Venice’s Maritime Empire in the Early Modern Period

Abstract

The various terms used to denote Venice's overseas possessions, such as terre da mar , stato di mare , stato da mar , stati oltremare , as well as other similar terms encountered in early modern sources, express the predominantly maritime character of the part of the Venetian state. The cultural difference between the Italian dominions and Venice's Hellenic territories, even those, such as Crete, where Venetian settlers had lived for several centuries, were of no less significance. No systematic chronology of Venetian acquisitions and losses in its early modern overseas empire exists, which may account for the numerous impressionistic affirmations regarding the stato da mar . With the passing of time, two patterns of self rule one legitimate and institutionalized and the other illegal and informal but nevertheless effective came to regulate the lives of Venetian subjects in the Republic's overseas colonies. Keywords: maritime empire; stato da mar ; Venetian state; Venice's overseas territories

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 70 citations exist upstream.