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... he mainland. Thus, the Venetians were a people born of trade (Pirenne 82). As history progressed, the city found itself in an entirely unique situation. Thanks to her isolated watery position, the Germanic tribes who over ran the continent were unable to gain possession of, or pillage the city. Venice remained, therefore, under the nominal sovereignty of the Byzantine Emperor.
After Constantinople fell, Venice only strengthened her situation. With territorial holdings and economic influence in both Italy and the Mediterranean basin, she was in a position to dominate trade between the West and the East for centuries (83 - 85). By the time the Middle Ages were wrapping up, the entire Republic had become a kind of sovereign merchant company. All galleys were required to meet state specified standards. Privately owned and operated vessels were obligated to conform to all city standards and meet inspection if they were to be allowed the right to sail with the huge convoys of four to five hundred ships that departed from the lagoon every two months. The goal, which was achieved, was to ensure that every ship which sailed under the Venetian flag could maintain the same speed, ride through the same storms, and could be repaired using the same techniques and with the same supplies (Hibbert Venice 53).
The industries that existed in the city and within the lagoon were also subject to meticulous regulations. Skilled artisans were forbidden to practice in other cities; the export of materials essential to their work was forbidden; [and] the divulgence to outsiders of arcane methods of manufacture was a capital offense (53). The guilds to which artisans and merchants belonged, while basically self-governing, tended in effect to be just one more of the many agencies of government control (53 - 54). The Venetian government itself was much less straight forward than that of Florence. From the beginning, authority in Venice was invested in a leader known as the Doge. Originally it was intended that the Doges power be limited by advisors and Tribunes, but as centuries passed, the office of the Doge grew increasingly autocratic.
Consequently, in 1172, it was decided that a new constitution was necessary. This cut off the Doges power and led to the creation of a Maggior Consiglio, or Great Council, which was to be comprised of leading citizens nominated by the districts of Venice, called septier. Around the beginning of the thirteenth century, there also emerged a Senate, appointed by the Great Council, which became the chief decision-making body of the Republic (Hibbert Venice 20). While Florence praised itself for its democratic pretensions, Venice made no attempt to hide its true nature.
No one outside the older Venetian families was ever admitted to the government. The Great Council retained the right not only to appoint and dismiss all the ministers of State, but also the representatives of the septier, so that in effect it became a self-perpetuating oligarchy (20). That oligarchy was devoted wholly to commercial interests, and trade was the life force of Venice. Through the centuries after the fall of Rome, Venice carved out for herself an exclusive trading monopoly within Italy and throughout the Levant. From her unique position, neither fully in the West nor in the East, Venice was able to capitalize on all fronts.
Her ships transported products from the countries on both her sides: wheat and wine from Italy, wood from Dalmatia, salt from the Veneto, and slaves from the shores of the Adriatic. As Venice grew richer, she constantly sought to create more markets in the East for good produced in Italy and Europe, and markets in the West for the goods she unloaded in her harbors (Pirenne 86 - 87). No scruple had any weight with the Venetians. Their religion was a religion of business men (86). Any reservations merchants may have had about the morality of their respective businesses were largely dispelled by large profits. Wealth commanded respect as well as comfort; and Venetian merchants like Florentine ones, subscribed to the view that wealth acquisition was a civic duty.
Simply put, as merchants grew richer, so did the city (Hibbert Venice 54). Florence and Venice are not exact copies of one another. There could scarcely two more diverse and special cities. Florence, as a center of industry, imported raw materials and exported finished products. Venice was the great trade epicenter of Europe and facilitated the exchange of goods from all over the known earth. Both cities were republics, but while Florence claimed to be democratic, Venice took no pains to hide its oligarchy.
Furthermore, Florence was firmly centered in the West. Its leaders had ties to the kings and Lords of Europe, and the city was squarely within the orbit of Rome and the Pope. Venice on the other hand was oriented more toward the East and to Constantinople, and she had no qualms about choosing to deal with the Muslims over the Christians if it was in her interest to do so. However, even with the distinctive differences between the two city-states, they share one intrinsically common core facet, their devotion to economic success. Both were economic powerhouses of Europe. Florentine banking and Venetian trade carried their respective influences sky high.
The wealth generated from both cities reintroduced Europe to the gold standard, and both the Florentine Florin and the Venetian Ducat became the standard of stable currency across Europe and the Mediterranean. In both cities, the pursuit of money was considered to be a cardinal virtue and a civic duty. Wealth was seen as both a personal honor and as an honor to city. In fact the citys governments themselves, being made up of merchants and businessmen, were purely economically minded. In pursuit of wealth and civic glory, nearly any immorality or vice could be dispelled by the promise of great profits (Hibbert Venice 53). Works Cited: Hibbert, Christopher.
Florence: The Biography of a City. London: Viking, 1993. -- -. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. , 1975. -- -. Venice: The Biography of a City.
London: Grafton Books, 1988 Pirenne, Henri. Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade. Trans. Frank D. Halsey. Princton, NJ: Princton University Press, 1925.
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Research essay sample on Hibbert Venice 53 Biography Of A City Florence
