To the scandal of Christendom, Venice at once entered into treaty with the new masters of Syria and obtained a confirmation of her ancient trading rights. Genoa replied by attempting to close the Dardanelles. Venice made this action a casus belli. The Genoese won a victory in the gulf of Alexandretta (1294) ; but on the other hand the Venetians under Ruggiero Morosini forced the Dardanelles and sacked the Genoese quarter of Galata. The de cisive engagement, however, of this campaign was fought at Cur zola (1299) in the Adriatic, when Venice suffered a crushing de feat. A peace, honourable to both parties, was brought about by Matteo Visconti, lord of Milan, in that same year. But the quarrel between the republics, both fighting for trade supremacy—that is to say, for their lives—could not come to an end till one or other was thoroughly crushed. The fur trade of the Black sea furnished the pretext for the next war (1353-54), which ended in the crush ing defeat of Venice at Sapienza, and the loss of her entire fleet. But though Venice herself seemed to lie open to the Genoese, they took no advantage of their victory; they were probably too exhausted. The lord of Milan again arranged a peace (1355).
We have now reached the last phase of the struggle for mari time supremacy. Under pressure from Venice the emperor John V. Palaeologus granted possession of the island of Tenedos to the republic. The island commanded the entrance to the Dardanelles. Genoa determined to oppose the concession, and war broke out. The Genoese Admiral Luciano Doria sailed into the Adriatic, attacked and defeated Vettor Pisani at Pola in Istria, and again Venice and the lagoons lay at the mercy of the enemy. Doria re solved to blockade and starve Venice to surrender. The situation was extremely critical for Venice, but she rose to the occasion. Vettor Pisani was placed in command, and by a stroke of naval genius he grasped the weakness of Doria's position. Sailing to Chioggia he blocked the channel leading from the lagoons to the sea, and Doria was caught in a trap. Finally, in June 538o the flower of the Genoese fleet surrendered at discretion. Genoa never recovered from the blow, and Venice remained undisputed mistress of the Mediterranean and the Levant trade.
Expansion to the Mainland.—But as the city became the recognized mart for exchange of goods between east and west, the freedom of the western outlet assumed the aspect of a paramount question. It was useless for Venice to accumulate eastern mer chandise if she could not freely pass it on to the west. If the various states on the immediate mainland could levy taxes on Venetian goods in transit, the Venetian merchant would inevitably suffer in profits. The geographical position of Venice and her commercial policy alike compelled her to attempt to secure the command of the rivers and roads of the mainland, at least up to the mountains, that is to say, of the north-western outlet, just as she had obtained command of the south-eastern inlet. She was compelled to turn her attention, though reluctantly, to the mainland of Italy. Another consideration drove her in the same
direction. During the long wars with Genoa the Venetians real ized that, as they owned no meat or corn-producing territory, a crushing defeat at sea and a blockade on the mainland exposed them to the grave danger of being starved into surrender. Both these pressing necessities, for a free outlet for merchandise and for a food-supplying area, drove Venice on to the mainland, and compelled her to initiate a policy which eventually landed her in the disastrous wars of Cambrai. The period with which we are now dealing is the epoch of the despots, the signori, and in pur suit of expansion on the mainland Venice was brought into collision first with the Scaligeri of Verona, then with the Carraresi of Padua, and finally with the Visconti of Milan. Hitherto Venice had enjoyed the advantages of isolation; the lagoons were vir tually impregnable; she had no land frontier to defend. But when she touched the mainland she at once became possessed of a frontier which could be attacked, and found herself compelled either to expand or to lose the territory she had acquired.
Venice had already established a tentative hold on the imme diate mainland as early as 1339. She was forced into war by Mastino della Scala, lord of Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, Feltre and Belluno, as well as of Verona, who imposed a duty on the trans port of Venetian goods. A league against the Scala domination was formed, and the result was the fall of the family. Venice took possession of Padua, but in the terms of the league she at once conferred the lordship on the Carraresi, retaining Treviso and Bassano for herself. But it is not till we come to the opening of the next century that Venice definitely acquired land possessions and found herself committed to all the difficulties and intricacies of Italian mainland politics. On the death of Gian Galeazzo Vis conti in 1402, his large possessions broke up. His neighbours and his generals seized what was nearest to hand. Francesco II. Car rara, lord of Padua, attempted to seize Vicenza and Verona. But Venice had been made to suffer at the hands of Carrara, who had levied heavy dues on transit, and moreover during the Chioggian War had helped the Genoese and cut off the food supply from the mainland. She was therefore forced in self-defence to crush the family of Carrara and to make herself permanently mistress of the immediate mainland. Accordingly when Gian Galeazzo's widow applied to the republic for help against Carrara it was readily granted, and after some years of fighting, the possessions of the Carraresi, Padua, Treviso, Bassano, commanding the Val Sugana route, as well as Vicenza and Verona, passed definitely under Ven etian rule. This expansion of mainland territory was followed in 1420 by the acquisition of Friuli after a successful war with the Emperor Sigismund, thus bringing the possessions of the republic up to the Carnic and Julian Alps, their natural frontier.