Venice

"A new century is dawning, my brothers." - Venice, 1500The Most Serene Republic of Venice, known commonly as Venice or Veneto, was a merchant republic located in northern Italy and the protagonist of Alternate History of Europe - Season 1: "Varna", along with the Mamluk Caliphate.
The Republic, founded in 697, soon grew to dominate Mediterranean trade and the Adriatic and Aegean seas. By 1453, it formed an alliance with Naples, which would become the Italian League six years later with the inclusion of Sardinia. After decades of rivalry with the Mamluks and their Maghrebi League, Venice was one of the main participants in the Great Mediterranean War of 1509-1517. However, after a series of events in 1517 related to the finding of the Neapolitan-Mamluk Malta Agreement would lead to the Republic being overthrown from leading the League of Varna, and the Fourth Lombard War brought about the Republic's collapse. On May 12th, 1517, Venice was ultimately annexed by Naples, forming the Italic Union.
== History ==
=== Before the series: 697-1453 ===
The Most Serene Republic of Venice declared independence from the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) in 697. It was founded by Paolo Lucio Anafesto, around the Venetian Lagoon. Over the following centuries, the Republic would begin domination of the Adriatic by conquering Dalmatia and Istria, whilst remaining outside the Frankish and later Holy Roman spheres of influence.
In 1204, as the Fourth Crusade was launched against the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt, but it was diverted, by Venetian doge Enrico Dandolo, to Constantinople instead, which led to a war that resulted in an irreversible weakening of Byzantium for the next 57 years, as it was split between the Nicaean and Latin Empires. Venice annexed several Aegean islands after the war, including Crete. During the early 15th century, Venice conquered large parts of northern Italy, known as the Terraferma. 
=== Alliance with Naples and Italian League: 1453-1487 ===
In 1452, the Great Bosnian War broke out and resulted in the Bosnian annexation of Herzegovina, as well as an alliance between the former and Serbia and Zeta's annexation by Serbia. This alarmed doge Francesco Foscari, who feared that the new alliance would conquer Venetian Dalmatia and Durres. 
However, he was then approached by Naples, who proposed an alliance. The Venetians were skeptical of the Neapolitan strength. However, Naples then launched the Albanian War against Skanderbeg of Albania. This general had defeated the Ottomans multiple times. With the initial Neapolitan victories, Venice agreed to the alliance. The war ended in the tripartite division of Albania between Venice, Naples and Byzantium."You are not bad, I'll give you that. I accept your alliance offer." - Venice to Naples, 1453As the Mamluks began to expand, the Venetian spy network began to uncover plans to attack Byzantium. Such plans would only be executed 49 years later, but nevertheless Venice felt threatened and proposed a triple alliance between them, Naples and Sardinia. This alliance would come to be known as the Italian League.
The first move of the League was to support the Sardinian invasion of Algiers during the First Maghrebi War. Later in 1468, they launched the Second Lombard War against Genoa and Milan. The war resulted in the League's monopoly of Italian Mediterranean trade, as well as the Venetian annexation of the Genoese Aegean, Sinop and Crimea. During the Great Russian War of 1474-1477, Venice further expanded their holdings in Crimea and annexed Mantrega.
=== Tensions in the Mediterranean: 1478-1509 ===
After the formation of the Mamluk Caliphate in 1474 and the Maghrebi League in 1478, tensions began to rise across the Mediterranean Sea. But before the Italian League could worry about the new rival alliance, they were first caught up in the First Balkan War, which was a success, allowing Venice and Naples to expand their Balkan holdings.
In 1487, the Mamluks conquered Yemen, and thus consolidated their control over the Red Sea. Using this to their advantage, they blocked Europe from the Indian spice trade, forcing them to either use the longer and costlier land routes through Central Asia or smuggle products from the Mamluk allies. The Iberians then decided to seek out other routes, such as Portugalicia's route around Africa to reach India.
In 1491, with Neapolitan and Sardinian support, Venice participated in the War of Dutch Independence, intervening against Austria and annexing Trento. 
In 1500, Cosimo Borgatizi became the doge of Venice, and he continued his predecessor's efforts to help the Shadow Kingdom to secede from the Holy Roman Empire. This resulted in the Third Lombard War, where Austria and the Papal State fought against the Shadow Kingdom and the Italian League. Bohemia's rebellion against Austria, as well as interventions from France and Brandenburg led to a defeat for Austria and the Pope. The war ended with the Treaty of Milan.
In 1505-1506, Venice aided Naples and Sardinia during the Three Rebellions in Provence, Sicily, and Sardinian Tlemcen.
=== The Great Mediterranean War: 1509-1517 ===
==== The Naval War ====
The Italian League declared war on the Mamluk Caliphate on November 12th, 1509. The earliest participations of the League in the war were mostly naval engagements. Venetian Crimea was invaded by Armenia as early as 1510, during the First Anatolian War. Sinop was also annexed by the Caliphate the following year.
