The real wealth of Venice, the wealth which enabled her to adorn the Capital and retain her provinces, depended upon the sea. It was derived from her traffic as a great emporium and mart of exchange fed by a large mercantile marine. The State built the ships and let them out to the highest bidder at auction. Every year six fleets were organised and despatched: (1) to the Black Sea, (2) to Greece and Constantinople, (3) to the Syrian ports, (4) to Egypt, (5) to Barbary and the north coast of Africa, (6) to England and Flanders. The route and general instructions for each fleet (muda) were carefully discussed in the Senate. Every officer was bound by oath to observe these instructions and to maintain on all occasions the honour of the Republic. The government prescribed the number of the crew for each ship, the size of the anchors, quality of rope, etc. A compulsory load-line was established. New vessels were allowed to load above the line for the first three years, but to a diminishing extent each year. The ships were all built upon government measurements for two reasons; first, because ships of identical build would behave in the same way under stress of weather and could more easily be kept together; secondly, because the consuls in distant ports could be sure of keeping a refit of masts, rudders, sails, etc., when they knew the exact build of all Venetian ships which would touch their ports. The ships were convertible from merchantmen to men-of-war; and this explains to a certain extent how Venice was able to replace her fleets so rapidly after such losses as those of Curzola or Sapienza. The six State fleets are estimated to have numbered 330 ships with crews to the amount of 36,000 men. Venetian commerce covered the whole civilised world. The city was a great reservoir of merchandise, constantly filled and constantly emptied again, with eastern luxuries flowing westward and western commodities flowing east. Upon export and import alike the government levied taxes (tavola dell1 entrada e tavola deW insidd); these, with the salt monopoly and the taxation of the guilds (tansa delta mttizia, tansa insensibile, etc.), furnished the main source of her ordinary revenue, which in the year 1500 was estimated at 1,145,580 ducats. The importance of the sea in the economy of Venice is obvious; but during the fifteenth century her naval and commercial sea-power both received a fatal blow. Wars with the Turks exhausted her fighting capacity and the discovery of the Cape route to the Indies tended to divert the whole line of the world’s traffic from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, out of the hands of the Venetians into the hands of the Portuguese.
The century opened, however, with a series of triumphs for the Republic. The development and extension of her land empire continued; her prestige at sea increased. Dalmatia, which the Republic had surrendered by the treaty of Turin, was recovered after a struggle; and by 1420 Venice was in possession of the whole of Friuli. Thanks to the mountainous frontier of the province this acquisition gave the Republic a defensible position towards the east, where she had hitherto been very weak; it largely increased her land empire and whetted her appetite for more.
Nor was her achievement by sea less brilliant. The quarrels among the sons of Sultan Bayazid I ended in the concentration of the Ottoman power in the hands of Mohammad (1413). Venice had no desire to embark on a campaign against the victorious Turk. She hoped to trade with them, not to fight them, and, through her ambassador Francesco Foscari, a treaty was signed whereby she believed herself to have secured her colonies from molestation. But Mohammad was not able, even if he desired, to prevent his followers from regarding all Christians as dogs. Treaty or no treaty, they chased some Venetian merchantmen into Negroponte and menaced the island. The Venetian admiral Loredan came to a parley with the Turkish commander, at Gallipoli (1416). But while the leaders were in consultation, the crews fell to, and a battle became inevitable. The Venetians were brilliantly victorious; and the Republic secured an advantageous peace, as well as the applause of Europe, only too ready to believe that it need not mind about the Turk as long as Venice was there to fight him.
But contemporaneously with this fresh expansion of Venice, by the conquest of Friuli and the heightening of her prestige after the victory of Gallipoli, events fraught with grave consequences for the Republic were maturing to the west. On the sudden death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti (1402), his dominions had been seized and partitioned by his generals. Gian Galeazzo’s son, Filippo Maria, patiently, slowly, but surely, recovered the Visconti territories. In this task he was greatly assisted by the military skill of Francesco Bussone, called Carmagnola from his birthplace near Turin. By 1420 the task was accomplished, and a Visconti was once more Lord of Milan, Cremona, Crema, Bergamo, Brescia, and Genoa, as powerful as ever Gian Galeazzo had been and not one whit less ambitious. Florence took alarm at Visconti’s attitude and asked Venice to join her in a league against Milan. The position was a difficult one for the Republic; Filippo Maria was undeniably menacing and he had a claim in virtue of his father’s conquest to both Verona and Vicenza, now Venetian territory; on the other hand Venice was extremely unwilling to embark upon the troubled waters of Italian mainland politics, and to find herself, in all probability, committed to costly mainland campaigns which would consume the wealth she was sweeping in from the sea.
The Florentine proposals revealed two parties in the State, The Doge Mocenigo and his friends held that it was still possible to avoid a rupture with Visconti, that Venice might remain on good terms with her powerful neighbour and trade with Milan instead of fighting it. Opposed to the Doge was Francesco Foscari, head of the party of young Venice, in favour of expansion, elated by the recent acquisition of Friuli. But Mocenigo was dying, and on his death-bed he called the principal statesmen of the Republic about him and reminded them of the position of the community, which had never been more flourishing. He pointed to the merchant marine, the finest in the world, to the rapid reduction of the national debt, from ten millions to six; to the vast commerce with the territories of the Duke of Milan which represented ten million ducats capital with a net profit of two millions; he insisted that at this rate Venice would soon be mistress of the world, but that all might be lost by a rash war. Everything would depend, he said, upon the character of the man who succeeded him. He uttered a solemn warning against Francesco Foscari as a braggart, vainglorious, without solidity, grasping at much, securing little; certain to involve the State in war, to waste its wealth and leave it at the mercy of its mercenary captains. Prophetic words, but powerless to avert the doom they foretold. Foscari was elected (1423); and instantly set himself to support the Florentine request for an alliance. He did not carry his point at once, for the Mocenigo party could always urge that an alliance with Florence against Milan would draw Visconti and Sigismund together against the Republic. But Filippo Maria’s successes were continuous; his troops were in the Romagna, and he had defeated Florence in battle after battle, Zagonara, Val di Lamone, Rapallo, Anghiari. In desperation the Florentines declared that if the Venetians would not help them to retain their liberties, they would pull the house about their ears. “When we refused,” they said, “to help Genoa, she made Visconti her Lord; if you refuse to help us we will make him King.” This threat coupled with the desertion of Visconti’s great general, Carmagnola, turned the scale. The Florentine League was concluded and Carmagnola received the command of the Venetian forces.
Thus the Republic embarked upon a struggle for supremacy as a land-Power in northern Italy. But she was soon to prove the truth of Mocenigo’s dying words. The first campaign ended in the acquisition of Brescia and the Bresciano by Venetian troops, but not by Carmagnola. He had no sooner brought his forces under Brescia than he asked leave to retire for his health to the Baths of Abano; and his conduct from the very first roused those suspicions which eventually led to his doom. The second campaign gave Bergamo to the victorious Republic. But the suspicions of Venice were increased by finding that the Duke of Milan was in communication with Carmagnola and was prepared to conclude a peace through him as intermediary, suspicions confirmed by the dilatory conduct of their general after the victory at Maclodio, when nothing lay between him and Milan. At the opening of the third campaign against Visconti, the Republic endeavoured to rouse their general to vigorous action by making him large promises if he would only crush the Duke and take his capital. But nothing would stir Carmagnola from his culpable inactivity. The truth was that he cared not a jot for Venetian interests; like all mercenaries he was playing