Maritime republics

The maritime republics, also called merchant republics, were Italian thalassocratic states which, starting from the Middle Ages, enjoyed political autonomy and economic prosperity brought about by their maritime activities. The term, coined during the 19th century, generally refers to four Italian cities, whose coats of arms have been shown since 1947 on the flags of the Italian Navy and the Italian Merchant Navy: Amalfi, Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. In addition to the four best known cities, Ancona, Gaeta, Noli, and, in Dalmatia, Ragusa, are also considered maritime republics; in certain historical periods, they had no secondary importance compared to some of the better known cities.
Uniformly scattered across the Italian peninsula, the maritime republics were important not only for the history of navigation and commerce: in addition to precious goods otherwise unobtainable in Europe, new artistic ideas and news concerning distant countries also spread. From the 10th century, they built fleets of ships both for their own protection and to support extensive trade networks across the Mediterranean, giving them an essential role in reestablishing contacts between Europe, Asia, and Africa, which had been interrupted during the early Middle Ages. They also had an essential role in the Crusades and produced renowned explorers and navigators such as Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus.
Over the centuries, the maritime republics — both the best known and the lesser known but not always less important — experienced fluctuating fortunes. In the 9th and 10th centuries, this phenomenon began with Amalfi and Gaeta, which soon reached their heyday. Meanwhile, Venice began its gradual ascent, while the other cities were still experiencing the long gestation that would lead them to their autonomy and to follow up on their seafaring vocation. After the 11th century, Amalfi and Gaeta declined rapidly, while Genoa and Venice became the most powerful republics.
Pisa followed and experienced its most flourishing period in the 13th century, and Ancona and Ragusa allied to resist Venetian power. Following the 14th century, while Pisa declined to the point of losing its autonomy, Venice and Genoa continued to dominate navigation, followed by Ragusa and Ancona, which experienced their golden age in the 15th century. In the 16th century, with Ancona's loss of autonomy, only the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Ragusa remained, which still experienced great moments of splendor until the mid-17th century, followed by over a century of slow decline that ended with the Napoleonic invasion.

Periodization of the history of the maritime republics

The table below shows the periods of activity of the maritime republics over the centuries.

Conceptualization of maritime republics

Pre-unification

The expression maritime republics was coined by nineteenth-century historiography, almost coinciding with the end of the last of them: none of these states had ever defined itself as a maritime republic. Swiss historian Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi introduced the expression and focused on the corresponding concept in his 1807 work History of the Italian Republics of the Middle Centuries. In Sismondi's text, the maritime republics were seen as cities dedicated above all to fighting each other over issues related to their commercial expansion, unlike the medieval communes, which instead fought together against the Empire courageously defending their freedom.
In Italy, up until the unification, this determined a negative judgment on the maritime cities, because their history of mutual struggles appeared in stark contrast to the spirit of the Risorgimento. The only exception was considered the very difficult and finally victorious resistance of Ancona in the siege of 1173, which the city obtained against the imperial troops of Federico Barbarossa; that victory entered the national imagination as an anticipation of the struggles of Italian patriots against foreign rulers. The episode, however, was included in the municipal epic and not in the seafaring one.

Post-unification

In the first decades after Italian unification, post-Risorgimento patriotism fueled a rediscovery of the Middle Ages linked to a romantic nationalism, in particular to those aspects that seemed to prefigure national glory and the struggle for independence. The phenomenon of the "maritime republics" was then reinterpreted, freed from negative prejudice and placed side by side with the glorious history of the medieval communes; thus it also established itself on a popular level.
Celebrating history, the Italian maritime cities did not consider their mutual struggles so much as their common seafaring enterprise. In the post-unification cultural climate, it was considered essential for the formation of the modern Italian people to remember that within the maritime republics and municipalities arose the industriousness that inaugurated the new civilization.
In the Regia Marina, established immediately after the achievement of national unity and therefore only in 1861, there were heated contrasts between the various pre-unification navies: Sardinian, Tuscan, papal and Neapolitan. The exaltation of the seafaring spirit that united the maritime republics made it possible to highlight a common historical basis and overcome divisions. This necessitated the removal of ancient rivalries; in this regard, of great significance was the return of chains that had closed Pisa's port, which had been stolen by Genoa during the medieval fights. Their return in 1860 was a sign of fraternal affection and of the now indissoluble union between the two cities, as can be read on the plaque affixed after the return.
In 1860, the study of the maritime republics as a unitary phenomenon was introduced in the school curriculum, further popularizing the concept. From that year forward, the high school program required students to address the "causes of the rapid resurgence of Italian maritime trade - Amalfi, Venice, Genoa, Ancona, Pisa" and the "Settlement of the great Italian Navy". For the second class, at the beginning of the year, the teacher was arranged to recall the period in which the maritime republics grew and flourished. Every time the school programs were renewed, the study of the phenomenon of the maritime republics was always confirmed.
In 1875, the ministerial indication was followed up in the history program for technical institutes. That year, Carlo O. Galli claimed in a scholastic textbook that "among all the peoples of Europe, the one who in the Middle Ages rose first to great power" in navigation was the Italian people, and he attributed this to the independence enjoyed by "the maritime republics of Italy, among which Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, Ancona, Venice, Naples and Gaeta deserve more mention".
In 1895, the sailor Augusto Vittorio Vecchi, founder of the Italian Naval League and better known as a writer under the pseudonym Jack la Bolina, wrote General History of the Navy, which was widely circulated and described the military exploits of the maritime cities in chronological order of origin and decay, from Amalfi to Pisa, Genoa and Ancona to Venice. In 1899, historian Camillo Manfroni wrote on Italy's maritime history, identifying the period of the maritime republics as that history's most glorious phase. At the end of the 19th century, the history of the maritime republics was thus consolidated and consigned to the 20th century.

