Venice and Thessalonica 1423-1430: The Venetian Documents (review)

Dr Melville-Jones's hybrid narrative forms the first of a proposed two-part series dealing with the Venetian acceptance of authority in Thessalonica in the third decade of the fifteenth century; the second volume will consider Byzantine accounts of the same seven-year affair, which Melville-Jones describes as 'a most significant event in European history' (p. vii). As his title relates, a good deal of Melville-Jones's evidence comes from deliberations of the Venetian Senate and its subcommittees, as well as the chronicle of Antonio Morosini, with which he has laboured for several years now. The first four chapters establish the narrative of events leading to the Venetian occupation of the city in 1423, and the concluding eleven consist of a study of Venetian policies and strategies in the unsuccessful effort to retain it in the face of waxing Ottoman power.

Melville-Jones portrays the Venetian decision to accept authority from the Byzantine Despot Andronicus as the product of several forces, including the Serenissima's ongoing desire to protect its maritime interests, its encouraging military successes on the mainland in Italy at the start of the decade, the floundering military efforts of the Paleologi in Anatolia, and the rise of a hawkish party in Venice. Thessalonica rather rapidly came to approach the exalted status of Crete in imperial affairs and, in circumstances which remain unclear, the Venetians seized the 'island' of Cassandria as a base to secure the maritime approach to their new acquisition. Since the city continued to shelter Ottoman pretenders, and because Sultan Murad and the Grand Caraman reached an understanding in Anatolia, Venetian power in Thessalonica was short-lived. Unable to secure western aid or to seduce the Grand Caraman into betraying his newfound Ottoman allies, the Venetians found themselves in an impossible position; by the spring of 1430, the city was lost, although with seemingly few consequences for Venetian commercial affairs. While Venice harbored the desire to reacquire Thessalonica, the prospect never materialized.

Although he addresses the involvement of Milan, the papacy, and the Holy Roman Emperor in these affairs, Melville-Jones never quite explains the exact, broader European significance alluded to in his introduction. Readers might wonder if he believes a continued Venetian presence in Thessalonica might somehow have altered the course of Ottoman expansion, and in so doing, achieved the aforementioned Europe-wide significance. He argues, explicitly at times, that the Venetian presence at Thessalonica might account for the relative lack of Ottoman attacks on Constantinople in the period, if only to prevent the possibility that like Thessalonica the capital city too might be handed over to Venetian stewardship, but judiciously notes that the rivalry between Sultan Murad and the Grand Caraman must also be considered as a reason for the lack of Ottoman offensives against the Byzantine capital. Like Christopoulis before it and Constantinople after it, Thessalonica exemplified the principle that, while sea power might seize and hold islands, mainland positions could never be held when the Ottomans chose to take them. While Melville-Jones chronicles a repeated lack of concerted Christian action, as well as a noticeable Venetian unwillingness to commit sufficient resources for Thessalonica's maintenance, that principle rather makes the Ottoman rise seem inexorable. Well-versed as he is in the documents of the period, Melville-Jones is capable of addressing some of Braudel's most vague and nebulous dicta, particularly his notion that in the fifteenth century the city-state, 'precarious and narrow-based, stood revealed inadequate to perform' the necessary political tasks of the time (F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Harper, 1973, Vol. II, p. 657).

Recent North American approaches to late medieval Venice have begun looking more closely at the construction of regional identity within the framework of its thalassocracy. Melville-Jones is more closely linked to a tradition of scholarship exemplified by European Byzantinists like Freddy Thiriet and R. J. Loenertz...