This video analyzes the maritime policy of the Genoese republic during the Low Middle Ages from her clash against the bitter rival Pisa to the opening of the Atlantic route by the Ligurian Republic, with all its important consequences for Europan History, both for the developement of new trade centers and the Italian contribution to the of the Age of Explorations.

The first part of the video summarises briefly the rise of the the Ligurian Republic from the XI century and the struggle for hegemony on the western Mediterranean, exposing the role played by the Italian maritime republics in the Iberian Reconquista and the Crusades and the hegemony exercised by them on Corsica and Sardinia, as well as the system of domination established there.

In the central part of the video it's instead discussed the ascent of Genoa in the Western Mediterranean following the battle of Meloria (1284), one of the most important naval battles of medieval history, in which the Pisan fleet was annihilated by the Ligurian Republic, leading to the ascent of the latter in the Western Mediterranean, as well as in the Aegean by commission of the Empire of Nicea in marked anti-Venetian function. The Serenissima, seeing her traffsic threatened in the East, fought against Genoa between the XIII and XIV century a very harsh war of attrition against the convoys, allying herself with the nascent Catalan sea-power in order to weaken the power of the Ligurian Republic in her own waters.

The conclusive part of the video instead analyzes the progressive shift of the Genoese of their main commercial axis towards the Atlantic route because of the unbearable costs of the prolonged war, thus leaving the hegemony in the Mediterranean to Venice and Aragon. The new policy was a success: the Genoese relations with the Muslim kingdom of Granada in an anti-Aragonese function opened the Strait of Gibraltar to the Ligurians, while the sudden European shortage of spices coming from the east granted Genoa the monopoly of this good from the Andalusian markets. The process witnessed a decline in French Mediterranean ports.


The picture: [ Ссылка ], by Kayac1971, CC BY-SA 3.0

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