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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)