The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova by Paul Strathern Read Free Book Online

had no alternative but to advance in support of his foolhardy ally; meanwhile his Greek allies hastily retired from the battle. As the storm continued and night fell, the Venetian and Genoese fleets battled it out. Incendiary arrows and missiles had set alight fires in both fleets, and these quickly passed from ship to ship in the high wind. Chaos ensued, with ships grappling and men fighting in the garish glare, often unaware who was friend or foe. As dawn broke, the remnants of the Venetian fleet found themselves battling against wind and current and were forced to flee. By now Paolo was dead, while Pisani had lost most of his galleys and 1,500 men – a colossal loss given the recent predations of the Black Death.
    Technically, the Genoese had won the Battle of the Bosphorus, but in terms of men and galleys their losses were on a par with those of the Venetians. On the other hand, they were now in a position to force the Byzantine emperor Cantacuzenus to grant them certain exclusive trading rights, especially in the Crimea and the Sea of Azov – the termination of lucrative trading routes to the Orient. Venice had now lost all access to the Black Sea as well as access to Byzantine ports in the Aegean. Venetian ascendancy in the eastern Mediterranean looked to be under threat. Many in Venice wished to see Pisani summoned home and put on trial for his life. Instead he was merely subjected to the interrogation of an official inquiry, which eventually exonerated him. Desperate to regain his honour, in the summer of 1353 Pisani switched his tactics, leading a Venetian fleet into the western Mediterranean. The Aragonese were bent on wresting Sardinia from the control of Genoa and had begun to blockade the port of Alghero on the north-western coast of the island. As luck would have it, Pisani turned up just as the Aragonese were expecting the arrival of the Genoese fleet and they immediately handed overall command of the new joint fleet to Pisani. By the time the Genoese arrived, Pisani was ready for them, and on 29 August 1353 – just eighteen months after his humiliating loss at the Battle of the Bosphorus – he redeemed himself by inflicting an overwhelming defeat on the Genoese fleet. Of sixty galleys, only nineteen managed to limp back to Genoa.
    This was a blow from which the Genoese were unable to recover: they had now suffered catastrophic destruction of manpower and galleys in two successive major battles, and Venice controlled the Mediterranean, thus cutting off the city of Genoa from its lucrative trade with the Black Sea and the Levant. Notably in this instance it had been the ambition of an individual, rather than the calculated will of the Venetian authorities, that had reversed the Republic’s fortunes. Just months earlier Venice had stood on the precipice of disaster, and now its bitter rival was crushed.
    This defeat was not only disastrous in terms of commerce, but threatened the very lives of the Genoese themselves. The city had by now spread over much of the thin strip of agricultural land between the mountains and the sea, forcing it to rely upon outside trade for its grain supplies. These were usually obtained from the Levant and from the fertile Lombardyplains in the territory of Milan to the north. But now even Milan had turned against Genoa. Giovanni Visconti, the Lord and Archbishop of Milan, saw this as his chance to overcome Genoa, and in return for supplies the Genoese were forced to sign a humiliating ‘treaty’ with Milan, which virtually made the city a vassal of its powerful northern neighbour. This was a strategic masterstroke by Visconti, who thus denied the Venetians the chance of destroying Genoese power once and for all and threatening Milan in the process. Instead it was now Milan that became the overwhelming major power in northern Italy, and in doing so threatened Venice.
    Venice realised this danger and quickly organised a defensive league of inland cities between it and Milanese