071. Genoa Salami

War. What is it good for? Well, in Venice’s case, it’s good for expanding your commercial networks and, just as importantly, keeping your rivals out of the best ports and trade routes. After the death of Frederick II in 1250, the Republic’s uneasy alliance with Genoa frays dramatically at the edges. The arena of the conflict is Acre – the most significant trading port in the remnants of the Crusader state of Outremer. Get ready for the War of St Sabas.

Key background reading for this episode:

A general book on Venetian history will always be a good place to start for a broad overview. In Italian, try “La Repubblica del Leone” by Alvise Zorzi. In English, try “A History of Venice” by John Julius Norwich, or “Venice: The remarkable history of the lagoon city” by Dennis Romano. Or plenty of others.

For more on the specifics of this episode, the resources that I used the most were:

“Il Grifo e il Leone: Genova e Venezia in Lotta per il Mediterraneo” by Antonio Musarra

“Genoa and the Genoese: 928 to 1528” by Steven Epstein

“Le Repubbliche Marinare” by Ermanno Orlando

“City of Fortune: How Venice won and lost a naval empire” by Roger Crowley

“Les Chroniques des Veneciens” by Martin da Canal, which you can read in its original old French, with a fairly old-fashioned Italian translation, here: https://archive.org/details/lacronacaveneta00zongoog/page/268/mode/2up

 

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Intro and outro music is Primavera from Vivaldi’s Le Quattro Stagioni, used under Creative Commons licence from musopen.org