venice and its surroundings 31
been the dominium di terra was therefore superficial for a long time inas-
much as the value of judgment surfaced: the Venetians should not have
forgotten this “allegory of Homer, who made fortune the daughter of the
sea.”14 A radical reversal of perspective was therefore necessary so that the
continental horizons could finally emerge as a historiographic theme.15
In the Venetian system of representations, the lagoons were the foun-
dation of independence as well as, in a second set of remarks, the future
power of the city. These waters soon opened themselves, in effect, to
other domains: the sheltered lagoons allowed for maritime adventure.
If, naturally, the Venetians ignored the land, they got the sea in return.
And when they were not navigating the waters of the lagoon or the sea,
they simply travelled up the rivers which flowed into the basin, allow-
ing them to broaden the horizons of their early trade. Undoubtedly the
lagoon community, deprived of any agricultural territory, did not have
any other choice but to navigate and trade to ensure its survival. But this
need, in the interpretation of the chronicles, becomes the fulfillment of
a destiny, the realization of a design, and thus quickly and profoundly
marked historiographic decisions, otherwise rather keen, concerning the
city. For the Venetians, as well as for their past (or recent) historians, the
prefect Cassiodorus had already said everything:16 “Here, no scythe nor
any other instrument to cultivate the land, but boats and cylinders used
for the production of raw salt.” The Venetians were not familiar with the
plow and yet already they were sailing. A few centuries later, the precari-
ous shelter of rushes of the earlier centuries had been transformed into
a city of stones. The Venetians were rich, and they still did not know the
plow: they sailed. This historiographic mold was quite long-lived. Here
are some lines from Marc’Antonio Sabellico (c.1436–1506): “The new city
grew thanks to all things maritime; even before the Lombard invasion, it
quickly cut down the marauders of the seas.”17 Or the official history of
Paolo Morosini: “Against the Narentins, the Dalmatians, the Goths, the
14 Daru, Histoire de la république, 2:282.
15 Crouzet-Pavan, Venise triomphante, pp. 139–46.
16 Cassiodore was born c.470–80 and died c.570–75. This high functionary was charged
with organizing, just prior to the Byzantine attack against Ostrogoth Italy, the supplying of
Ravenna. He thus negotiates, in a letter dating from 537–38, with the Venetian “maritime
tribunes” the shipping of merchandise to Ravenna by Venetian ships: A. J. Fridh, ed., Cor-
pus Christianorum, series latina XCVI, Magni Aurelii Cassiodori Senatoris opera, Variorum,
Libri XII (Turnhout, 1973), pp. 491–92.
17 Marc’Antonio Sabellico, Degl’ istorici delle cose veneziane i quali hanno scritto per pub-
blico decreto, tomo primo che comprende le istorie veneziane latinamente scritte da Marcan-
tonio Coccio Sabellico (Venice, 1718), pp. 15–21.