Lanfranchi, ed., Famiglia Zusto: Fonti per la storia di Venezia, sez. IV, Archivi Privati
(Venezia, 1955).
Dodecanese Islands at the end of the 1230s, from Lesbos in the north to Karpathos in the
south, did Crete become the major Venetian port of call in the southernAegean.As I have
discussed elsewhere, Dandolo purchased the island mainly to prevent it from falling into
the hands of the Genoese. However, the Venetians were slow to occupy the island, which
enabled a Genoese corsair, Enrico Pescatore, to control the central part of Crete’s north-
ern coast between 1206 and 1211, thus underlining the marginal importance that the
Venetians originally attributed to the island, even after they had acquired it.31
The policy of Venice’s commune towards Dandolo’s
acquisitions
Enrico Dandolo’s title, ‘Lord of Three-Eighths of the Roman Empire’, was assumed by
Marino Zeno, who was elected podestà in Constantinople after Dandolo’s death in May
1205. Two months later, messengers from Constantinople arrived in Venice to inform
Ranieri Dandolo, the Vice Doge, of his father’s death and the election of the new podestà.
Although they declared fidelity to Venice and accepted that the incoming Doge could
replace the new podestà,32 the fact that the election had taken place without any approval
from Venice indicates that the Venetians in Constantinople considered themselves inde-
pendent and entitled to inherit Dandolo’s acquisitions. It also suggests that Venice had no
physical or legislative muscle to prevent them from so doing. Pietro Ziani, who was
elected Doge in August 1205, recognized Zeno, who had been one of the commissioners
who drew up the Partition Pact, as podestà. Zeno, however, did not initiate the conquest
of the islands acquired by Dandolo in the Ionian and Aegean seas.33 In 1207, moreover,
the Doge, Pietro Ziani, adopted the title of ‘Lord of Three-Eighths of the Roman Empire’,
leaving Zeno in Constantinople with just the title of podestà.34 To establish Venice’s right
to the acquisitions and titles, the Liber Pactorum 1, dated to the first 20 years or so of the
thirteenth century, indicated Dandolo was acting on Venice’s behalf in negotiating the
Partition Pact: pars domini ducis et communis Venetiae.35 Does this act signal the forma-
tion of Venice’s maritime empire? Not at all—it merely infers that the Commune was
intent on constraining the power of the Venetian colony in Constantinople, which might
have led to the independence of that colony from its metropolis, and the emergence of a
power to rival Venice. Furthermore, since the Commune did not immediately occupy
Dandolo’s territorial acquisitions, it almost lost them. This clearly shows that Venice was
not prepared, at the time, to accomplish such a major imperial project.
The partition of the former Byzantine Empire in 1204 was essentially a paper exer-
cise, and before it could take place the territories to be partitioned had to be conquered.

11. Gertwagen 11
36. Silvano Borsari, Studi sulle colonie veneziane in Romania nel XIII secolo (Naples, 1966),
pp.49-50, 95-6; Tafel and Thomas, I, p.57.
37. Borsari, Studi, pp.28-31; Tafel and Thomas, II, pp.96-100.
38. Madden, Enrico Dandolo, p.200.
39. David Jacoby, ‘La colonization militaire vénitienne de la Crete au XIIIe siècle: Une nouvelle
approche’, in Michel and Allain Ducellier, eds., Le partage du monde: Echanges et colonisa-
tion dans la Méditerranée médiévale (Paris, 1998), pp.299, n. 7-8, 303, 308-11; Gertwagen,
‘Concept of Medieval Ports’, pp.199-201.