20th century

The number "four", which still often occurs today associated with maritime republics, is, as can be seen, not original: the short list of maritime republics was limited to two or three cities ; the long list included Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Ancona, Amalfi and Gaeta.
Crucial for the diffusion of the list of four maritime republics was a publication by Captain Umberto Moretti, who was tasked by the Royal Navy in 1904 with documenting the maritime history of Amalfi. The volume was released under the significant title The First Maritime Republic of Italy. From that moment on, the name of Amalfi definitively joined that of the other republics in the short list, shifting the imbalance towards the centre-north of the country with its presence.
In the 1930s, a list made up of four names was consolidated: Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice. This finally led to the inclusion of the symbols of the four cities in the Italian Navy's flag. The flag, approved in 1941, would not be adopted until 1947 due to World War II. In 1955, the four cities represented in the navy flag inspired the Regatta of the Historical Marine Republics.
Armando Lodolini's 1967 book The Republics of the Sea resumed the previous long list of maritime republics: Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Ancona, Gaeta, and the Dalmatian Ragusa. Noli's status as a small maritime republic would only come into focus in later decades after previously being affirmed only at an academic level.
In 2000, Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi summed up the maritime republics' historic role with these words:

Description

Characteristics

Elements that characterized a maritime republic were:

Independence
Autonomy, economics, politics, and culture essentially based on navigation and maritime trade
Possession of a fleet of ships, built in its own arsenal
Establishment of a city-state that would eventually expand further
Presence of warehouses and consuls in Mediterranean ports
Presence of foreign warehouses and consuls in its own port
Use of its own currency accepted throughout the Mediterranean and its own maritime laws
Republican government
Participation in the Crusades and/or the crackdown on piracy
Origins, affirmation and duration

The economic recovery that took place in Europe starting with the 9th century, combined with hazardous mainland trading routes, enabled the development of major commercial routes along the Mediterranean coast. The growing autonomy acquired by some coastal cities gave them a leading role in this development. As many as six of these cities — Amalfi, Venice, Gaeta, Genoa, Ancona, and Ragusa — began their own history of autonomy and trade after being almost destroyed by terrible looting, or were founded by refugees from devastated lands.
These cities, exposed to pirate raids and neglected by central powers, organized their own defence autonomously, coupling the exercise of maritime trade with that of their armed protection. Thus, in the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries, they were able to go on the offensive, obtaining numerous victories over the Saracens, starting with the historic Battle of Ostia in 849. The traffic of these cities reached Africa and Asia, effectively inserting itself between the Byzantine and Islamic maritime powers, with which a complex relationship of competition and collaboration was established for the control of the Mediterranean routes.
Each of the cities was favored by its geographical position, far from the main routes of passage of the armies and protected by mountains or lagoons, which isolated it and allowed it to devote itself undisturbed to maritime traffic. This led to a gradual administrative autonomy and, in some cases, to total independence from the central powers, which for some time were no longer able to control the peripheral provinces: the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Papal States.
The forms of independence that were created in these cities were varied, and the modern approach to considering political relations, which clearly distinguishes between administrative autonomy and political freedom, makes it difficult to orient itself among them. For this reason, in the table below there are two dates relating to independence: one refers to the de facto freedom acquired, the other to that of law.

City	Coat of arms	Flag	Motto, currency and maritime code	Start of independence	Preceding state	End of independence	Duration of independence	Succeeding state
Amalfi			motto: Descendit ex patribus romanorum currency: tarì code: Amalfian Laws	de facto: 839	Byzantine Empire	1131	de facto: 3 centuries	Kingdom of Sicily
Genoa			mottos: Respublica superiorem non recognoscens; Pe Zena e pe San Zòrzo; Griphus ut has angit, sic hostes Ianua frangit. currency: genovino code: Regulae et ordinamenta officii gazariae	de facto: 958 ; de jure: 1096	Kingdom of Italy	1797	de facto: 8 centuries de jure: 7 centuries	Ligurian Republic
Pisa			motto: Urbis me dignum pisane noscite signum currency: aquilino or grosso pisano codes: Constitutum usus and Breve curia maris	de facto: 11th century	Kingdom of Italy	1406	de facto: 4 centuries de jure: 3 centuries	Republic of Florence
Venice			mottos: Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus; Viva San Marco! currency: sequin or ducat code: Capitolare nauticum	de facto: acquired gradually after the Exarchate of Ravenna's collapse in 751, 840, 1122-1126 de jure: 1141-1143	Byzantine Empire	1797	de facto: circa 9 centuries de jure: 6.5 centuries	Archduchy of Austria
Ancona			motti: Ancon dorica civitas fidei currency: agontano code: Statutes of the Sea	de facto: 11th century	Kingdom of Italy Papal States	1532	de facto: 5 centuries	Papal States
Gaeta			currency: follaro code: part of the Statutes of Gaeta	de facto: 839	Byzantine Empire	1140	de facto: 3 centuries	Kingdom of Sicily
Noli			code: Statutes of Noli	de facto: 1192 ; de jure: 1196	Kingdom of Italy	15th century 1797	maritime republic: 2 centuries republic: 6 centuries	Ligurian Republic
Ragusa			motto: Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro currency: various denominations code: two volumes of the Liber Statutorum	de facto: 11th century	Byzantine Empire	1808	de facto: 8 centuries	Illyrian Provinces of the First French Empire

From an institutional point of view, in line with their municipal origins, the maritime cities were oligarchic republics, generally governed, in a more or less declared manner, by the main merchant families. The governments were therefore an expression of the merchant class, which constituted the backbone of their power. For this reason, these cities are sometimes referred to with the more generic term of "merchant republic".
They were endowed with an articulated system of magistracies, with sometimes complementary, sometimes overlapping competences, which over the centuries showed a decided tendency to change - not without a certain degree of instability - and to centralize power. Thus the government became the privilege of the merchant nobility in Venice and the duke in Amalfi. Even Gaeta, which never had a republican order, and Amalfi, which became a duchy in 945, are also called maritime republics, as the term republic should not be understood in its modern meaning: until Machiavelli and Kant, "republic" was synonymous with "State", and was not opposed to monarchy.
The Crusades offered the opportunity to expand trade. Amalfi, Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Ancona and Ragusa were already engaged in trade with the Levant, but with the Crusades thousands of inhabitants of the seaside cities poured into the East, creating warehouses, colonies and commercial establishments. They exercised great political influence at the local level: Italian merchants set up trade associations in their business centers with the aim of obtaining jurisdictional, fiscal and customs privileges from foreign governments.
Only Venice, Genoa and Pisa had territorial expansion overseas, i.e. they possessed large regions and numerous islands along the Mediterranean coasts. Genoa and Venice also came to dominate their entire region and part of the neighboring ones, becoming capitals of regional states. Venice was then the only one to dominate territories very far from the coast, up to occupying eastern Lombardy. Amalfi, Gaeta, Ancona, Ragusa and Noli, on the other hand, extended their dominion only to a part of the territory of their region, configuring themselves as city-states; however, all the republics had their own colonies and warehouses in the main Mediterranean ports, except Noli, which used those of the Genoese.
If the absence of a strong central authority had been the premise for the birth of the merchant republics, their end was vice versa due to the affirmation of a powerful centralized state. Usually independence could last as long as trade was able to ensure prosperity and wealth, but when these ceased, an economic decline was triggered, ending with the annexation, not necessarily violent, to a strong and organized state.
The longevity of the maritime republics was quite varied: Venice had the longest life, from the High Middle Ages to the Napoleonic era. Genoa and Ragusa had a very long history, from the 1000s to the Napoleonic Age. Noli lasted as long, but stopped trading as early as the 15th century. Pisa and Ancona had a long life, remaining independent until the Renaissance. Amalfi and Gaeta were the first to fall, being conquered by the Normans in the 12th century.