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Visualizing Conflict and Commerce in the Maritime Cities of Medieval Italy

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Visualizing Conflict and Commerce in the Maritime Cities of Medieval Italy Introdu ction Visualizing Conflict and Commerce in the Maritime Cities of Medieval Italy The maritime cities of Italy announced their presence in the Mediterranean, a political and economic arena already dominated by Muslim powers and the Byzantine Empire, through a combination of military campaigns and commer- cial exchange. This book will explore how participation in trade and warfare defined a distinct Mediterranean identity and visual culture for the cities of Amalfi, Salerno, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice in the eleventh to the mid-twelfth century. Each of these Italian locales formulated a unique visual manifestation of the relationship between commerce and conflict through the use of spolia or reused architectural elements, objects, and styles from past and foreign cul- tures. This aesthetic of appropriation with spolia as its central visual element was multivalent, mutable, and culturally inclusive, capable of incorporating multiple and disparate references from various peoples and places across the sea; it was thus the ideal visual medium to manifest the identity of the inhabit- ants of these Italian cities as warriors, traders, and influential forces in Medi- terranean economics, politics, and culture. In the creation and ornamentation of public architectural monuments, each city forged a spoliate aesthetic char- acterized by heterogeneous assemblages of appropriated luxury objects and building elements to reference the Mediterranean cultures that inspired the greatest antagonism, fear, admiration, or emulation. Conflict and Commerce in the Medieval Mediterranean It was in the time period immediately before and after the First Crusade that these seafaring cities formulated a Mediterranean identity that combined com- merce and conflict.1 In the eleventh century, the republics of Pisa and Genoa initiated a number of military campaigns against Muslim territories; their readiness to fight for the faith encouraged their early and eager participation in the First Crusade. Venice and Amalfi, however, chose to engage in commerce 1 For recent studies on the significance of the First Crusade, see Susan Edgington and Luis García-Guijarro, eds., Jerusalem the Golden: The Origins and Impact of the First Crusade (Turn- hout, 2014); Peter Frankopan, The First Crusade: The Call from the East (Cambridge, MA, 2012); Nikolaos Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece: A Study of Byzantine-Western Relations and Attitudes, 1204–1282 (Turnhout, 2012), xxvii–xxix. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi �0.��63/97�9004360�0�_00� <UN> 2 Introduction rather than warfare at this time, resulting in their limited engagement in or complete absence from the Holy Land expeditions. The First Crusade, then, solidified the presence of Italian merchants and warriors in Mediterranean waters and demonstrated for the maritime cities the efficacy of a symbiosis be- tween warfare and trade. The sea was no longer the sole dominion of Muslim and Byzantine fleets, but a liquid frontier where relationships between cul- tures in commerce and war were in a constant state of redefinition with com- munication providing new opportunities for identity formation.2 The Italian cities entered into the fierce competition for control of key commercial net- works and strategic ports in this volatile and fluid space where all interactions with trading partners and military adversaries were contingent and subject to continual renegotiation.3 In such a complex and contentious environment, proficiency in conducting trade and prosecuting war became essential components for each city’s iden- tity formation in relation to one another and to other powers in the Mediter- ranean; the two endeavors could be simultaneous or consecutive, and could vary in the priority given to one or the other at a particular time. All the cities participated in commerce across the Mediterranean with Muslim and Chris- tian trading partners alike, but a sharp demarcation existed in terms of the Mediterranean cultures towards which conflict was directed. The cities of Pisa and Genoa channeled their military aggression towards Muslim polities particularly in the western Mediterranean, while the city of Venice and the Norman rulers of southern Italy targeted Byzantium with large-scale military campaigns and opportunistic raids.4 Thus the primary adversary for each city 2 Claire Norton, “Blurring the Boundaries: Intellectual and Cultural Interactions between the Eastern and Western; Christian and Muslim Worlds,” in The Renaissance and the Ottoman World, eds. Anna Contadini and Claire Norton (Farnham, 2013), pp. 3–21, at p. 4; Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, “Liquid Frontiers: A Relational Analysis of Maritime Asia Minor as a Reli- gious Contact Zone in the Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries,” in Islam and Christianity in Medi- eval Anatolia, eds. Andrew Peacock, Bruno De Nicola, and Sara Nur Yildiz (Farnham, 2015), pp. 118–41, at p. 119. 3 Mike Carr, “Trade or Crusade?: The Zaccaria of Chios and Crusades against the Turks,” in Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204–1453: Crusade, Religion and Trade between Latins, Greeks and Turks, eds. Nikolaos Chrissis and Mike Carr (Farnham, 2014), pp. 115–34, at p. 115; Sharon Kinoshita, “Locating the Medieval Mediterranean,” in Locating the Middle Ages: The Spaces and Places of Medieval Culture, eds. Julian Weiss and Sarah Salih (London, 2012), pp. 39–52, at pp. 40–43; Preiser-Kapeller, “Liquid Frontiers,” p. 123; Norton, “Blurring the Boundaries,” pp. 5, 20. 4 Mike Carr, “Between Byzantium, Egypt and the Holy Land: The Italian Maritime Republics and the First Crusade,” in Edgington and García-Guijarro, Jerusalem the Golden, pp. 75–87, at p. 84. <UN>.
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