But it was not until 1207 that the Doge, Pietro Ziani, initiated the realization of Enrico
Dandolo’s acquisitions. In practical terms, this entailed sending citizens from Venice to
settle in the territories. In the Ionian, efforts were made to occupy the island of Corfu, but
not the fertile islands of Ithaka, Levkas, Keffalinia and Zakynthos to the south—which
emphasises the strategic motives discussed above. In July 1207, Venice assigned Corfu
to 10 Venetian aristocrats, who were obliged to conquer the whole island on behalf of
their home city through military services provided on their own account, thereby saving
the state’s money and manpower. It is difficult, however, to tell how these relationships
might have worked in the long run since, in 1215, Venice lost the island to the Byzantine
Despot of Epirus.36
In July 1207, Venice also occupied Methoni and Corone in the southwestern
Peloponnese, taking them from two of the leaders of the Latin Crusaders who had par-
ticipated in the Fourth Crusade. These leaders, one of whom adopted the title of Prince
of Achaia, had taken advantage of the chaotic situation in the Peloponnese and Venice’s
tardiness in securing its new possessions according to the Partition Pact. After occupying
Methoni and Corone in 1207, the Commune sent official delegates to govern these ter-
ritories. Two years later, Venice consolidated its dominion over the southwestern
Peloponnese with a contract signed in Sapienza Island, southwest of Methoni, with the
Latin Prince of Achaia.37
The occupation of the island of Crete was a slower and much more complicated pro-
cess. The first naval expedition was a failure, as its leader, Ranieri Dandolo, was caught
and died in prison.38 However, in 1211, having driven away the corsair Enrico Pescatore,
the Commune sent the first wave of colonists. This did not prevent Almano da Costa,
another Genoese corsair, from occupying Candia in 1217. After his capture in that same
year, the Venetians had to contend with revolts among the local Byzantine population,
which they only managed to suppress towards the end of the century. Furthermore, colo-
nizing the island by citizens sent from Venice, with two more waves arriving in 1222 and
1233, exceeded Venice’s financial capabilities, and the Commune had to borrow large
sums of money from its merchants.39
Venice started to focus its attention on the island of Euboea in 1215. While it concen-
trated its efforts on the city of Negroponte, which was controlled by three Latin Lords
from Verona, the two places ceded in the Partition Pact to Enrico Dandolo, Oreos in the
north and Karystos in the south, were neglected. In 1215, the emigration of Venetian
nobles to Negroponte commenced, with the Commune initiating territorial expansion
and the purchase of immovable property, thereby creating an autonomous quarter in the

12. 12 The International Journal of Maritime History
40. Jacoby, ‘La consolidation’ de la domination de Venise dans la ville de Négropont (1205-
1390), un aspect de sa politique coloniale’, in Chryssa A. Maltezou and Peter Schreiner, eds.,
Bisanzio, Venezia e il mondo franco-greco (XIII-XV secolo)’Atti del convegno internazionale
(Venezia, 2006), pp.151-81.
41. Jacoby, ‘La consolidation’.
town itself, following agreements signed in November and December 1216 with the
Veronese lords.40
Venice’s loss of the island of Corfu in 1215, along with the problems it encountered
on Crete, where it struggled to retain control, clearly point to the Commune’s difficulties
in implementing the territorial gains that Dandolo had made through diplomacy. One
could, therefore, wonder how the doge Enrico Dandolo, as a private citizen, would have
implemented his territorial achievements in the partition pact of the former Byzantine
Empire in 1204. While the eligibility of his successor as Doge, Ziani, to assume the man-
tle of ‘Lord of Three-Eighths of the Roman Empire’ was questionable. Regarding the
island of Negroponte, the prospects were more promising, as Venice had extended its
hold by the mid-thirteenth century. In 1256, the Commune wrested control of the passage
from the island to the mainland from the Veronese lords, while the Venetians were
granted the privilege to hold for eternity all the property they had gained until then and
that they would gain in the future. In the fourteenth century, Venice’s territory would
expand in the city at the expense of the Veronese lords.41
In the wake of the Byzantine re-conquest of Constantinople in 1261, the Venetians
were expelled in favour of the Genoese, who gained Venice’s territorial and commercial
possessions, thereby ending any pretence the Doge might have to the title of ‘Lord of
Three-Eighths of the Roman Empire’. Indeed, even Crete was promised to the Genoese
once the Venetians were expelled, which stirred the island’s Byzantine population to
revolt against Venice once more. In 1264, Venice informed the Pope that it feared losing
the island and therefore appealed for a Crusade to recover the Latin Empire of Rome,
‘which was and is the strength of the faith of [Catholic] Christianity’ and was naturally
precious to the Pope’s interests. However, this was only a pretext to convince the Pope to
initiate a Crusade to defend Venice’s interests against the Byzantines, which the Venetians
themselves were unable to do, emphasizing that “Crete was the strength and stronghold
of the Latin Empire”. Indeed, the Venetian could not resist the Genoese attack on Chania
in 1266, in which the palace and a fortified tower were destroyed and the defenders and
Venetian inhabitants imprisoned.
Nevertheless, by virtue of the peace treaty signed between Venice and Byzantium in
1268, the Emperor recognized Venice’s hegemony over Crete. Although this annulled his
grant to the Genoese, they continued to support the local rebels. The incompetence of
Venice’s efforts to establish dominion over Crete was conspicuous in the 1270s. As a
result of a mutiny between 1271 and 1279 in eastern Crete, the Venetians were expelled
from that part of the island, and Candia, the capital, was put under siege. Only the
Byzantine Emperor’s renewal in 1275 of his treaty with Venice stopped the Venetians
giving up Crete. Nevertheless, Venice’s collaboration six years later with Charles of
Anjou in a plan to conquer Constantinople, led the local population, supported by both
by the Genoese and the Byzantine Emperor, who in 1295 refused to extend the pacts of

13. Gertwagen 13
42. Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne, pp.149 and n.2, 150-5. For a detailed analysis with the rel-
evant documents and bibliography, see: Gertwagen, ‘Concept of Medieval Ports’, pp.200-1.
