The 1400s and 1500s were centuries of enormous change for Venice, and for the rest of the world. The changing geography moved Venice from a central position in European trade to the margins.
Venice became a more important state in the 1000s and 1100s, and started to build not only their trading empire, but also more equal relations to the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope in Rome.
Venice appeared as a kind of, but not quite, sovereign polity in the late 700s and 800s. Venetian society, no longer governed directly by Constantinople, nor really independent, had to survive between the two super-powers of their time, Byzantium and the Carolingian Empire.
The History of Venice spans some two millennia, and in this first episode of the podcast I’ll try to draw some long lines from the very earliest times until the current.
