Venice
Maritime republic at the head of the Adriatic, ruled by a doge. Its fleet carried the Fourth Crusade, and it took half the spoils of Constantinople in 1204.
Venice stands on islands in a lagoon at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea. In the Middle Ages it was a republic governed by a doge and councils, and a naval power. The French envoys who came to hire ships for the Fourth Crusade said they knew of no other people with such power at sea; the doge put their request to his council and then to the people assembled in the church of St Mark (Villehardouin, Conquest of Constantinople pp. 6–8). After the capture of Constantinople the booty brought in was divided in equal parts between the Franks and the Venetians (Villehardouin, Conquest of Constantinople p. 66). See the Fourth Crusade Sacks Constantinople and Enrico Dandolo.
What happened here
- April 1204, firm dateThe Fourth Crusade Sacks Constantinople
A crusading army, carried by a Venetian fleet it cannot pay for, turns on Constantinople, storms it and plunders its churches. Pope Innocent III condemns the sack, but a Latin emperor is installed and the conquest stands.
- 1782, firm dateThe Philokalia Is Published
A Greek anthology of writers on watchfulness and the prayer of the heart, gathered from the libraries of Mount Athos, is printed at Venice in 1782. Its preface offers the prayer to laypeople as well as monks. A Slavonic version follows at Moscow in 1793.