43. Jacoby, ‘La consolidation’.
44. Saint-Guillain, ‘Les conquérants’.
45. Saint-Guillain, ‘Les conquérants’, pp.133, 144.
46. Saint-Guillain, ‘Les conquérants’, pp.180-1.
47. Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne, pp.83, 149-50.
1268 and 1275 with Venice, to resume their protests. Only the peace treaty with Genoa
in 1299, signed after Venice’s defeat in Curzula in the Adriatic, partly eased Venice’s
difficulties in controlling Crete from the end of the century. This defeat demonstrated
Venice’s maritime military weakness in relation to its rivals. Furthermore, it was the new
treaty with Byzantium in 1302 that finally gave Venice the opportunity to begin stabiliz-
ing its dominion in the island—almost 100 years after its acquisition by Dandolo.42
The events adduced here clearly negate the validity of the argument regarding the
contribution of the Fourth Crusade to the establishment of a Venetian maritime empire
that included islands in the Ionian and Aegean seas. Even by the end of the thirteenth
century, Venice had not developed the financial and military capabilities to create a mari-
time empire. Venice’s achievements in Negroponte were diplomatic. Indeed, political
circumstances led the Veronese lords to ask for Venetian sovereignty, although the imple-
mentation of this request took time, and it was only after the death of all local lords in
1390 that Venice could annex the whole island. In the meantime, Venice’s grant of citi-
zenship to local inhabitants, which commenced after 1350, was another means to expand
its influence in Negroponte.43
The role of individual Venetians in the Aegean
It was a different story in the Aegean islands. Here, the conquest of the northern
Dodecanese, the Cyclades and the Sporades by individual Venetians took place immedi-
ately after the Fourth Crusade. Analysis of the various Venetian chronicles from the thir-
teenth century, in combination with prosopographical study, points to several waves of
conquests, neither contemporaneously with, nor directly connected to, each other.44 It is
notable that none of the main thirteenth-century Venetian chronicles mention the con-
quest of the islands, which is first discussed by Andrea Dandolo in the early fourteenth
century. In other words, before 1300, these episodes were marginal in Venetian histori-
ography. Furthermore, Andrea Dandolo’s chronicles explicitly deny that the Venice
Commune played a role in these acquisitions.45 Most of the islands had been originally
assigned, according to the 1204 Partition Pact, to the Latin Empire of Constantinople.
LemnosandLesbosinthenorthernDodecanesewereconqueredsoonafterConstantinople
in 1204, and were given directly to Filocalo Navigioso, a Venetian, after his nomination
in 1206 as megaduc by the Latin Emperor of Constantinople.46 With the conquest of the
Dodecanese islands in the 1230s by the Byzantines of Nicea, the Latin Empire of
Constantinople, together with the Navigioso heirs, lost these islands.47
The other Aegean islands had yet to be conquered. Since the Latin Empire did not
have vessels of its own, either for taking or retaining the islands, the Latin Emperor,

