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By Root 930 0

even worse torments in the afterlife. Winter arrived and departed without the celebration of Christmas. As Venice fell silent and penitent before the Absolute, it seemed that God had banished it to a mournful purgatory. “For the past twenty years nothing seemed to have gone right for them,” writes the historian John Julius Norwich of the Republic’s plight. “Militarily they had suffered defeats on land and sea, with serious losses, both in ships and human lives. They had been forced to watch, powerless, while the enemy penetrated to the very confines of the lagoon. Their neighbors, on many of whom they depended for trade, were in a greater or lesser degree unfriendly. Their chief colony, Crete, was once again in revolt.”

As if to confirm the impression of divine disfavor, an earthquake shook the fragile city to its foundations that winter. When the earth’s crust trembled, floods wrought havoc in Venice, claiming homes, destroying lives, leaving some citizens to starve amid ruined splendor. Its civic infrastructure still intact, Venice rallied and managed to maintain a veneer of prosperity and might despite disaster. But behind the scenes, the Republic had fallen on hard times, with no prospect of relief.

VENETIANS BLAMED their decline on a coterie of elite families that had amassed wealth during these difficult years, rather than on natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, the Republic’s disastrously confused foreign policies, the Church, or jealous rivals—all of which had done actual harm to Venice. In particular, the tightly knit Dandolo clan was held responsible; during the worst of the Republic’s recent troubles, two doges had happened to be Dandolos, including Giovanni Dandolo, who held the office during the trying period from 1280 to 1289.

During his tenure, the Piazza San Marco reverberated with public demonstrations in favor of a rival family, the Tiepolos, who harked back to the Republic’s traditional democratic character. Giacomo Tiepolo, the son of a doge, found himself poised to lead the Republic in these troubled times. Marco may have reflected that Tiepolo faced some of the same pressures as the Great Khan. On the one hand, Tiepolo had to satisfy a core group of like-minded supporters, and on the other, he had to cultivate his popular base. Insiders warned that Venice was becoming too democratic and was teetering on the verge of mob rule, while populists believed that Tiepolo planned to establish a hereditary monarchy in Venice.

Under pressure from all sides, Tiepolo went into exile on the mainland. At the same time, 1289, Pietro Gradenigo, the thirty-eight-year-old scion of a newly rich merchant family, was grudgingly elected the next doge, acquiring in the process a condescending nickname, Pierazzo. No matter who occupied the Doge’s Palace, whether autocrat or populist, Venice’s deterioration accelerated.

IN 1291, the sultan of Egypt, Al-Ashraf Khalil, fulfilling a long-held vow, had overrun Acre and killed most of its residents. The shock was felt thousands of miles away in Venice, since Acre had served as a staging area for merchants and their goods, just as it had for the Polos.

With the fall of Acre and other Christian outposts in the Middle East, Venetians turned their attention toward Europe. Ships sailed to destinations as varied as Amsterdam, London, and Marseilles. Venetian merchants learned to distract and entertain neglected feudal barons with a traveling menagerie of animals, clowns, musicians, and acrobats before transacting business. The doge encouraged trade with the West, exempting himself alone from the necessity of paying duty on the items he acquired.

IN TIME, the Republic’s struggles against commercial and military rivals drew Marco Polo into the fray. On this occasion, the main irritant was Genoa. That city-state, every bit as avaricious as Venice, jealously guarded its trade in spices from India and grain from the Crimea, as well as fish, salt, furs, and even slaves. Anything that could be bought and sold became fuel for Genoa’s economic engine.

To prevent outright