Venetian Citizenship and Venetian Identity in the Eastern Mediterranean, Twelfth to Fifteenth Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-152
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean

scholarly journals The Old Navarino fortification (Palaiokastro) at Pylos (Greece). Adaptation to early artillery

X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xeni Simou
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
The South ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Strategic Role

Old Navarino fortification (Palaiokastro) is located on the promontory supervising the naturally endowed Navarino-bay at the south-western foot of Peloponnese peninsula, near the contemporary city of Pylos. The cliff where it is built and where ancient relics lie, was fortified by Frankish in the thirteenth century. The fortification though knows significant alterations firstly by Serenissima Republic of Venice from the fifteenth century that aims to dominate the naval routes of Eastern Mediterranean by establishing a system of coastal fortifications and later by the Ottomans after the conquest of Venice’s possessions at Messenia in 1500. Between fifteenth and seventeenth century, apart from important modifications at the initial enceinte of the northern Upper City, the most notable transformation of Old Navarino is the construction of the new Lower fortification area at the south and the southern outwork ending up to the coastline. Especially the Lower fortification is a sample of multiple and large-scale successive alterations for the adjustment to technological advances of artillery (fortification walls reinforcement, modification of tower-bastions, early casemates, gate complex enforcements). The current essay focuses on the study of these specific elements of the early artillery period and the examination of Old Navarino’s strategic role at the time of transition before the adaptation of “bastion-front” fortification patterns, such as those experimented in the design of the fortified city of New Navarino, constructed at the opposite side of the Navarino gulf by the Ottomans (1573).

Holy Leagues and Unholy Alliances, 1500–1550

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Precious Metal ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Black Death ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Far North ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Mediterranean

The reshaping of the Mediterranean in the wake of the Black Death was a slow process. In addition to political changes within the Mediterranean, notably the expansion of Ottoman power, events taking place beyond the Straits of Gibraltar would, in the long term, greatly transform the life of those who lived on its shores and in its islands. The opening of the Atlantic had already begun in the decade before plague arrived, with voyages down the coast of Africa to the Canary Islands, and it continued with the discovery and settlement of Madeira and the Azores by the Portuguese in the early fifteenth century. As sugar plantations developed on Madeira, it became possible to supply Flanders and other parts of northern Europe directly from the Atlantic with one of the costly products that had previously been obtained within the Mediterranean. By 1482, with the establishment of a Portuguese fortress at São Jorge da Mina (‘the Mine’) in West Africa, not far north of the Equator, gold was beginning to reach Europe without being channelled across the Sahara and through the Muslim ports of the Maghrib; the opening of this Guinea trade compensated for disappointment at the failure of Ceuta to pay for its upkeep. The Atlantic also became a source of slaves for Mediterranean masters: Canary Islanders, Berbers from the opposite shores of Africa and, increasingly, black slaves carried north from the Mine. Many of these eventually reached Valencia, Majorca and other Mediterranean ports, after passing through Lisbon. Then, with Columbus’s entry into the Caribbean islands in October 1492, Castile also acquired a source of precious metal that was ruthlessly exploited by imposing heavy taxes in gold on the Indians, even though they were supposedly free subjects of the Crown. The Genoese, despite their unpopularity in Spain, installed themselves in Seville and, with royal approval, ran the trans-Atlantic trading operations. At the same time, they turned their hands to finance. Turkish pressure on the Genoese possessions in the eastern Mediterranean increased, and so the Genoese allied themselves more insistently with Spain, the power that seemed best able to stand up to the Turks.