14. 14 The International Journal of Maritime History
48. Borsari, Studi sulle colonie veneziane, pp.41 n.82-8, 73-4, 82-3, 111.
49. Saint-Guillain, ‘Les conquérants’, pp.181-5, 192, 201-2, 220.
50. Wolff, ‘New Document’, p.550.
51. Jacoby, ‘La consolidation’, p.181.
52. Saint-Guillain, ‘Les conquérants’, pp.192-7.
53. Madden, Enrico Dandolo, pp.198-9.
based in Constantinople, had to draw on the maritime resources of individual Venetians
who had participated in the Fourth Crusade. These volunteers held the islands they had
conquered as feudal assets of the Latin Empire. Most conspicuous among these Venetians
were Andrea and Germia Ghisi, who conquered the islands of Tinos and Mykonos in the
northeast Cyclades and the islands of Skyros, Skopelos and Skiathos in the northern
Sporades in 1207. They lost the Sporades after the Byzantine re-conquest of
Constantinople in 1261.48 In 1213 or 1214, Marco Sanudo, who had taken part in the
Fourth Crusade and who assisted the podestà in Constantinople, conquered many islands
of the Cyclades. Andrea Dandolo’s chronicle attributed to Sanudo the creation of a
Duchy of the Cyclades, although this is not mentioned in the thirteenth-century histori-
ography. When summoned by the Duke of Crete to the island in 1212 to suppress a
Byzantine popular revolt, Sanudo was described as hailing from the Aegean but not as a
duke. That did not prevent him, or any other Venetian individuals who possessed island
territory, from conducting business in Venice. Marco Sanudo himself died in that city in
1227.49
It is evident that following the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, individual Venetians
took advantage of the maritime incompetence of the Latin (or Crusader) Empire of
Constantinople to establish themselves in the Aegean without the sanction of their metro-
politan Commune, albeit at their own expense. Anticipating such separatist tendencies,
yet acknowledging his inability to prevent it, Pietro Ziani, the newly elected Doge, stipu-
lated that, whatever these individuals captured, was to be sold or bequeathed only to
Venetians. These territories, however, would remain part of the Latin Empire,50 and it is
uncertain as to how loyal these powerful, self-reliant Venetian citizens were to their
metropolis. Bartolomeo Ghisi III, for example, who by matrimonial relationships with the
Veronese lords of Negroponte controlled a third of the island, opposed Venice as he tried
to assume the inheritance of the other two-thirds. Only after his death in 1390 did Venice
succeed in annexing the whole island, together with Tinos and Mykonos, the two other
islands that had belonged to the Ghisi family since 1207.51 Furthermore, these strong
Venetian island lords took territories that belonged directly to Venice itself. Very instruc-
tive is the episode in Crete in 1212 when Marco Sanudo offered to help suppress the
mutiny of the Byzantine population, but only when he was promised lands on the island
by the Venetian duke in Crete once the rebellions had ceased. When the Duke refused to
keep his word, Sanudo attacked and imprisoned him after having conquered Candia, the
Venetian capital of the island. Only after Sanudo had been compensated in other ways did
these two leaders settle their quarrels.52 The fact that the Duke offered Venetian territories
in return for military help, without asking permission of the metropolis, infers that Venice
lacked the capacity to control its delegates. This whole episode, aligned to the general
problems experienced by the Venetian authorities in exerting their hold on Crete, clearly

15. Gertwagen 15
54. Benjamin Arbel, ‘Colonie d’oltremare’, in Alberto Tenenti and Ugo Tucci, eds., Storia di
Venezia, V: Venezia Rinascimentale (Roma, 1996), pp.946-85; Marina Koumanedi, ‘The
Latins in theAegean after 1204: Interdependence and Interwoven Interest’, inAngeliki Laiou,
ed., Urbs Capta: The Fourth Crusade and its Consequences (Paris, 2005), pp.247-68.
55. Saint-Guillain, ‘Les conquérants’, p.172 and n.116; Using Barbaro, many historians wrongly attrib-
uted to Sanudo the creation of the Duchy of Naxos: see Lane, Venice, pp.42-3. Koumanedi, ‘Latins
in the Aegean after 1204’, p.248 n.3, comments in this respect: ‘Although the chronicle of Andrea
Dandolo is the earliest source that refers to the conquest of the islands, Daniele Barbaro’s unpub-
lished chronicle is considered more reliable’. The author, however, does not explain the reason
behind this statement. It should be noted that sixteenth-century documents, whose language resem-
bles modern Italian, are much easier to read, decode and understand than those of the thirteenth,
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, which are written in Latin or in early Venetian dialect.
56. Peter Charanis, ‘Piracy in theAegean during the reign of Michael VIII Palaeologus’, Annuaire
de l’Institute de Philologie et d’histoire orientales et slaves, 10 (1950), p.136.
undermines the argument propounded by Madden that this island was the foundation of
Venice’s maritime Empire from the beginning of the colonization process.53
Sanudo himself became completely independent from his obligations as vassal to the Latin
EmperorofConstantinopleafterthere-conquestoftheEmpirebytheByzantinesin1261.Inthe
fifteenth century, long after his death, Venice, in the face of the Ottoman advance, endowed the
islands of the ‘Duchy of Naxos’, with the island of Santorini, north of Crete, with protectorate.
