Venice (Chaos)

1204 (as OTL), Venice initiated the infamous Fourth Crusade. The Byzantine Empire was conquered, Constantinople plundered, in its place the founded, which got one quarter of the lands of the old Empire. Other parts went to Venice or or became independent.

An important divergence happened in 1277, when a treaty between the crusader Bohemond VII, titular prince of Antioch and the Doge of Venice for the transfer of glassmaking technology wasn't signed, so the transfer of Syrian glassworkers and their trade secrets didn't happen. The OTL famous Venetian glass industry wasn't born.

1281-1300, the had its headquarter in Venice.

Reorientation
Since 1339, Venice started expanding on the terra firma - a sign that its position as a sea power were declining. 1366, the city managed to defeat its old rival Genoa; however, in reality both powers had already somewhat suffered since the rise of the and the fall of Constantinople. 1394, the arrives in Venice.

1407,, a cunning Florentine diplomat, devised a plan. , and Venice divided all of Northern Italy except Genoa into spheres of influences, which said three states were allowed to conquer. Otherwise, the big three were supposed to live in peace. Until the 1430s, this is what happened: The little city states (which were near collapse after the difficult 14th century) of Northern Italy were "mopped up" and annexed.

In 1430, Venice also annexed the patriarchate of Aquileia (which was part of the HRE). 1444, Venice defeated Florence in alliance with, fearing the former's economical competition. The victors destroyed Florence's fleet, forced it to sign an "everlasting treaty" forbidding Florence's ships to go to ANY harbor in or the Mediterranean (except those on its own territory). In addition, Florence had to pay a big sum of money. Florence offered the victors to give them Corsica instead, but they were not interested.

Just a few years later, in 1448 Venice lost Dalmatia to the Seljuks, only kept Istria. Now, it was finally reduced to a purely Italian power. In 1490, could force the Republic to appoint his cousin Jean "protector of the republic", essentially giving him lots of real power, promising them an "everlasting alliance" with  against the Muslims. Until the end of the republic, the French protectors wielded the real power in Venice. In the 1519-22, the alliance of the, Florence, Venice and some German princes fought the Seljuks to a stalemate along the Po river, which became the new northern border of the Seljuk empire.

1511, Venice had joined the " / Alpenbund" with France, and -Carinthia, which was mainly directed against the Seljuks. This didn't stop the latter from conquering Crete in 1521, which meant the de facto end of Venice as a sea power.

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