venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 221
salt pans of Sebenico, Pago, and Trau;372 in the Albanian territories of
Durazzo and Cattaro;373 in the Ionian Islands of Corfu, Zante, Cephalonia,
and Santa Maura;374 in Brindisi;375 on Crete, in the gulf of Suda and at
Spinalonga;376 on Cyprus, in the salt-pans of St. Lazarus, which were of
enormous economic importance;377 in the Peloponnese, in the salt-pans
of Napoli di Romania at Thermissi and in those of Raminizza, in Achaia
(the latter exploited during the Venetian domination of Morea);378 and
in the territory of Lepanto.379 Great quantities were sent to Venice in the
hulls of merchant ships to the salt entrepôts on the Zattere, wherefrom
they were distributed to consumers in and outside the big city.
On the basis of data provided by Sanudo, Jean-Claude Hocquet cal-
culated that Venice’s revenues derived from the marketing of salt in the
1460s amounted to about 17 per cent of the total revenues of the Venetian
state. These revenues increased considerably in the following centuries.
In 1621, the revenues of the salt office reached 300,191 ducats, and they
continued to rise until the 1630s.380 Venice was continuously developing
its colonial salt-pans and caring for their maintenance.381
In 1521–22, about one-third of the yearly income of the Venetian salt
office (which then amounted to about 160,000 ducats) was derived from
the sale of Cypriot salt, but during later years these revenues must have
been considerably higher.382 The transportation of Cypriot salt was also used
as part of a system of subsidies for the construction of big merchantmen
372 Ibid., pp. 83–88; Tomislav Raukar, “Venezia, il sale e la struttura economica e sociale
della Dalmazia nei XV e XVI secolo,” in Antonio Di Vittorio, ed., Sale e saline nell’Adriatico
(Naples, 1981), pp. 145–56; Hocquet, “Fiscalité,” pp. 289–312; Paci, La ‘Scala’ di Spalato, p. 61.
373 Hocquet, Le sel, 1:88. Cattaro’s salt pans, however, were placed under Ottoman
juristdiction in 1555.
374 Lunzi, Della condizione, pp. 428–29; Gerassimos Pagratis, “Οι αλυκές της Κέρκυρας
στην περίοδο της βενετικής κυριαρχίας,” in Thanasis Kalafatis and Theodora Petanidou,
eds., Ανάπλαση και αξιοποίηση των αλυκών Επτανύσου (Κέρκυρας, Λευκάδας και Ζακύνθου).
Διεπιστημονικό Συνέδριο, Λευκάδα, 30 Σεπτέμβρίου—3 Οκτωβρίου 1999 (Athens, 2003), pp. 45–50;
Kolyvà, “Le saline di Zante nel XVI secolo. Aspetti produttivi e gestionali,” in Massimo
Costantini, ed., Il Mediterraneo centro-orientale tra vecchie e nuove egemonie (Rome, 1998),
pp. 71–98; On the salt pans of Cephalonia, see Kolyvà, “Le saline di Zante,” p. 74 n. 14.
375 Cassandro, “Contributo alla storia,” pp. 43–44.
376 Hocquet, Le sel, 1:127.
377 Ibid., 2:227–46.
378 Ibid., 1:91–92; Ranke, “Die Venezianer in Morea,” p. 323.
379 Oliver Jens Schmitt, “Geschichte Lepantos unter der Venezianherrschaft,” Südost-
Forschungen 56 (1997), 101.
380 Hocquet, Le sel, 2:386–88.
381 Hocquet, Le sel, 1:113–16; Kolyvà, “Le saline di Zante”; Pagratis, “Οι αλικές της
Κέρκυρας.”
382 Hocquet, Le sel, 2:387.