This arrangement meant that whatever agreements Venice reached with the Ottomans would
include these Islands, without the need to annex them. After negotiations with the Ottomans,
Venice won the Sultan’s consent for this move. These islands, along with the islands of Tinos,
Mikonos,Andros and Negroponte to the northeast, the Cyclades might have served as an east-
ernbarrieragainsttheadvanceoftheOttomansintothecentralandwesternAegean.Neglecting,
however, their agreement with the Venetians, the Ottomans raided the islands, before taking
them in 1517.54 By this time, Venice had lost many of its islands to the Ottomans, including
Negroponte in 1470 and Methoni and Coroni in 1500. Frustrated by the declining status of
Venice in the early 1500s, Daniele Barbaro, a Venetian historian of the time, depicted Venice’s
Stato da Mar as having a long and glorious past, a case based on later documents taken out of
their historical context.Thus, according to Barbaro’s chronicle, Marco Sanudo had been author-
ized by the Doge, Enrico Dandolo, to conquer the central Aegean and create the Duchy of the
Cyclades,withNaxosasitscapital,in1205.Relyingonthissixteenth-centuryhistorian,modern
historiography has wrongly attributed to Marco Sanudo the creation of this Duchy.55
Further evidence for the independence of the Venetian islands in the Aegean is pro-
vided by the two treaties that Michael Palaeologus, the Byzantine Emperor, concluded
with the Venetians in 1265 and 1268, four and seven years, respectively, after the
Byzantine re-conquest of Constantinople.According to these, Venice agreed to arrest and
punish pirates operating in the Aegean against Byzantine shipping, but not those based
in the Aegean islands, since these were not under Venetian jurisdiction.56
Financial constraints and Genoese rivalry
In the early thirteenth century, two significant, intertwined events had long-term ramifi-
cations for Venice’s role as a Mediterranean power. The first was the unplanned shift

16. 16 The International Journal of Maritime History
57. Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant, p.65.
58. Madden, ‘Food’, pp.213-21.
59. Lane, Venice, pp.26, 37; Madden, Enrico Dandolo, pp.111-2.
Fourth Crusade from Egypt to Constantinople and the ensuing conquest of the Byzantine
capital (1202–1204), while the second was the Partition Pact agreed in 1204 between the
Venetian Doge, Enrico Dandolo, and the Crusaders regarding the division of the former
Byzantine Empire (Romania). According to the traditional view, Venice was instrumen-
tal in the deviation of the Crusade from Egypt to Constantinople, while the Pact endowed
Dandolo with territorial rights over islands in the Ionian and Aegean seas, which formed
the basis of Venice’s maritime empire, the Stato da Mar.
At face value, Dandolo’s territorial achievements, including the purchase of the island
of Crete, were, indeed, striking considering the heavy blows, synthesized by Crouzet-
Pavan,57 which Venice had suffered in the late twelfth century in the Adriatic, the Eastern
Mediterranean and Constantinople. Dandolo, however, acted as a private man. One can
safely argue that the absence in the official documents of the Commune’s reaction to
Dandolo’s lack of consultation with the Venetian Maggior Consilio shows that Venice
acknowledged his deeds were those of a private individual, and that the Commune had
no interest at the time in the possession of the Ionian and Aegean islands. It also shows
that in no way did Venice secretly collaborate or support Dandolo. Undoubtedly, creating
a maritime empire would have required a massive manpower and heavy financial
resources that would have been documented. If this was evident in the problematic colo-
nization of Crete, it is abundantly clear in the following sequence of events in the eastern
Adriatic, which show that Venice could not afford such an enterprise.
In the year 1000, the Doge took over Zara and most of the coast of Dalmatia to
safeguard Venetian merchant ships against the depredations of local pirates. Due to his
success, the Doge added the title of Duke of Dalmatia to his name. Nevertheless, in
practice Venice could not occupy the coastal region and therefore the Dalmatian cities
only vaguely recognized Venetian over-lordship. Indeed, for much of the next millen-
nium, Dalmatia, mainly Zara, railed against Venice, usually supported by the
Hungarians, the Pisans and the Genoese. Both Zara and Hungary were invariably keen
to challenge Venice’s power in the Adriatic, and consequently the Venetian Doge
barely deserved the title Duke of Dalmatia that he refused to relinquish, but the prepa-
ration of the fleet for the Fourth Crusade presented the Venetians with an opportunity
to force the issue. This was an expensive exercise that entailed the recruitment of pri-
vate vessels owned by Venetian merchants, the construction of new galleys, and the
assembly of mariners and provisions; it was a formidable task that became a heavy
burden, both on Venice and its citizens. Venice had to suspend overseas commerce for
more than a year, which caused losses to the Commune’s merchants. In fact, the
Crusader host’s heavy indebtedness to Venice and the circumstantial occasion to solve
the problem, as it was then believed, was the major reason why the Crusade was devi-
ated to Constantinople, rather than going to its original target, Egypt, potentially a
lucrative prize.58 It was also the reason why, in 1202, the Doge was able to compel the
Crusaders to assist the Venetians in regaining control over Zara,59 a task that hitherto
the Venetians could not have accomplished by themselves.

