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FREE VENICE: A NEW HISTORY PDF Professor Thomas F Madden | 464 pages | 29 Oct 2013 | Penguin Putnam Inc | 9780147509802 | English | United States Venice: A New History In Thomas F. Thomas F. With these credentials it comes as no surprise how dense and informative his history of Venice is. However, the readability and flowing prose that Madden fills the book with Venice: A New History it to remain equally entertaining and easy to follow without sacrificing detail or intellectual depth. He does this similarly when he talks about some of the economic innovations the Venetians brought to the Western world, such as double-entry bookkeeping and the Colleganza. I was able to easily follow the importance and impact of these innovations despite Venice: A New History admittedly rudimentary or perhaps nonexistence understandings of Venice: A New History accounting. As many cities Venice began from humble origins, starting off in the first few centuries C. The city proper was founded around by people from further inland fleeing the Gothic invasion of Rome, realizing the poor soil and mosquito infested waters were enough to dissuade a large invading army from bothering to pursue them. Similar invasions like that of Attila the Hun in and relative instability caused by the fall of the Roman Empire would create successive waves of refugees from areas such as Aquileia, who saw the islands as a relatively peaceful alternative to mainland chaos. As Madden explains it, when Odoacer Venice: A New History germanic tribes into Rome and took the title of Emperor inwhat many consider to be the event marking the fall of the western Roman Empire, it came as no surprise Venice: A New History the citizens of Venice, a city founded on successive waves of Roman citizens who had been violently forced to flee their homes by invading forces, were Venice: A New History cool about this change in regime. In fact when the Byzantine Emperor Justinian launched his campaign to retake Italy in the s, the Venetians would be enthusiastic Venice: A New History active supporters of this effort, eventually becoming Venice: A New History of a Byzantine province ruled from Ravenna. As Madden explains it, the early Venetians saw themselves as Roman citizens who fled an increasingly non-Roman Italy in order to preserve their Roman and Catholic roots. This is what led them to create such strong ties with the Byzantines, and it is those ties with Constantinople that would help them so well as they grew to become a commercial empire and a major player in the Mediterranean. Of course it is yet to be explained why and how Venice became such an economic powerhouse and the only european republic in the early Middle Ages. One primary factor in this was geographic. In the period of time spanning from the fall of the Roman Empire to the early Middle Ages wealth was primarily measured in the amount of land one had. Rich kings and nobles created an aristocracy across Europe whose status and wealth were based on the feudal lands they owned and their ability to tax those who worked on their lands. It created the familiar roles of nobles and serfs, the poor worked the land as farmers, artisans and hunters, giving tribute in money or produce from the land back to the noble lord who offered protection in return. In the case of the Venetian lagoons there was not near enough land to enact such a system, so an aristocracy was formed not on land but on entrepreneurial skill. Merchants traveled to the East to bring back expensive commodities like spices and silks back to Venice, and used the city as a focal point for traveling along the Adriatic Sea and Italian rivers to sell these goods to mainland Europe at a very high profit margin. The system was based on liquid wealth, and made the Venetians some of the first capitalists in Europe. This vastly different economic structure compared to the rest of Europe also led to vastly different ideals being enshrined in Venetian society. Successful Venetians were self made men and women, and as a result they rejected anything resembling the inherited privileges or concentrated powers of nobles in mainland Europe, rather insisting on equality and fierce individualism, the same values that made them rich in the first place. These values translated into their form of government, as Venice Venice: A New History itself as a Republic in with the election of its first Doge Venice: A New History venetian word coming from the latin duxmeaning leadercreating a system of limited democratic engagement that would last years. This system at its inception was far from a direct democracy, with prominent noble families serving as a sort of self appointed electorate and advisory council to the Doge. However, membership in it was decided by invite rather than election, so it still had an aristocratic feel to it. Despite this, invitations to the Great Council were wisely extended, and as the Venetian society grew more members who had close ties to laborers and guildsmen were invited, making the Council much more representative of Venetian society in its totality. This sense of equality and fierce individualism in Venetian society also led to a very strict set of checks and balances in the government, set up so no one Venice: A New History or faction could successfully rule over the rest of the city. One of the practices Venice: A New History best demonstrated this sense of equality and fear of Venice: A New History was the process by which the Doge was elected. In the beginning of the republic the process was little more than the citizens of the city meeting in an open area of the city and shouting names till consensus was reached. This developed into an election committee of 41 Venice: A New History established inhowever fears that one powerful family would be able to stack the committee led to a new, much more intricate system in the s. This new process began with the Great Council being assembled. Once assembled a boy was randomly plucked from the streets to pull wax balls out of an urn at random for each Great Council member. These 30 electors were then reduced to nine by another round of picking wax balls out of an urn. These nine electors then elected a separate group of 40, reduced by wax balls to 12 again. Those 12 cast ballots for another 25, who were again reduced by wax balls to 9. These nine elected a council of 45, reduced to 11 and then these men elected, not the Doge, Venice: A New History the final electoral committee of These 41 electors then met in complete isolation, with each nominating a person for Doge by secret ballot. The electors would discuss the merits and faults of each nominee, summon them one by one to give a speech and refute criticisms, and then vote. If the first nominee received 25 out of 41 votes by secret ballot of course he would become Doge, but if not the process was repeated again with another nominee. As Madden explains, the process was designed to be cumbersome mission accomplishedso cumbersome in fact, that only God could influence it. This clearly demonstrates how careful Venetians were to ensure a fair electoral system that allowed no one faction or family to manipulate the rules in their own favor. However, despite these checks and balances there were still occasional excesses of power, and certain practices by the Venetian government led its opponents and impartial observers to see it as a republic in name only, despotically ruled by an aristocratic elite. One of these practices was the event known as the Serrata, when membership in the Great Council was closed again. Another was the council known as The Ten, which was a group of ten individuals elected from the Great Council and given a wide berth to conduct intelligence gathering and investigate and prosecute treason. This led to the Venetians growing an overseas empire that including at varying times the Dalmatian coast, the islands of Corfu, Crete and Cyprus and the mainlands of present day Greece. They would also have a prosperous trading relationship with the Crusader States after the first Crusade, and this economic stake in the Holy Land, combined with genuine religious fervor, would make Venice one of the most fervent and active powers to take up the Crusade throughout the Middle Ages. Constantinople would occasionally resent the power and trading privileges of the Venetian sailors, which would lead to the seizure of property and kidnapping of all Venetians living in the city inbut the Venetians in truth almost always had the upper hand in the relationship until the Ottomans began to assert their power in the Mediterranean. The stans would provide money upfront to fund the voyage, and the tractans had the responsibility to maximize profits on the trip to the best of his Venice: A New History. This innovation was an important element of sea trading Venice: A New History key to Venetian prosperity because it allowed the risk of sea voyages to be spread out amongst multiple parties, which ensured both merchants and investors would not be financially ruined from one failed voyage. As the practice grew there became multiple stans in Venice: A New History voyage, Venice: A New History allowed people to buy shares in a voyage like investing in a corporation on the stock market. The benefit of this system was to expand capital for voyages while minimizing individual risk. If a person invested small in multiple voyages profits on a successful one mitigated the losses on a failed one.
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