History of The Republic of Venice - 17th Century

17th Century

In 1605 a conflict between Venice and the Holy See began with the arrest of two members of the clergy who were guilty of petty crimes, and with a law restricting the Church's right to enjoy and acquire landed property. Pope Paul V held that these provisions were contrary to canon law, and demanded that they should be repealed. When this was refused, he placed Venice under an interdict. The Republic paid no attention to the interdict or the act of excommunication, and ordered its priests to carry out their ministry. It was supported in its decisions by the Servite monk Paolo Sarpi, a sharp polemical writer who was nominated to be the Signoria's adviser on theology and canon law in 1606. The interdict was lifted after a year, when France intervened and proposed a formula of compromise. Venice was satisfied with reaffirming the principle that no citizen was superior to the normal processes of law.

A new war occurred in the years 1613-1617. The government of Venice wrote:

The Uzkoks (Italian Uscocchi) were Christian refugees from Bosnia and Turkish Dalmatia who had been enlisted by the Austrian Habsburg to defend their borders after the peace between Venice and the Ottomans following the Battle of Lepanto. They settled in Segna and lived as pirates in the Adriatic, causing concern in Venice that they would complicate relations with the Sublime Porte. When Venice acted against these Uscocchi in 1613, she found herself at odds on land with their protector, the archduke of Austria. An army was sent against Gradisca, an archduke's possession, with financial support given to the duke of Savoy, who was pinning down the Spanish army in Lombardy. The military operations on the eastern frontier were not decisive, but among the terms of the peace of 1617 the Habsburgs undertook to solve the problem of the Uzkoks, whom they moved inland.

In 1617, whether on his own initiative, or supported by his king, the Spanish viceroy of Naples attempted to break Venetian dominance by sending a naval squadron to the Adriatic. His expedition met with mixed success, and he retired from the Adriatic. Rumours of sedition and conspiracy were meanwhile circulating in Venice, and there were disturbances between mercenaries of different nationalities enrolled for the war of Gradisca. The Spanish ambassador, the Marquis of Bedmar, was wise to the plot, if not the author of it. Informed of this by a Huguenot captain, the Ten acted promptly. Three "bravos" were hanged, and the Senate demanded the immediate recall of the Spanish ambassador.

Tension with Spain increased in 1622, when Antonio Foscarini, a senator and ambassador to England, was accused of acting for foreign powers during his time as ambassador and of spying for Spain after his return. He was tried, acquitted of the first charge, found guilty of the second and hanged from a gallows between the columns of the Piazzetta in 1622. A few months later the Ten discovered that he had been the innocent victim of a plot. He was rehabilitated, and the news circulated around all the chancelleries of Europe.

In 1628 Venice was involved in Italian politics for the first time in more than a century. On the death of Ferdinando I Gonzaga, duke of Mantua and Montferrat, the succession developed upon a French prince, Charles of Gonzaga-Nevers. This changed the balance of power in northern Italy, which had until now been controlled by the Spanish through Milan. In the ensuing war, Venice was allied with France against the Habsburgs and Savoy. The Venetian army was defeated in an attempt to come to the aid of Mantua, which was under siege by German troops, and Mantua itself was savagely sacked. The peace which recognized Charles of Gonzaga-Nevers as duke of Mantua and Monferrato was made practically without Venice's participation. War brought plague in 1630. In 16 months 50,000 people died in Venice, one third of the population. The first stone of the church of Santa Maria della Salute in the city was laid as a thanks offering for the end of the plague.

In 1638, while the Venetian fleet was cruising off Crete, a corsair fleet from Barbary consisting of 16 galleys from Algiers and Tunis entered the Adriatic. When the fleet returned, the corsairs repaired to the Turkish stronghold of Valona. The Venetian commander Marino Cappello attacked the corsairs, bombarded the forts and captured their galleys, freeing 3,600 prisoners. The sultan reacted to the bombardment of his fortress by arresting the Venetian bailo (ambassador) in Constantinople, Alvise Contarini. War was momentarily averted and the matter settled by diplomacy; however, six years later the Ottoman attack against Candia, the main Cretan port, left no easy terms to resort to. The Cretan War lasted for some 25 years and was the dominant question of the whole Republic's history in the 17th century.

War also moved to the mainland in the middle of 1645, when the Turks attacked the frontiers of Dalmatia. In the latter the Venetians were able to save their coastal positions because of their command of the sea, but on 22 August, the Cretan stronghold of Khania was forced to capitulate.

The greatest Turkish effort was directed against Sebenico, in today's Croatia, which was besieged in August–September 1647. The siege failed, and in the succeeding year the Venetians recovered several fortresses inland, such as Clissa. In Crete, however, the situation was more serious. Throughout all the war the Venetian strategy was to blockade the Dardanelles in order to surprise the Turkish fleet on its way to supply the troops on Crete. There were some signal successes, including two victories in the Dardanelles in 1655 and 1656, but they failed to alter the strategic situation. The next year there was a three-day-long sea-battle (17–19 July 1657), in which the captain Lazzaro Mocenigo was killed by a falling mast, and turning into a crushing defeat. With the end of the war between France and Spain in 1659, Venice received more aid from the Christian states than the small contingents which she had received in the first years. In 1666 an expedition to retake Khania failed, and in 1669 another attempt to lift the siege of Candia with joint action on land with the French contingent and by sea under Mocenigo also turned out to be a failure. The French returned home, and only 3,600 fit men were left in the fortress of Candia. Captain Francesco Morosini negotiated its surrender on 6 September 1669. The island of Crete was ceded, except for some small Venetian bases, while Venice retained the islands of Tinos and Cerigo, and its conquests in Dalmatia.

In 1684 Venice, taking advance of the recent Turkish defeat in the siege of Vienna, formed an alliance with Austria against the Ottomans; Russia was later included in the league. At the beginning of the Morean War Francesco Morosini occupied the island of Levkas and set out to recapture the Greek ports. Between June 1685 when he landed at Corone, and August, when he occupied Patras, Lepanto and Corinth, he secured the Peloponnese for Venice. In September, during the attack on Athens, a Venetian cannon blew up the Parthenon. Venetian possessions were greatly increased in Dalmatia too, although the attempt to regain Negropont in 1688 was a failure. Morosini's successors failed to obtain lasting results in the next years, although large fleets were sent out, and in spite of some brilliant victories — at Mitylene in 1695, Andros in 1697 and the Dardanelles in 1698. The Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) favoured Austria and Russia more than Venice, which failed to regain its bases in the Mediterranean taken by the Turks in the last two centuries, in spite of its conquests.

New conflict was brewing over the question of the Spanish Succession. Both France and the Habsburg empire, attempted now to gain an active ally in Venice, despatching envoys with authority there in 1700. The Venetian government preferred to remain neutral rather than accept hypothetical advantages offered by interested parties. The Republic remained faithful to this policy of neutrality to the end, caught in unavoidable decline but living out its life in a luxury famous throughout Europe.