17. Gertwagen 17
60. Walter Haberstrumpf, ‘I Tocco, Duchi di Leucade, e il Principato D’Acaia (secili XIV-XVI),’
in Chryssa Maltezou and Gherardo Ortalli, eds., Venezia e le isole Ionie, (Venezia, 2005),
pp.63-4.
However, the conquest of Constantinople, the Partition Pact and the death of Enrico
Dandolo a few months later shuffled the cards and compelled Venice to face unprece-
dented territorial and political realities. Eventually, the Commune had to decide whether
to acknowledge the separatism of the Venetian community in Constantinople that inher-
ited Dandolo’s territorial achievements, including various islands in the Ionian and
Aegean seas, or to subordinate this ex-patriate group and its territorial assets. As this
paper shows, it took the newly elected Doge almost two years, from 1205 to 1207, to
implement the second option. Although there are no documents relating to discussions in
Venice on the subject, it is likely that the Commune reached the conclusion that if it did
not act, the Venetians in Constantinople might become an independent community,
which could in the long run overshadow Venice itself.
The territories acquired by Dandolo, which remained under the control of the
Commune of Venice at the end of the thirteenth century, included Methoni, in the south-
west Peloponnese, and Crete, in the southwest Aegean. Venice had had to fight for more
than 90 years to remove foreign polities from Crete, a task that was successfully achieved
when peace treaties were concluded with Genoa in 1299 and Byzantium in 1302. In
1215, Venice lost the island of Corfu, but in the same year began devoting resources to
the establishment of an independent quarter in the town of Negroponte, whereas on the
Island itself it lost Karystos, in the southwest, and Oreos, in the north. The only new ter-
ritorial gain was Corone, which was ‘incidentally’ conquered in 1207, along with
Methoni. In the Aegean, moreover, there were islands belonging to Venetian citizens that
were not subordinated to Venice but to the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. After the
re-conquest of Constantinople by the Byzantines in 1261, these became completely inde-
pendent, a development that Venice had to acknowledge. Accordingly, it is misleading to
talk about a Venetian Empire in the thirteenth century. Indeed, until the second half of the
fourteenth century, Venice’s efforts were expended in retaining its existing territories,
while seizing diplomatic opportunities to make gains, as in the case of Negroponte.
There, having extended its quarter in the town during the thirteenth century, Venice man-
aged to annex the whole island in 1390.
In the Ionian Sea, Venice had another success, when in 1361 it accepted the appeal of
Carlo Tocco, the Florentine Senior of the Islands of Ithaka, Levkas, Keffalinia and
Zakynthos, and endowed him with Venetian citizenship.60 For Venice, the loyalty of this
Senior was useful both economically, considering the richness of the islands, but no less
strategically. During the third war with Genoa (1352–1355), the Hungarians collaborated
with the Genoese. At the end of this conflict, the old Venetian–Hungarian contest over
Dalmatia and Ragusa resumed. Supported by the Genoese, the Hungarians signed the
Pact of Zara in 1358, which forced Venice to relinquish Dalmatia to Hungary. The Pact
humiliated Venice and weakened its position as a maritime power. Worse, Ragusa and
Dalmatia became advanced stations for the Genoese naval fleet, as well as transhipment
ports for the Black Sea commodities destined for Hungary and Dalmatia along the rivers
and overland. Thus, Venice’s role as a solitary emporium in the Adriatic for an

18. 18 The International Journal of Maritime History
61. Gertwagen, ‘Contribution of Venice’s Colonies’, p.115.
62. Ruthy Gertwagen, ‘Venice, Genoa and the Fights over the Island of Tenedos (late Fourteenth
and early Fifteenth Century),’ in Ruthy Gertwagen and Jean-Claude Hocquet, eds., Venice
and the Mediterranean/Venezia e il Mediterraneo, a special volume of Studi Veneziani, 67
(2013), pp.329-56.
