Fernand Braudel
The Venetian republic was conventionally divided in the fifteenth century into the "Dogado" of Venice and the Lagoon, the "Stato di Terraferma" of Venetian holdings in northern Italy, and the "Stato da Màr" of the Venetian outlands bound by the sea. According to the French historian Fernand Braudel, Venice was a scattered empire, a trading-post empire forming a long capitalist antenna.