Amalfi }}
Amalfi, the first maritime republic to reach a leading importance, acquired
de facto independence from the
Duchy of Naples in
839. That year,
Sicard of Benevento, during a war against the Byzantines, conquered the city, and deported the population. When he died in a palace conspiracy, the Amalfi people rebelled, drove out the Lombard garrison and formed the free republic of Amalfi. The people of Amalfi were governed by a republican order governed by
comites, under which the
praefecturii were in charge until 945, when
Mastalus II assumed power and proclaimed himself
duke. As early as the end of the 9th century, the duchy developed extensive trade with the
Byzantine Empire and
Egypt. Amalfitan merchants wrested the Mediterranean trade monopoly from the Arabs and founded mercantile bases in
Southern Italy,
North Africa and the
Middle East in the 10th century. In the 11th century, Amalfi reached the height of its maritime power and had warehouses in
Constantinople,
Laodicea,
Beirut,
Jaffa,
Tripoli of Syria,
Cyprus,
Alexandria,
Ptolemais,
Baghdad, and
India. Amalfi's land borders extended from the
Sarno River to
Vietri sul Mare, while to the west it bordered the
Duchy of Sorrento; it also owned
Capri, donated by the Byzantines as a reward for having defeated the
Saracens at San Salvatore in 872. Furthermore, for only three years (from 831 to 833), the dukes
Manso I and
John I also had control of the
Principality of Salerno, including the whole of
Lucania. The Amalfi fleet helped to free the
Tyrrhenian Sea from Saracen pirates, defeating them at
Licosa (846), at
Ostia (849), and on the
Garigliano (915). At the dawn of
AD 1000, Amalfi was the most prosperous city of
Longobardia, and in terms of population (probably 80,000 inhabitants) and prosperity, the only one able to compete with the great Arab metropolises: it minted its own gold coin, the
tarì, which was current in all the main Mediterranean ports; the
Amalfian Laws, a code of maritime law which remained in force throughout the
Middle Ages, date back to that time; in Jerusalem, the noble merchant Mauro Pantaleone built the hospital from which the
Knights Hospitaller would originate. The far-sighted dukes of Amalfi were able to safeguard their power over the centuries, allying themselves, depending on the circumstances, with the Byzantines, the Pope, or the Muslims. On the basis of an erroneous reading of a passage by the humanist
Flavio Biondo, the invention of the
compass was long attributed to
Flavio Gioja from Amalfi. Despite the tenacious tradition that originated, a correct reading of Biondo's passage reveals that Flavio Gioia never existed, and that the glory of the Amalfi people was not that of inventing the compass (actually imported from China), but of having been the first to spread its use in Europe. The close bond that tied the city of Amalfi to the East is also testified by the art that flourished in the centuries of independence and in which
Byzantine and
Arab-Norman influences harmoniously merged. Towards the middle of the 11th century, the power of the duchy began to fade: in 1039, due to internal strife, it was conquered by
Guaimar IV of Salerno, who would be expelled in 1052 by his brother
John II. In 1073,
Robert Guiscard, summoned by the Amalfi people against Salerno, conquered the duchy. Amalfi remained substantially autonomous and often rebelled against the regents until 1100, when the last duke
Marinus Sebastus was deposed by the Normans. This left Amalfi only an administrative autonomy, later revoked in 1131 by
Roger II of Sicily. After the Norman conquest, the decline was not immediate, becoming in the meantime a seaport of the Norman-Swabian state. However, the commercial basin of Amalfi was reduced to the western Mediterranean and gradually the city was supplanted, locally by Naples and Salerno, and at the Mediterranean level by Pisa, Venice and Genoa.