international trade, which was at the core of its existence, was challenged by Genoa, its
traditional rival, at the threshold to the city. Furthermore, Venice could no longer claim
that the Adriatic was a Venetian Gulf. According citizenship to the Senior of Ithaka,
Levkas, Keffalinia and Zakynthos prevented Genoa from achieving a similar position in
the Ionian, which the Genoese tried to accomplish 20 years later. Bearing in mind that
Venice as a Commune had failed to occupy these Ionian islands, even though Enrico
Dandolo had ‘gained’ them in the Partition Pact of 1204, awarding citizenship to Carlo
Tocco might be considered a kind of a victory.61
From the 1370s, however, Venice changed tactics and initiated an aggressive policy
that entailed direct possession of islands in the Aegean and Ionian seas. The trigger was
the ‘upgraded’ conflict against Genoa over the control of the sea lanes leading to the
northeastern Mediterranean, Constantinople and the Black Sea, which focused on the
island of Tenedos in the northeastern Aegean (see Figure 2). In 1376, the Byzantine
Emperor ceded the island to the Venetians, after more than 20 years of negotiations. This
island did not have any economic value, but was strategically significant. Due to the dif-
ficult navigation conditions in the northeastern Aegean, and the sailing limitations of
contemporary merchant and naval vessels, Tenedos was an obligatory port of call on the
way to and from the Dardanelles, Constantinople and the Black Sea. For the Venetians,
holding the island was crucial, due to their dispositions in the northeastern Aegean,
where the island of Negroponte was their last port of call. For Genoa, whose citizens held
the islands of Lesbos and Chios, the only reason to occupy Tenedos would have been to
thwart the Venetians and jeopardize their shipping lanes. The crisis peaked in the fourth
war between the two powers, the war of Tenedos/Chioggia (1379–1381). On this occa-
sion, Hungary fully collaborated with Genoa in besieging Chioggia, Venice’s head port
in the Adriatic, while Dalmatia and Ragusa provided bases for the Genoese naval fleet.
According to the Pact of Torino that ended the war in 1381, Venice was forced to hand
over the island of Tenedos to a third party. Given that Venice had legally possessed the
island, and Genoa had failed at Chioggia, the Pact represented a diplomatic victory for
Genoa. From the mid-thirteenth century, Genoa, through its Hungarian and Dalmatian
allies, had challenged Venice in the Adriatic, and therefore losing Tenedos would have
inflicted a death blow on Venice’s trade in the northeastern Mediterranean, and with it,
Venice’s economic and political decay, leading possibly to a complete collapse. The arro-
gant declaration in January 1382 made by the Genoese delegate, Benedetto della Torre, to
the Venetian governor of the island, Mudazzo, that Genoa would occupy it as soon as the
Venetians departed, sharpened Venice’s fears. In order to prevent itself from retreating into
oblivion by losing the international trade with the northeastern Mediterranean, Venice
practiced every scheming tactic to keep Tenedos, a task it successfully managed to achieve,
to the great frustration of Genoa. In fact, Venice kept the island until its fall to the Ottomans
in 1453. This situation led Genoa to initiate efforts to blockade Venetian trade to the eastern
Mediterranean by occupying strategic places in the Ionian Sea, close to the Adriatic.62

19. Gertwagen 19
63. Gertwagen, ‘Island of Corfu’, pp.181-210.
64. Thekla Sansaridou-Hendrickx, ‘The World View of the Anonymous Author of the Greek
Chronicle of the Tocco (14th and 15th Centuries)’, Unpublished PhD thesis, Rand Afrikaans
University, pp.21-2.
65. Gertwagen, ‘Contribution of Venice’s Colonies’, pp.113-30; Gertwagen, ‘Island of Corfu,
pp.206-7.
The ‘first round’ in this contest between Venice and Genoa started in 1382 over the
Island of Corfu and continued in 1384–1385 with Zonchio, north to Methoni in the
southwestern Peloponnese. This ‘round’ended with both polities’failing to take Zonchio.
On the other hand, Venice gained a substantial success in Corfu, where in 1386 it man-
aged to conquer, with the help from some of the local population, the fortified town of
Corfu and the Castle of Cassiopo, in the northeast of the island. Having, by so doing,
practiced a ‘snapping tactic’, in early 1403 Venice legally acquired the island from its
formal owner, the Angevines of Naples. The importance of Corfu was mainly strategic.
Excepting salt production, in terms of agriculture, the island’s contribution was minimal
until at least 1500. In 1386, Venice also conquered the Castle of Buthrinto and Sajata, on
the Albanian coast, opposite Corfu. By holding these places, Venice further broadened its
defensive front in Albania and ensured control of the Corfu Channel, a sea lane that con-
nected the Adriatic with the western and eastern Mediterranean. As a by-product, this
enabled the Venetians to control a great part of the local wheat supply in Albania. Both
Buthrinto and Sajata were put under the direct charge of the Venetian bailo of Corfu.63
This move caused an ‘unexpected’problem in the Ionian with Carlo Tocco, the Senior
of Ithaka, Levkas, Keffalinia and Zakynthos, who had become a citizen of Venice in
1382. His family had had long ties with the Angevine dynasty, the Taranto branch of
which owned the island of Corfu and had appointed Carlo Tocco’s grandfather as its
delegate to the town of Corfu. Carlo’s own father was appointed by theAngevins as baiu-
lus of the aforementioned islands, which Carlo inherited from him. With the death of the
Angevine prince of Taranto, Corfu passed to the hands of Karlo III of Anjou of Naples,
who was a Genoese ally and had collaborated with them in the siege of Chioggia in 1379.