Transformations in the West, 1391–1500

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
The West ◽  
New Public ◽  
The City ◽  
Trade And Investment

While the Ragusans benefited from their special relationship with the Turks, the Genoese and Venetians were more cautious in building ties to the Ottoman court. The sultan was anxious not to turn them away, but they viewed the eastern Mediterranean as increasingly dangerous. Difficulties were compounded by occasional arguments between the Venetians and the Mamluk sultans of Egypt, who required ever larger amounts in taxes in order to prop up their regime. The Mamluks were also a regional threat. In 1424–6 they invaded Cyprus and carried away its king, Janus, along with 6,000 captives; a ransom of 200,000 ducats had to be paid before Janus was restored to the throne, and it is said that he never laughed again. In 1444 they besieged Rhodes. In 1460 they supported a claimant to the throne of Cyprus, sending eighty ships against the island, to the horror of Christendom, for no one could understand why James of Lusignan, a bastard, would wish to enlist Egyptian aid in a bid for a throne to which he was not entitled. As Ottoman and Mamluk pressure on these areas became intolerable, the Genoese and their rivals increasingly turned their attention towards the West, buying sugar in Sicily and Spain and grain in Sicily and Morocco. The mid-fifteenth century saw a veritable economic renaissance in Genoa, at first sight against all the odds: the city was still consumed by internal strife, but large segments of the population were able to benefit from trade and investment, and the city boomed. Especially attractive were shares in the new public bank, the Banco di San Giorgio, which eventually acquired dominion over Corsica. The loss of easy access by the Genoese to the alum mines of Phokaia in Asia Minor was compensated by the discovery in 1464 of alum mines on the doorstep of Rome itself, at Tolfa; Pope Pius II described the discovery as ‘our greatest victory against the Turk’. It reduced dependence on ‘the Turk’, and yet it did not reduce dependence on the Genoese, who switched their attention to central Italy, and built a new alum monopoly there.

Sheltering refugees: ephemeral architecture and mass migration in early modern Venice

Urban History ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Danielle Abdon
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Urban Fabric ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Early Modern Venice

Abstract This article investigates the creation of a shelter for migrants in fifteenth-century Venice. As an ephemeral structure, the shelter raises questions regarding the scope, mutability and materiality of the city's early modern urban fabric. Further, due to its mission to shelter eastern refugees, the shelter is embedded in foreign policy matters stemming from and aiming to stabilize Venetian presence in the eastern Mediterranean. This article positions the structure in the context of an early modern refugee crisis and Venice's multi-pronged urban and architectural responses in poor relief.

The Mediterranean in the Spanish Imaginary During the Age of Exploration

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-42
Author(s):  
Andrew W. Devereux
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Age Of Exploration ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean

This chapter explores the ways that late medieval Spaniards thought about the Mediterranean and the lands surrounding its shores. The chapter mentions the geographers' belief that the three constituent parts of the earth, namely Asia, Africa, and Europe, met in the Mediterranean and that the lordship of the world could only be attained through control of the inner sea. It also points out that the early expansion of primitive Christianity suggest that the Mediterranean possessed a latent religious unity. Aware of the history of the early Church in North Africa and western Asia, jurists devised arguments to the effect that Christian conquests in those regions were in fact acts of recuperation or defense. It then describes the nuances of fifteenth-century Spaniards' perspectives on Mediterranean space by demonstrating that the proximate western Mediterranean was familiar and known, while the more distant eastern Mediterranean was more exotic and often depicted as the site of fabulous wonders.

scholarly journals The Commercial Significance of the Venetian Tana in the 1430s

Eminak ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 131-140
Author(s):  
Evgeny Khvalkov
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Glass Ceramics ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Eastern Asia ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Silk Fabrics ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Sea Area

In the XIII – XV centuries medieval Europe has made progress in trade and transition to market economy, which resulted in the foundation of a number of Venetian and Genoese overseas colonies in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea area. The stability of Pax Mongolica had a positive effect on long-distance trade with the Central and Eastern Asia and India. In the XV century the goods from the Eastern Europe prevailed over those from the Central and Eastern Asia, especially the slaves. In exchange the Venetians and the Genoese imported cotton, woolen, and silk fabrics, raw cotton, rice, soap, glass, ceramics, jewelry and swords. The stabilization in the region and the rise of trade was a trend running through the first half of the fifteenth century. The 1430s were the time of the greatest prosperity of the Venetian trade in the Northern Black Sea during the whole fifteenth century.

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