Stato da Màr


The Stato da Màr or Domini da Mar, sometimes described as a maritime empire or overseas empire, comprised the maritime and overseas territories controlled by the Republic of Venice from approximately 1000 until 1797. At various points, these territories included parts of present-day Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece—notably Istria, Dalmatia, the Ionian Islands, the Peloponnese, Crete, the Cyclades, Euboea, and Cyprus.
It was one of the three subdivisions of the Republic of Venice's possessions, the other two being the Dogado, i.e. Venice proper, and the Domini di Terraferma in northern Italy.
The overseas possessions, particularly islands such as Corfu, Crete, and Cyprus, played a critical role in Venice's commercial and military leadership. In his landmark study on the Mediterranean world in the 16th century, historian Fernand Braudel described these islands as "Venice's motionless fleet".

History

The creation of Venice's overseas empire began around the year 1000 with the defeat of the Narentines by Doge Pietro II Orseolo and recognition of Venetian rule by Dalmatian city-states, allowing the Doge to call himself "Duke of Dalmatia" for the next few decades. Control over the latter, however, would not be stabilized until the early 15th century. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Venice gradually established its rule over Istria, which lasted until the end of the Republic.
Venice's overseas domains reached its greatest nominal extent at the conclusion of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, with declaration of the acquisition of three octaves of the Byzantine Empire. However, most of this territory was never controlled by Venice, being held by the Greek Byzantine successor states, namely the Despotate of Epirus and especially the Empire of Nicaea. Venice remained an important player in Constantinople, holding the key position of Podestà until its Byzantine reconquest in 1261, and more broadly in the region during the politically complex period known as the Frankokratia. Of its Fourth Crusade acquisitions, it kept Euboea until the 15th century, the Cyclades until the 16th, and Crete until the 17th.
The aftermath of the War of Chioggia in the late 14th century saw another period of rapid growth of the Venetian empire. Corfu came under permanent Venetian rule in 1386, Argos and Nauplia in 1388–1394, the Adriatic ports of Durazzo and Alessio on the Albanian coast in 1392, followed by Scutari in 1396 and Drivasto in 1397. In 1402, the Battle of Ankara temporarily reversed the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the east, and the death of Duke of Milan Giangaleazzo Visconti created a power vacuum in northern Italy that enabled expansion of the Domini di Terraferma. The changed climate created by the Ottoman Interregnum and the ensuing Treaty of Gallipoli in 1403 led to a growth of commerce and the acquisition of a new string of fortresses in Greece: Lepanto in 1407, Patras in 1408, Navarino in 1410, and temporarily Thessalonica in 1423. In Dalmatia, where Venice had been forced to cede its possessions to the Kingdom of Hungary by the Treaty of Zadar, it took advantage of the conflict between Ladislaus of Naples and Sigismund over the Hungarian Crown, and in 1409 secured the cession by Ladislaus of several of his Dalmatian domains —Cres, Rab, Pag, Zadar, Vrana and Novigrad— for 100,000 ducats.
In 1489, Venice also acquired Cyprus, which it kept until Ottoman conquest in 1570–1571. The Venetian hold over navigation in the Adriatic Sea was maintained for centuries, to the extent that it was labeled "Mare di Venezia" on maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From the 15th century onwards, the history of Venice's overseas empire is dominated by successive Ottoman–Venetian wars. Venice lost many territories but also occasionally gained some, most notably the Peloponnese from the late 1680s to 1715 and the Dalmatian Hinterland also in the 1680s. After that date, the remaining overseas domains, kept until the Fall of the Republic of Venice to Napoleon I in 1797, were all in Istria, Dalmatia, and the Ionian Islands, with none left east of Kythira and Antikythera.

Domains

The locations are listed broadly from closest to farthest from Venice. Where there is a difference between the name in Venetian language and standard Italian, the Venetian version is indicated first. Feudal lordships held by Venetians, such as Andrea Ghisi in Tinos and Mykonos, are included.

In today's northeastern Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia