Maritime Republics

The maritime republics were the medieval Italian city-states that built their power on sea trade and naval force, chiefly Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi, with Ragusa and others sometimes included. From roughly the ninth to the sixteenth century they dominated Mediterranean commerce, ran fortified trading colonies in the Levant and Black Sea, and fought repeated wars for control of routes, as in the Venetian-Genoese conflicts. Their banking, marine insurance, and shipbuilding, exemplified by the Venetian Arsenal, shaped European commercial practice.