CultureWatch Reviews: City of Fortune

According to Crowley, both Venetians and Genoese were roundly disliked by “the pious medieval world.” He notes wryly that the word “bastard” and “Venetian” sounded identical in Arabic … but, he adds, “Genoa generally enjoyed a slightly worse reputation.” The Genoese were certainly aggressive, adventurous, and acquisitive. Crowley remarks that it was no accident that it would be the Genoese sailor, Christopher Columbus, who made it to the New World in 1492 (albeit under the flag of Spain).

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries brought great changes to Venice, not least of these the introduction of the Plague, in 1348. By the time it had run its course, at least half the population of the city had died. The fourteenth century was also a time of on-and-off, out-and-out wars with Genoa, which vastly depleted both city states. There was a mid-century rebellion in Crete, as well, which took five years to put down – but once done, Venice ruled Crete for the next 300 years.

By the end of the fifteenth century, the Ottomans had taken Constantinople, and in 1499, the Portuguese captain, Vasco da Gama, returned from India, having found passage around the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa. Spices would no longer have to be carted along the Silk Road, overland from the Orient. They could be brought by ship to Portugal, saving their dealers the huge taxes which had been levied at every point of the land journey, cutting out the Venetians altogether.

Venice, ever with its eye on the profitable, gradually moved from an economy built on trade to one based on manufacture. Its various outlying possessions (Cyprus, and the assorted islands of the Aegean and Adriatic) fell away, one by one, although it continued to rule Crete until the 1700’s. “Ultimately,” says Crowley, “the Stato da Mar was as hard to defend as the American colonies were for Britain.”

Roger Crowley has done an elegant job of research in order to produce this book. It is no mere relating of dates and treaties. Throughout, there is good use of telling quotes, as well as wonderful descriptive narration.

Crowley’s jump-around, back-and-forth telling of incidents and dates may at times be confusing to the reader. It would have helped to have a printed timeline. There are very good maps, however, and a nice dictionary of place names. This reader was, however, frustrated by the fact that there is no glossary of the many foreign terms used. Crowley does an excellent job of explaining their meaning when first he uses such a term, but if you don’t come upon it again until a couple of hundred pages later, it would help to be able to refresh memory by flipping to the glossary. For example, the term “muda,” which describes the set voyages of trading galleys which follow a prescribed course/timetable, year after year: There were perhaps 200 pages between its introduction and the next use of the word, and for someone who doesn’t speak the language, that’s about 175 pages too long.

City of Fortune is not a quick read, but thanks to Crowley’s careful scholarship, it paints a vivid picture of time and place.

Map: Piri Reis was an Ottoman admiral, geographer and cartographer born between 1465 and 1470.

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CultureWatch Reviews: City of Fortune

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