History Summarized: The Republic of Venice (Ft. Suibhne!)

In the late Middle Ages and at the height of the Renaissance, all roads on the maritime highway of the Mediterranean Sea led to Venice. Join Blue (and special guest Suibhne) to discover why Venice came to be, how they came to dominate naval trade, and what happened over the fascinating course of their thousand-year history as an independent Republic.

Further Reading: John Julius Norwich's "A History Of Venice" – 600 pages of good stuff.

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[OverlySarcasticProductions]

See the rest of Operation Odysseus here!
And feel free to leave a comment about your favorite century of Venetian history — don't worry, every answer is correct.
-Blue

[marcelob.]

2:20
*Byzantium:* Allows Venetian independence and trade rights.
*Venice:* Takes over Byzantine islands as debt repayment and then sacks Constantinople.
*Byzantium:* This is the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe in the history of ever.

[iammrbeat]

"The eastern arm pit of Italy" totally should be their new slogan.

[Sean-negx]

"Hey, Blue, do you wanna talk about the Venician Republic and how awesome and stable it was again."
Blue: I dunno I already did a whole series on it already...." He begins rolling up his sleeves and lighting the fireplace, "What else could possibly be said about the beautiful city or their amazing and somewhat disproportionate hold on all trade?"
He pauses, and smiles at the nice person who asked, "Please hold my beer while I show you what more I could say."

[elizabethgodwin]

THEORY: Cyan isn't a human. Blue is dating the immortal spirit of Venice

[CogitoEdu]

Venice: We are so serene, the bestest most calmest, mostest serenest republic ever!

Everyone else: weird flex but ok..

[bigredinthewild]

1204 Sack of Constantinople: "Huh these muslims are really weird, speaking Greek, Byzantine icons, Christian artwork. Weird"

[thorne]

Venice: i am the only way to get spices to Europe
Portugal: *i'm about to end this man's whole career*

[EmperorTigerstar]

We're gonna float on through Venetian Canal-venue, and then we'll take it higher.

[kekero]

Venice is Carthage with an Italian accent.
-Friend of Rome in crisis and later enemy
-Revolutionary leaps in ship design an d production
-Very defensible position
-Huge mercantile empire
But Venice was never burned to the ground ;)

[cloudwyrms]

Trump, 2018: _Wall_

Venice in the 6th Century: *_Mega Moat_*

[TheArmchairHistorian]

Awesome video OSP! Hopefully we can set up another big collab like this one in the future!!

[TheNN]

Why did Venice work? Easy. People said they were DAFT to build a city in a lagoon, so they built it all the same!

...it sank into the lagoon! So they built a 2nd one!...it sank into the lagoon. So they built a 3rd one! That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the lagoon.

But the 4th one! The 4th one stayed up!

[carlocumino]

Italian history teacher: 'Ok, guys! The four more important "Repubbliche marinare" ?'
Kids: "Venezia, Genova, Amalfi and Pisa!" (True story! The Italian navy insignia put together the symbols of those 4 cities)

[lucapeluso]

You missed one point. Venice was founded during the Attila's invasion, not during the lombard one. The Huns couldn't use their mounted archers effectively in the lagoon and so the citizens of Aquileia decided to settle there to protect themselves

[Xiuhcoatl_]

"Everyone else using walls"

The Aztecs would like a word with you.

[HistoryTime]

Fantastic video man. Early Medieval Italy is such fascinating topic

[crazyinsane]

Venice is just a glorified Dwarf Fortress project.

There's probably a lever somewhere to activate all the submerged screw pumps to get at the Willow Wood supports.

[thomasjamison]

My favorite Venetian story, and there are many good ones, is of the time the Lombards besieged the city. As noted above they couldn't take it, but they hoped to starve it out. Instead, the Lombards ran out of food and then, as usual, disease struck. The Venetians just waited patiently, but as an interim amusement activity, they sailed their ships over towards the Lombards and launched loaves of bread into the Lombards to point out to them that Venice was in way starving. Eventually the Lombards took the hint and left.

[mnlg_yt]

As a Venetian I'm thrilled at how well you captured the essence of its history. I have come to like and respect Venice more because of its past than its present. I hope one day you can also talk about Fra' Paolo Sarpi, one of my personal heroes. Thank you!