Genoa }}
Genoa had revived at the dawn of the 10th century when, following the city's destruction by the Saracens, its inhabitants returned to the sea. In the mid-10th century, entering the dispute between
Berengar II and
Otto the Great, it obtained
de facto independence in 958, which was then made official in 1096 with the creation of the
Compagna Communis, a union of merchants and feudal lords of the area. Meanwhile, its alliance with Pisa allowed the liberation of the western Mediterranean from Saracen pirates. The fortunes of the municipality increased considerably thanks to its participation in the
First Crusade, which procured great privileges for the
Genoese colonists in the
Holy Land. The apogee of Genoese fortunes came in the 13th century, following the
Treaty of Nymphaeum (1261) and the double victory over Pisa (
Battle of Meloria (1284)) and Venice (
Battle of Curzola (1298)). "The Superb", a name for the city derived from
Petrarch's work
Itinerarium breve de Ianua ad Ierusalem (1358) in which he described it, dominated the
Mediterranean Sea and the
Black Sea and controlled a large part of
Liguria,
Corsica, the Sardinian
Judicate of Logudoro, the
North Aegean, and southern
Crimea. The 14th century marked a serious economic, political and social crisis for Genoa, which, weakened by internal strife, lost Sardinia to the Aragonese, was defeated by Venice at
Alghero (1353) and
Chioggia (1379) and subjected several times to
France and to the
Duchy of Milan. The republic was weakened by the state's own arrangement, which, based on private agreements between the main families, led to incredibly short and unstable governments and very frequent factional strife. Following the plagues and foreign dominations of the 14th and 15th centuries, the city experienced a second apogee upon regaining self-government in 1528 through the efforts of
Andrea Doria, to the point that the following century was called
El siglo de los Genoveses. This definition was not due to maritime trade, but to the impressive banking penetration lent by the
Bank of Saint George, which made it an authentic world economic power: several
European monarchies, such as
Spain, were tied to loans from Genoese bankers and its currency, the
genovino, became one of the most important in the world. However, the republic was then only independent
de jure, because it found itself under the influence of the main neighboring powers, first the French and the Spanish, then the Austrians and the Savoys. The republic collapsed following
Napoleon's
first Italian campaign: becoming the
Ligurian Republic in 1797, it was annexed to France in 1805 with the
second Italian campaign. In 1815, the
Congress of Vienna decreed Genoa's annexation to the
Kingdom of Sardinia. The artistic importance of Genoa has been recognized by UNESCO by listing the
Strade Nuove and the complex of the Palazzi dei Rolli among the
World Heritage Sites. The indissoluble link between Genoa and navigation is testified by
Lancelotto Malocello, by
Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, and most prominently by
Christopher Columbus.
Pisa }} The Republic of Pisa was born in the 11th century. In this historical period, Pisa intensified its trade in the Mediterranean Sea, allied itself with the
Kingdom of Sicily's nascent power, and clashed several times with the Saracen ships, defeating them in
Reggio Calabria (1005), in
Bona (1034), in
Palermo (1064), and in
Mahdia (1087). Originally, Pisa was governed by a Viscount, whose power was limited by the Bishop. In the 11th century, entering into the struggles between these two powers, the city, governed by a Council of Elders, acquired a
de facto autonomy, which was then made official by
Henry IV in 1081. In 1016, an alliance of Pisa and Genoa defeated the Saracens, conquered Corsica and the
Sardinian judicates of
Cagliari and
Gallura, and acquired control of the
Tyrrhenian Sea; a century later they took the
Balearic Islands. At the same time, Pisa's economic and political power increased considerably with the commercial rights acquired with the
Crusades, examplary at
Jaffa during the
Third Crusade, thanks to which it was able to establish numerous warehouses in the Holy Land. Pisa was always the most fervent supporter of the
Ghibelline cause, notably at the naval battle of
Giglio in 1241, thus opposing the Guelphs Genoa, Noli,
Lucca and
Florence: its currency, the aquiline, always bore the name of the
emperor. Pisa reached the peak of its splendor between the 12th and 13th centuries, when its ships controlled the western Mediterranean and was able to express
Pisan Romanesque in the field of art, a mixture of Western, Eastern, Islamic and classical elements. Pisa's rivalry with Genoa sharpened in the 13th century and led to the naval
Battle of Meloria (1284), which marked the beginning of Pisan decline; Pisa ceded Corsica to Genoa in 1299, and in 1324, the
Battle of Lucocisterna saw Sardinia ceded to
Aragon. Unlike Genoa, Pisa needed to control a hinterland, which saw the rival cities of Lucca and Florence nearby: this subtracted forces from their navy and brought the republic to ruin. In the fourteenth century, Pisa passed from a municipality to a
lordship, maintaining its independence and essentially the dominion of the
Tuscan coast, and made peace with Genoa. However, in 1406, the city was besieged by the Milanese, Florentines, Genoese and French and annexed to the
Republic of Florence. During Florence's crisis in the
Italian Wars, Pisa revolted against
Piero the Unfortunate and in 1494 reconstituted itself as an autonomous republic, restoring its own currency and magistracy. However, after 16 years of serious war, Florence managed to reconquer it definitively in 1509. The ancient
Porto Pisano, now filled in by the
Arno floods, was located north of the current city of Livorno. The life of
Fibonacci, a mathematician from Pisa, well expresses the profitable relationship between commerce, navigation and culture typical of the maritime republics; he reworked and disseminated Arab scientific knowledge in Europe, including ten-digit numbering, and the use of zero.
