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564 David Laven
What is striking about all the historic accounts I have discussed is
that, whether or not authors adopted narratives of moral or economic
decline, what they all had in common was that they argued the failure
of the Venetian state in its last century of existence was premised on
military rather than commercial weakness. Such emphasis on Vene-
tian military weakness is probably correct: Venice fell because it could
not resist Bonaparte. Where such a narrative is misleading is when its
attributes want of martial vigour to the Venetian constitution or to
moral decline. This perspective, long perpetuated in art and popular
culture, has persisted in historiography. It misses the point that the
Venetian Republic, a vigorous Mediterranean power until its final
days, was not defeated in any ordinary conflict; it was destroyed by
Bonaparte. Bonaparte was equal opportunity in his wanton destruc-
tion of European polities, and the nature of those polities was quite
irrelevant to the «Weltseele zu Pferde».
Mediterranea – ricerche storiche – Anno XIX – Dicembre 2022
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)
