venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 199
not only by Venice’s return to Dalmatia in the early 15th century but also,
in later centuries, by its occupation of Cyprus Veglia, Zante, the Apulian
towns, Cephalonia, Santa Maura, the Morea, and Aegina as well as its
expansion in Istria and the Nuovo and Nuovissimo Acquisto in Dalmatia
and Albania. Nevertheless, the Republic’s main military preoccupations,
particularly from the 16th century onward, were defensive in character,
and it is to the problems of defense that we shall therefore turn our
attention.
The Venetian system of defense reflects a basic conviction that the
principal threat to Venetian rule of its overseas dominions was from the
big powers that contended with Venice over hegemony in the area, as well
as from pirates and corsairs who constituted a continuous menace. This
concept seems to have been justified. We shall see that during the period
under discussion there were not a few manifestations of disorder in the
overseas dominions, yet the number of virtual anti-Venetian insurrections
was small and local in character, and only on few occasions was an inter-
vention of a big military force necessary to restore public order.
Venice’s chief enemy on the maritime front was the Ottoman Empire,
with whom, between 1396 and 1718, the Republic had to engage in 11 mili-
tary conflicts, all of them somehow related to the stato da mar (from 1423
all of them directly related to it).280 We shall mention them here briefly,
without specifying the resulting territorial changes. In 1396 Venice was
part of the coalition that participated in the Crusade of Nicopolis, which
ended disastrously on the Christian side. Between 1415 and 1419, Venice
was at war with the Ottoman sultan and even won an impressive victory
over the Ottoman navy at Gallipoli (1416). Between 1423 and 1430, the two
powers were at war again following Venice’s occupation of Thessalonica.
In 1453, Venice was involved in the defense of Constantinople against the
Ottoman attack on the Byzantine capital. The following wars with the
Ottomans took place between 1463 and 1479, between 1499 and 1503, from
1537 to 1540, between 1570 and 1573 (the War of Cyprus), between 1645 and
1669 (the Cretan War), between 1684 and 1699 (the War of Morea), and
finally, between 1715 and 1718.
During the 15th century, the Republic also had to cope with the ambi-
tions of Hungary (in the first half of the century and again in 1480). Two
Genoese attempts to take Corfu in 1403 and in 1432 were repelled with
280 The Veneto-Ottoman wars are often referred to by ordinary numbers that ignore
the first four conflicts. I have avoided using this misleading custom.