Venice }} Venice, founded by the
Veneti fleeing the
Huns in the 5th century, began a gradual process of independence from the
Byzantine Empire starting with the
Exarchate of Ravenna's collapse in 751. Progress was made in 840 with the stipulation of the
Pactum Lotharii between the
doge Pietro Tradonico and the Germanic emperor
Lothair I, without the Byzantine sovereign being called into question. Venice acquired power from the development of commercial relations with the Byzantine Empire, of which it was formally still part, to remain even later on as an ally in the fight against the Arabs and Normans. The definitive break with Constantinople came only with the war of 1122-1126, when the doge Domenico Michiel declared war on the Eastern Empire following his refusal to renew the commercial privileges already guaranteed to his Venetian vassal as a reward for the help offered in the war against the Normans in 1082. This war led to complete independence, in law and in fact, institutionalized in 1143 with the
Commune of Venice. Around the year 1000, Venice began its expansion in the
Adriatic Sea, defeating the pirates who occupied the coasts of
Istria and
Dalmatia and placing those regions and their principal townships under Venetian dominion. Institutionally, Venice was governed by an oligarchy of the main merchant families, under the presidency of the doge and numerous articulated magistracies, including the
Senate; notable was the
Serrata del Maggior Consiglio (1297), with which those who did not belong to the most important merchant families were excluded from the government. In Venice, the
Capitulare nauticum, one of the first navigation codes, was written in 1256. The
Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) allowed Venice to conquer the most commercially important seaside resorts of the Byzantine Empire, including
Corfu (1207) and
Crete (1209), and to reach
Syria and
Egypt. Venice thus reached the peak of its power, dominating commercial traffic between Europe and the East: it had warehouses throughout the eastern Mediterranean and was called
La Serenissima (The Most Serene). By the end of the 14th century, Venice had become one of the richest states on the continent: its currency, the
sequin, was minted in gold and was one of the most influential in Europe. Between the 14th and 18th centuries, Venice, in response to the
Duchy of Milan's aggressive policy, conquered a vast
dominion of the mainland, including
Veneto,
Friuli, the
Julian March, and
Lombardy up to
Brescia; this was joined by the
Stato da Màr, a
colonial empire made up of overseas possessions, including Istria, Dalmatia (except Ragusa), almost all the
Greek islands and
Cyprus. Venice was therefore the largest of the maritime republics, as well as the most powerful state on the Italian peninsula. Venice's dominance in the eastern Mediterranean in the following centuries, despite the victory of
Lepanto, was threatened and compromised by the expansion of the
Ottoman Empire and by the shifting of trade to the Atlantic. Thus began a slow decline, culminating with the
Napoleonic conquest of 1797, which reduced it to a city-state dependent on the
Habsburgs, until the union with the
Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia in 1848. Artistically, Venice had European resonance for centuries: in the Middle Ages by fusing Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine styles in its architecture; in the
Renaissance with the painters
Titian,
Giorgione,
Tintoretto,
Bellini and
Lotto; in the
Baroque period with the composers
Antonio Vivaldi,
Giuseppe Tartini and
Tomaso Albinoni; in the eighteenth century with
vedutisti Giambattista Tiepolo and
Canaletto, playwright
Carlo Goldoni, sculptor
Antonio Canova, and writer and adventurer
Giacomo Casanova. Among the most important Venetian navigators and travelers are
Alvise Cadamosto, cartographer
Sebastian Cabot, and
Marco Polo, famous for his account of his trip to China,
The Travels of Marco Polo.