From Karlo III, Venice eventually ‘snapped’away the town of Corfu and the northern tip
of the Island. By displaying loyalty to his supreme lord, Karlo III, Carlo Tocco, in spite
of his Venetian citizenship, provided the Genoese with a naval base. For Genoa, this alli-
ance compensated for the failure to purchase Corfu and Zonchio, since the Islands of
Ithaka, Levkas, Keffalinia and Zakynthos would have allowed the Genoese to control the
sea lane between Corfu and Methoni, thereby blocking Venice’s exit from the Adriatic to
the eastern Mediterranean. Only economic and commercial pressure from Venice forced
Tocco in 1395 to sever his alliance with Genoa,64 which handed Venice a diplomatic vic-
tory, however shaky and feeble. On the other hand, after the purchase of Corfu in 1403,
Venice managed in the same year to foil Genoese efforts to occupy Zonchio/Navarino,
before acquiring this important site in the southwest Peloponnese in 1423.65
The advent of Venice’s maritime empire
It was only from the 1380s, as a result of the War of Tenedos/Chioggia, that Venice
adopted a positive approach to the creation of a maritime empire. However, the aims of

20. 20 The International Journal of Maritime History
66. Camillo Manfroni, ‘La crisi della marina militare di Venezia dopo la guerra di Chioggia’, Atti
del Reale Istituto di Scienze, Lettera ed Arte, 69, n. 2 (1910), pp.983-99; Mueller, Renato.
C. ‘Effetti della guerra di Chioggia (1378-1381) sulla vita economica e sociale di Venezia,
Ateneo Veneto, 19 (1981), pp.27-41; Gertwagen, ‘Contribution of Venice’s Colonies’, p.114.
67. For a detailed analysis of Venice’s annexation policy motivated by strategic defensive consid-
erations, see Gertwagen, ‘Contribution of Venice’s Colonies’, pp.124-41. This contrasts with
the one-sided view of O’Connell and the economic history school; see note 5 above.
68. Gertwagen, ‘Contribution of Venice’s Colonies’, p.143.
this policy were strategic and defensive. It should also be borne in mind that Venice suf-
fered a severe monetary crisis due to this war, which affected the size and maintenance
of the Venetian permanent naval force, the fleet of the Adriatic. Venice found it difficult
to construct galleys and other battleships, and to pay for the seamen.66 One can compare
this situation to the financial crisis suffered by Venice on the morrow of the Fourth
Crusade. Furthermore, Venice was aware that ignoring the Pact of Torino raised two
major problems. One was the hostile criticism of the foreign powers involved as arbitra-
tors. The second was giving Genoa a casus belli. However, in contrast to the Fourth
Crusade and its unplanned aftermath, in the late fourteenth century Venice was con-
sciously ready to take big risks to hold on to illegally acquired territories, as well as to
take over new ones. For Venice, the key was ensuring its survival as an international
emporium for the Far Eastern and eastern Mediterranean commodities destined for west-
ern and southern European markets—a role that was perpetually threatened by Genoa, its
hereditary enemy. Venice’s efforts proved successful. In fact, with the Islands of Corfu,
and Zonchio, Methoni and Corone in southwest Peloponnese, as well as Carlo Tocco’s
forced obedience, Venice achieved for the first time full control over the Ionian Sea and
the sea lanes that crossed it from both basins of the Mediterranean to and from the
Adriatic.67 Only from the third decade of the fifteenth century, starting with Thessaloniki
in 1423, did Venice initiate an annexation policy to enhance its defensive capabilities in
the face of the Ottoman threat. This, however, is a subject for another paper.68
Author biography
Ruthy Gertwagen is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine and Medieval Maritime History and Marine
Archaeology at Haifa University and at Oranim Academci College, Israel. Her specialist research
interests, on which she has published extensively, are: Venice and its maritime empire; Byzantine
and medieval ports and port towns; nautical technology; shipping, trade and cartography; as well
as marine environmental and ecological history. She has recently edited (with Jean Claude
Hocquet) Venice and the Mediterranean, a special volume in Studi Veneziani, LXVII (2013),
which includes a paper of her own: ‘Venice and Genoa and the Fights over the Island of Tenedos
(fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries)’.