The History of the World Podcast, written and presented by Chris Hasler. Volume 4, The Medieval World.

Episode 74 The Travels of Marco Polo. polo. Today's story starts in Venice, the city of islands in a lagoon in northeast Italy which faces the Adriatic Sea, famous for its maze of canals and seemingly

endless amount of bridges. In the modern day it is an Italian city but during the medieval period it was its own

republic built on maritime trade. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire,

peoples of the Adriatic Coast who spoke a Latin language called Venetian

found that their lands were the subject of southward migrations from Germanic peoples such as the

Ostrogoths and the Lombards.

The Venetian speakers fled to the relative safety of the islands in the lagoon,

and so the beginnings of what would develop into the modern city of Venice were realised.

Venice managed to maintain its Latin identity during the chaos that befell the Italian

Peninsula in the aftermath of the fall of Western Rome.

Venice's isolation from the mainland enabled it to develop in relative independence. Some of the families on the islands would develop a good amount of wealth, and this would lead to the city establishing a bishopric and a dukedom.

The wealth was generated by naval trade and this was facilitated to some degree by the

eastern Roman Empire also called the Byzantine Empire, which protected Venice, helped by their common ancestral links to Latin culture.

Under this protected status, the Venetians became more wealthy and more powerful

extending their trade links to the Eastern Mediterranean including the Byzantine Empire and Egypt.

Venice attempted to maintain an independence from the affairs which pitted the

Papacy in the Holy Roman Empire against each other. But in the ever-changing

world of maritime trade routes of the Mediterranean Sea, Venice would have to learn how to defend

itself and its interests. Up until the 12th century the relationship

between Venice and the Byzantine's had been beneficial for both sides. Venice prospered thanks to the support of the Byzantine's and

the Byzantine's would have a powerful trade mediator and naval ally in the West.

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