John Cabot, whose place of birth is uncertain (Gaeta, Castiglione Chiavarese or Savona), but who acquired Venetian citizenship, was the first European to reach
Canada.
Ancona }} Included in the
Papal States since 774,
Ancona was devastated by the Saracens in 839; slowly recovering, around 1000 it became part of the
Holy Roman Empire, but gradually acquired autonomy until it became fully independent in the 11th century. Although hampered by Venice, which intended to monopolize the Adriatic, Ancona maintained its independence and economic prosperity thanks to its alliances with the Byzantine Empire, the
Kingdom of Hungary, and especially with the
Republic of Ragusa. The Republic of Ancona is distinct in that it never attacked another maritime city, continuously needed to defend itself, was totally devoted to navigation, and was completely uninterested in territorial expansion. Above all, it had to beware of the aims of the Holy Roman Empire (from which it suffered three sieges), of Venice (in the course of five wars), and of the Papacy. Ancona had its period of greatest splendor in the 15th century, when
Pope Eugene IV officially defined it as a republic in 1447. The currency of Ancona, accepted in all Mediterranean commercial squares, was the
agontano. The maritime laws of Ancona were the Statutes of the Sea, gradually formed during the 12th century and keeping in mind the main medieval maritime codes. Its territory was between the Adriatic, the rivers
Esino,
Musone and Aspio, and defended by the twenty castles of Ancona. In the defense of its freedom, Ancona emerged victorious several times, such as in the siege of 1173, in which Germanic imperial troops surrounded the city from the sea while Venetian ships occupied the port. There was an eclipse of freedom in the period from 1348 to 1383; the city was conquered by the
House of Malatesta in 1348, when it was weakened by the
plague and by serious fires. It then passed under the control of the Church in 1353 through the work of the warrior cardinal
Gil de Albornoz. In 1383, the papal
rocca that kept Ancona submissive was destroyed by a popular furor, and the ancient regime of autonomy was re-established. Ancona's decline began with the
fall of Constantinople, which weakened trade. In 1532,
Pope Clement VII placed Ancona under the direct administration of the Church with an astute manoeuvre, and attempts to regain a
de facto freedom were bloodily repressed. However, economic prosperity lasted until the end of the century. Ancona preserves monuments in which
Romanesque blends with
Byzantine influences and was one of the cradles of the Adriatic Renaissance, in which the rediscovery of classical art was accompanied by formal continuity with Gothic art. Ancona's contribution to maritime exploration and trade is well represented by
Cyriacus of Ancona, who sailed in search of evidence of the past and is therefore considered the father of
archeology, by Benvenuto Stracca, founder of
commercial law, and finally by navigator and maritime cartographer
Grazioso Benincasa, key figure of the
nautical cartographic school of Ancona, one of the most important of the fifteenth century.
Ragusa }} According to the of the
Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, Ragusa (now called
Dubrovnik) was founded, probably in the 7th century, by the inhabitants of the Roman city of
Epidaurum (modern Cavtat) after its destruction by the
Avars and
Slavs . Some of the survivors moved north to a small island near the coast where they founded a new settlement, Lausa. It has been claimed that a second raid by the Slavs in 656 resulted in the total destruction of Epidaurum. Slavs settled along the coast in the 7th century. The city remained under
Byzantine domination until 1204, with the exception of periods of
Venetian (1000–1030) and later
Norman (1081–1085, 1172, 1189–1190) rule. The last Venetian
conte left, apparently in a hurry. Although under the Visegrád agreement Dubrovnik was formally under the jurisdiction of the
ban of Croatia, the city successfully resisted both the royal and ban authority. Ragusa, basing its prosperity on maritime trade, became the major power in the southern Adriatic. It reached its apogee in the 16th century, thanks to convenient tax exemptions for goods and an extensive network of warehouses. The mint of Ragusa, active from 1088 to 1803, issued coins with various denominations, which followed the ups and downs of the republic's formal dominion. In the face of Hungary's defeat in the
Battle of Mohács to the
Ottoman Empire in 1526, Ragusa passed under the formal supremacy of the sultan, obliging itself to pay him a symbolic annual tribute, a move which allowed it to safeguard its independence. With the 17th century, a slow decline began for the Republic of Ragusa, mainly due to a
1667 earthquake which almost completely destroyed it, and to the increase in the tribute to be paid to the Sublime Porta, set at 12,500
ducats. Ragusa survived its Venetian rival, which was conquered by Napoleon in 1797. The
Peace of Pressburg of 1805 assigned the city to France: the city was occupied by French troops in 1806, and entered the
Illyrian Provinces of the French Empire. Originally,
Latin was used in official documents of the Republic.
