A long, narrow sea
The Adriatic is a northern arm of the Mediterranean, lying between the Italian peninsula and the Balkans. It is roughly 800 kilometres long and, for much of its length, only about 100 to 200 kilometres wide, which means the two coasts have always been close enough to affect each other. The Italian shore is low and has few natural harbours, while the eastern side, along Istria and Dalmatia, is rocky with many islands, channels and sheltered anchorages. That contrast helped shape its history. Mariners on the eastern side had safe routes among the islands, while those on the western side relied on a smaller number of ports and lagoons. A notorious northeasterly wind called the bora can blow strongly down the eastern coast, and the sirocco blows from the south; both appear often in sailors’ accounts.
Venice and the lagoon
Venice grew within a lagoon at the head of the Adriatic, and its early survival was linked to the sea. By tradition the city began to emerge as a distinct political community around the eighth century, and by the early Middle Ages it was trading actively with the Byzantine Empire, to which it was at first loosely attached. Salt from lagoon works was an early commodity, and the lagoon’s shallow canals gave rise to local craft such as the Venetian gondola. As the city grew, it also became a major importer of goods from the eastern Mediterranean, including spices, silks and other luxuries, and an exporter to northern Europe.
Venice’s ambitions in the Adriatic were partly commercial and partly defensive. Control of the sea meant protecting its trade against pirates and rival powers, and a series of campaigns along the Dalmatian coast led to Venetian rule in many port towns. A ceremony known as the marriage of the sea, in which the doge symbolically wed the sea, was performed annually from the later Middle Ages and expressed the claim to dominion. After the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Venice gained further bases in the Aegean and Mediterranean, and the Adriatic became the secure home waters of a wider maritime empire, often referred to as the Stato da Mar.
Merchant galleys and war galleys
Venetian ships were of two broad kinds. Merchant galleys, which used oars as well as sails, carried valuable and compact goods on state-regulated voyages. These ran as organised convoys, known as mude, to ports such as Alexandria, Beirut, Constantinople and, later, Flanders and England. Rounder sailing ships took bulkier cargoes. Warships were also galleys, since oared ships suited the calm, narrow waters and fighting tactics of the Mediterranean region.
Production was centralised in the Venetian Arsenal, a state shipyard whose organisation was admired by foreign visitors. The Adriatic was also the setting for armed conflict with other powers. Venice fought Genoa in a series of wars between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and later fought the Ottoman Empire. The Battle of Lepanto in 1571, just beyond the Adriatic’s southern entrance, drew heavily on Venetian ships and galley builders, and was the high point of a long confrontation, although Venice had lost Cyprus to the Ottomans earlier that same year.
Ragusa, a small republic with a large fleet
On the eastern shore, the city of Ragusa, now Dubrovnik, followed a different path. It was under Venetian rule for a period in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and from the later fourteenth century it emerged as a largely self-governing republic that survived until Napoleonic times, when it was taken over in the early nineteenth century. Ragusa was small, but it was an adept diplomat, paying tribute to the Ottoman Empire while keeping its independence, and its merchants traded widely in the Balkans, Italy and the Mediterranean. Its ships were so well known that the English word “argosy”, meaning a large merchant ship, is often said to derive from the city’s name, although the etymology is not entirely certain.
Ragusa’s trade carried metals and other products from the Balkan hinterland, such as silver and lead, to Italian markets, and brought cloth and manufactured goods back. This made the city a rival to Venice, and the two republics were, in some periods, competitors for Adriatic commerce. The contrast with Venice shows that the sea could support both a large maritime empire and a small, neutral trading state.
Pirates, Uskoks and the claim to the Gulf
The Adriatic was always a place where piracy and naval security overlapped. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Uskoks, refugees and irregular fighters based at Senj, in Habsburg territory, raided Ottoman and Venetian shipping. Their raids led to the so-called War of Gradisca (1615–1617) between Venice and the Habsburgs. Venice’s claim to police the Adriatic, including the right to levy dues on ships, was controversial with other powers and shows how closely trade, warfare and sovereignty were linked.
Decline of Venice and the nineteenth century
Venice’s power waned as the Atlantic routes opened and as Ottoman control of the eastern Mediterranean grew, although the city remained wealthy for a long time. The republic ended in 1797 when Napoleon’s forces took it, and the Adriatic passed in the nineteenth century largely to Austrian control. The Austrian navy was based at Pola and Trieste, and the naval battle of Lissa in 1866, fought off the island of Vis between Austrian and Italian fleets, was among the first major fleet encounters involving ironclad warships. The twentieth century brought two world wars and new borders, and today the sea is shared among Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania, with ferry services, tourism and ports such as Trieste, Koper, Rijeka and Bari carrying much of the traffic.