venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 225
An Imperial Economy
No less important was the contribution to the Venetian economy of
the various economic activities carried out in the overseas dominions,
through which the Venetians received raw material for their industries
and manufactories, comestibles for daily consumption, building materials
for construction, profits derived from maritime transport, and also fiscal
revenues. To a certain extent, the colonies were also markets for Venetian
industries and manufactories.
Venetian shipping and maritime trade was greatly dependent on the
colonies. The ability to anchor in a Venetian port, where one could find a
haven free from corsairs and enemy warships, up-to-date information on
conditions along the route, technical support and maintenance services,
water and provisions for human beings and animals on board, and, more
generally, a milieu that was culturally familiar and supportive, offered great
advantages to Venetian merchantmen and their crews. But the colonies
were not merely maritime stations along the routes to other destinations.
Several of them were important emporia that linked the Venetian trading
network to regional trade routes and networks, and there was hardly any
colony that did not contribute something of its own to Venice’s system of
maritime trade.
The Istrian ports, particularly Pola and Parenzo, were essential stations
for ships sailing from Venice to various destinations in the Adriatic and
beyond, to complete the crew, or to wait for other vessels in order to sail
in convoy. Ships that returned to Venice stopped there too, waiting for
permission from the public health officers to procede to Venice, to engage
a local pilot for entering into the lagoon, and to inform agents in Ven-
ice about their cargo.399 But Istria also had its salt pans, its shipbuilding
industry, where the famous flat-bottomed marani were built, and its ports
served as bases for independent shipping and fishing activity within the
Adriatic Sea.400 Furthermore, the province was a major supplier of timber
for the Venetian arsenal, firewood, stones (pietra d’Istria) for urban con-
struction and dikes, salt, salted fish, olive oil, wine, wax, and leather.401
399 E.g., Sanudo, I diarii, 2:126, 161, 232–33, 470; ibid., 5:69, 938; ibid., 27:6.
400 Lane, “Venetian Shipping” 8; idem, Navires, pp. 50n, 98; Ivetic, L’Istria moderna,
pp. 88–89. See also Egido Evetic, “La flotta da pesca e da commercio dell’Istria veneta nel
1746,” Archivio veneto 144 (1995), 145–56.
401 Ivetic, L’Istria moderna, pp. 77–78, 102, 136; Ivetic, Oltremare, pp. 133–169, 204;
Raffaello Vergani, “Legname per l’arsenale: I boschi “banditi” nella Repubblica di Venezia,
secoli XV–XVII,” in Simonetta Cavaciocchi, ed., Ricchezza del mare richezza dal mare.