Italian came into use in the 1420s. Both languages were used in official correspondence by the Republic. The Republic was influenced by the
Venetian language and the
Tuscan dialect. The population spoke the local variant of the
Shtokavian dialect, the same dialect upon which modern
Croatian,
Bosnian,
Montenegrin and
Serbian, are all based. Old Ragusan, a variant of
Dalmatian that was spoken on the Dalmatian coast following the end of the Roman Empire, with elements of old Slavic vernacular, commonly referred to as
ilirski (
Illyrian), and Italian, were among the common languages. Gaeta traded with the most important Italian cities, had consulates in
Barberia, had its own laws and its own currency, the
follaro, which was widely diffused in the Italian markets. Gaeta controlled an area roughly corresponding to the western part of the current
Province of Latina and for some years had dominion over the
Pontine Islands. Due to the importance of maritime traffic, the duchy adopted a peculiar organization, in which the power of the duke was limited by the weight of the aristocracy and of a people that was becoming ever stronger, more conscious and more prosperous. Freed from a Saracen siege in 846 with the help of Naples and Amalfi, Gaeta defeated the Muslims at Ostia in 849 and on the Garigliano in 915; it also availed itself of their help against
Pope John VIII. In 1032, following a dynastic crisis, the Docibiles, who had reigned up to that moment, had to cede Gaeta to the
Principality of Capua. For the following sixty years, independent dukes alternated with Capuan vassals. In 1100, new Norman dukes freed the city and kept it independent until 1135, when the last duke, Richard III, bequeathed it to
Roger II of Sicily.
Noli }}
Noli's fortune began with the
Crusades: its particular geographical position in fact made it an important port for the construction of ships and the transport of men and provisions directed to the
Holy Land. By participating in the Crusades, Noli obtained numerous privileges from the Christian sovereigns of
Antioch and
Jerusalem and above all enormous wealth, with which it was able to gradually buy the various marquis rights from the Marquises of the Carretto House, on whom it depended. Noli gained complete independence in 1192, made official four years later by
Henry VI. Just ten years after its founding, the consuls of the newborn municipality decided to ally themselves with the nearby and much more powerful Republic of Genoa: in 1202 Noli became its protectorate, a condition that would last for its entire existence. This made Noli an anomalous maritime republic compared to the others: it never minted its own money nor had independent warehouses, relying on the Genoese for these assets, while maintaining total internal independence. The small republic experienced a period of flourishing expansion throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, in which it built many new towers, built a wall and extended its borders to the neighboring towns of Orco, Mallare, Segno and Vadocittà. A strongly Guelph city, it adhered to the
Lombard League against
Frederick II and was rewarded for this by
Pope Gregory IX with the establishment of the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Savona-Noli in 1239 and the donation of the island of
Bergeggi. But the prosperity of Noli was linked to the Crusades: when these ended, its geographical position, so useful in the 13th century, proved unsuitable for the traffic of greater cabotage of 15th-century ships. The people of Noli, cut off from maritime trade, ceased all mercantile activity and they became fishermen. This is another peculiarity of the history of Noli: from 1400 onward, it ceased to be a seafaring state, while retaining its independence for another four centuries. Commercial isolation was added to continuous wars with the neighboring towns of
Savona and
Finale Ligure, which condemned Noli to a long decline destined to last until the end of independence, which took place in 1797 with the annexation to the
Ligurian Republic. According to some scholars, the navigator
António de Noli, an explorer of the African coasts, was born in Noli, but this is debatable. ==Relations between the maritime republics==