As a retaliation for the Castilian and Portugalician defeats at Ceuta and Fez, Venice and the League invaded Sicily. However, they suffered a major defeat at the Battle of the Aegean against the Mamluk navy on January 20th, 1512, while attempting to protect the Marmara straits. The Italian League helped the Byzantine court flee from Constantinople to Athens prior to the former's siege. The Mamluks also invaded and annexed Crete.
==== War in the Balkans ====
As Serbia and Bosnia joined the war on the Mamluk side, sparking the Second Balkan War, Venice launched an invasion into both. However, the Venetian and Neapolitan armies failed to reach the Morava river, and a partial stalemate was reached.
Borgatizi also ordered a landing in the Dardanelles to lift the siege of Constantinople, but the Venetian and remaining Byzantine armies were defeated on October 31st, 1512. The retreating Venetian armies entered Ottoman territory, causing the Second Anatolian War. The Mamluks took advantage of this to invade the Ottomans, and the Battle of Bursa on January 8th, 1513, was a Mamluk victory over Venice, and saw the collapse of the Ottoman state for a second time.
With the Polish entry into the war in 1513, the combined Venetian, Neapolitan, Sardinian and Hungarian armies occupied large swathes of land in the Balkans. However, after Hungarian presence in the region declined due to the Battle of Lviv, the Italians were defeated by the Bosnians and Bulgarians at Visoko on January 19th, 1514.
==== The turning point ====
In 1514, the Mamluks launched a surprise invasion in Italy, after they had failed to defeat Poland the previous year. They landed at Otranto and quickly advanced through the Adriatic coast, with the objective of capturing Venezia itself. However, the Duchies of Romagna and Urbino stood on the route, and were subsequently invaded by the Caliphate. That triggered a reaction from all Italian states, including the State of the Church, which led to the Mamluk defeat at Bologna. 
The Mamluks were forced off the Italian peninsula, back to Albania, where they prepared to advance south and reach Athens first. However, the Mamluks were halted at Termopylae, where they were defeated by a Venetian-Byzantine force. This battle sealed sealing the fate of the League of Cairo in the Balkans; Bosnia and Niš fell quickly, with the former being split by Venice and Hungary. 
In the prelude of the Second Battle of Varna, the major leaders of the anti-Mamluk coalition founded the League of Varna. As the battle once again ended in a Polish victory, the Caliphate was expelled out of the Balkans for good. Venice had a participation in the ensuing Third Anatolian War by invading Cyprus and Crimea, the latter of which was ceded back by the Armenia when they declared independence from the Mamluks, and declared loyalty to the League of Varna.
==== Prelude to Catastrophe ====
With the beginning of the Nine Months' War, the final phase of the Great Mediterranean War, Venice recaptured the island of Crete. However, the Mamluk caliph Sayf ad-Din Qaitbay II sent the troops occupying the island a last request: to search for a chest in Heraklion. Such a chest was found, and it contained a copy of the Malta Agreement between Naples and the Mamluks.
The news was sent immediately to the Doge's Palace. The doge, in a public speech, declared war against Naples. However, after letters sent to the other allied powers were likely intercepted by a bribed spy network and replaced by Neapolitan letters, the League of Varna instead declared war on Venice on May 6th, 1517, citing a "Venetian betrayal against the Neapolitan king". Several League of Varna members had ambitions over Venetian-owned lands. 
=== Downfall ===
The Fourth Lombard War against Venice was quick. In only six days, the Neapolitan troops which had been stationed in Ferrara reached Venezia; the city was shelled by new cannons, and a desperate population rose up and incinerated the Doge's Palace, causing the death of Cosimo Borgatizi. 
The provisional government formed by the rebels officially delivered the letter of surrender to king Ferrante I of Naples, and later that day, the Treaty of Venezia was signed, leading to the official end of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, after 820 years of existence. The Republic was replaced by Ferrante's Italic Union between Naples and Venice, though the "union" was only in name.
=== Legacy ===
The Fourth Lombard War and its circumstances would have reverberations on Italy and beyond for decades to come. The claims that Naples falsely accused and betrayed Venice led to the First and Second Italian Wars.
In 1533, during the Second Italian War, King Ferrante I of Italia experienced a hallucination where he saw the "ghost" of Venice, and he was so deeply haunted that he died from a heart attack, which sparked an Italic succession war.
== Character ==
Venice is, by all accounts, the protagonist of Alternate History of Europe - Season 1: "Varna". It made its first appearance in Episode II: "Protection".
Venice's personality is described as "intelligent, yet very naïve", being so blindly trustful of Naples: they had the ability to spy on them and possibly discover the ploy to bribe their spy network, however they did not, and therefore Romagna and Urbino were able to bribe their agents and Naples was able to sign the Malta Agreement without further consequences, eventually leading to Venice's downfall 9 years later. Other examples of their naiveté can be seen as they fail to predict enemy moves such as the Battle of Visoko in 1514.
Venice's character has, however, become a symbol of the series, being one of the most popular characters in general. Brazilian has claimed Venice's personality is modelled after his own.
"That old Italian guy whose life has been based in the wonders of trading and spying. Beyond that, nothing matters for him; and while that applied to his youth days, when he was a small city state in the fringes of the Frankish Empire, times were changing..."
Category:Varna Countries