The Venetian Mediterranean Empire after the Council of Trent

Abstract

In the period from the conclusion of the Tridentine Council in 1563 to the Turkish conquest of Crete in 1669 the Venetian Republic feared for its sovereignty over its Mediterranean possessions. These stretched from Istria, along the Dalmatian littoral, to the islands of Corfu and Zante. Cyprus was lost to the Turks from 1570, despite the Christian maritime victory at Lepanto subsequently. Venetian relations with the papacy were also strained after the Council of Trent, not only in the exceptional and dramatic circumstances of the Interdict of 1606-7. Defence of both Crete and the other remaining Mediterranean possessions was thus complicated by Venetian anxiety over Ottoman power on the one hand and concern at papal policy on the other. From the end of the Tridentine Council to the Interdict, and indeed beyond, Venice insisted on its role as a devoutly Catholic state, claiming from the papacy the concession of decime, paid by the clergy of the Republic, to sustain its defence of Christendom against militant Islam. But the Republic also resisted Roman suggestions that Catholic belief and practice were insecure or in need of reform within its territories. In the Mediterranean possessions, however, the presence of a Greek Christian population represented a particular problem.