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'Crisis', ‘decline’ and 'fall' of the Serenissima: remembering Venice as...   563


                    threat to the Ottoman forces; that Dalmatia remained secure was
                    not due to any inherent loyalty to the Serenissima but due to the
                    bellicose nature of the local population and their intense «animos-
                    ité contre les Turcs» .
                                         82
                       For Daru the great reason for Venice’s decline was its military
                    impotence, which became more entrenched with neutrality. «Isolée
                    au milieu des nations», Venice became a passive onlooker «imper-
                    turbable dans son indifférence, aveugle sur ses intérêts, insensi-
                    ble  aux  injures,  elle  sacrifiait  tout  à  l’unique  désir  de  ne  point
                    donner d’ombrage aux autres États, et de conserver un paix éter-
                    nelle» . The problem in Daru’s view was that the Republic could
                          83
                    clearly not compete on the international stage because of lack of
                    resources. Its only way to remedy this was not through «la puis-
                    sance du commerce» but through expansion of power to generate
                    «une certaine masse de population» . Venice had managed to do
                                                         84
                    this in the past. The problem was that Venice’s constitution did
                    not permit the integration of that population within the polity. The
                    position of the Dominante meant that it was only Venetians patri-
                    cians who truly identified with the state. Had Venice been a mon-
                    archy «les sujets italiens, les Dalmates, les Grecs, se seraient trou-
                    vés égaux devant le prince. Tous auraient pu participer aux em-
                    plois […]» . The irony of course is that this was precisely what the
                              85
                    Napoleonic imperial system failed to do in Italy. The preservation
                    of élite posts for French, and at a pinch Lombard and Piedmontese
                    officials  and  officers  thoroughly  alienated  the  Venetians;  the
                    French  sense  of  inherent  superiority  antagonised  Italians
                    throughout the peninsula.
                       Daru’s account of Venetian decline is judicious. He is cautious to
                    contextualise. Thus, while Labaume defined the paying of tribute to
                    Barbary pirates after Emo’s expedition as «honteuse», Daru qualified
                    this shame: «cette humiliation était partagée par des puissances bien
                    plus considérables» . He understood that the Venetian ships could
                                        86
                    not  start  trading  under  foreign  colours  because  the  moment  they
                    did  so  they  could  no  longer  «prétendre  à  la  souveraineté  du  golfe
                    Adriatique» .
                               87




                       82  Ibidem, p. 684.
                       83  Ibidem, vol. v, p. 3.
                       84  Ibidem, p. 4.
                       85  Ibidem, p. 5.
                       86  Ibidem, p. 55.
                       87  Ibidem, p. 56.


                                               Mediterranea – ricerche storiche – Anno XIX – Dicembre 2022
                                                           ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa)  ISSN 1828-230X (online)
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