132 chapter three
number of trading vessels was also reduced to the symbolic number of
two per year for the same period.312
certainly, genoa did not waste the opportunity to draw breath and con-
solidate its position in the Black sea. once the grace period had expired
in 1313, it controlled naval bases at three strategic points around the sea:
pera,313 caffa314 and trebizond.315
these conditions alone explain why the venetians declined the ilkhan
Öljeitü’s generous offer of 1305 allowing them to trade in persia: clauses
in the treaty of milan outright forbade them any Black sea access to the
mongol routes. alexios ii made similar overtures, and with the same
result,316 all the more understandably when we consider that by 1304 he
knew how exposed trebizond was to genoese aggression, to which he
hoped the venetians would act as a counterweight.
the serenissima did not stick to the treaty of 1299 from any formal
scruples but because the existing balance of power in the Black sea was so
entirely unfavourable317 that the republic had to proceed with the greatest
caution.318 significant in this regard is the hesitation they showed even
after the thirteen years had elapsed: the Liber officiorum, the official reg-
ister of the republic’s officials and agents, does not mention them in the
Black sea at all until 1319.319
312 Because it is not clearly represented in the sources, the exact contents of the peace
of milan are hard to judge. this has led to diametrically opposed interpretations; the treaty
has been seen as a “white peace,” whereby venice made clear gains over the pre-war situ-
ation and drew equal with genoa, or as quite the opposite, as an acknowledgement that
the serenessima had been beaten and outclassed and that the genoese had the victory in
the Black sea. the most complete and systematic analysis of the question in the specialist
literature is that of papacostea, “gênes,” who reaches the latter conclusion (pp. 233–235).
it is the only study which fully sets out the political and commercial state of affairs in the
Black sea basin in the first two decades of the fourteenth century.
313 emperor andronikos ii granted them this quarter of constantinople, also known as
galata, in 1303, and a year later also gave them the right to fortify their houses. they then
abused this right to the extent that they made their sector of the Byzantine capital an
autonomous and impregnable district (cf. Balard, Romanie, i, pp. 182 ff.).
314 see chapter 4.2.1, 4.2.4.
315 see pp. 118, 124 ff.
316 cf. Karpov, Impero, pp. 75–77.
317 they had no holdings anywhere on the Black sea, making them uncommonly vul-
nerable to genoese attack from any of the three naval bases mentioned (cf. ibid., p. 75).
318 the presence of a few venetian ships which sailed for the Black sea on the senate’s
orders in 1303, 1306 and 1312 could not have breached the terms set down at milan (Berin-
dei, o’riordan, “venise,” p. 246).
319 venetian participation in Black sea trade is mentioned in 1315, 1317 and 1319, but
is noticeably sparser than their engagement in the following period (cf. Karpov, Impero,
p. 74, ciocîltan, “Bürgerkrieg”).