City of Fortune

How Venice Rule the Seas

De: Roger Crowley

Narrado por: Edoardo Ballerini

The rise and fall of the Venetian empire stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. In City of Fortune, Roger Crowley, acclaimed historian and New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea, applies his narrative skill to chronicling the astounding five-hundred-year voyage of Venice to the pinnacle of power. Tracing the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga for the first time, City of Fortune is framed around two of the great collisions of world history: The ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminated in the sacking of Constantinople and the carve-up of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, and the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499–1503, which saw the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between were three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance—years of plunder and plague, conquest and piracy—during which a tiny city of “lagoon dwellers” grew into the richest place on earth.

Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their dominion. Defiant of emperors, indifferent to popes, the Venetians saw themselves as reluctant freebooters, compelled to take to the open seas “because we cannot live otherwise and know not how except by trade.” From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its time—the reverberations of which are still being felt today. Only an author with Roger Crowley’s deep knowledge of post-Crusade history could put these iconic events into their proper context. Epic in scope, magisterial in its understanding of the period, City of Fortune is narrative history at its most engrossing.

©2011 Roger Crowley (P)2013 Recorded Books

Very informative and enjoyable

Very interesting and extremely entertaining, I learned a great deal about Venice, exactly what I wanted

engaging and fascinating read.

this book got me back into reading history books and excited to find out about aspects of history I didn't know as well. So well written and engaging right from the start.

A Wonderful Listen

I love history, but I have never read (or listened) to a book about the history of Venice. This book is really not about the city of Venice, but about the influence that Venice had on the period of history from approximately 1000 to 1600. It was like listening to a well thought out story. Honestly I could hardly stop listening, and when it was finished I felt like I had lost a friend. It was that good. Mr. Crowley also wrote a book 'Empires of the Sea' which is equally as good. I would recommend both books to those who love history and those who love a riveting story. I hope that Mr. Crowley rights many many more books as he has a unique knack for interwinding facts with insight of those who were alive at that time. Again, simply a wonderfully good book.

An Excellent Presentation

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

The story is beautifully crafted and the narrator did a splendid job of presenting the story of how Venice became such an important city-state.

What other book might you compare City of Fortune to and why?

I would compare it to stories about other great city-states, such as the ancient Greek cities of Athens and Sparta. Each of these cities had developed a personality and skill set that, while not exclusively their own, was the pinnacle of each city's success.

What does Edoardo Ballerini bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He can speak Italian beautifully and presents the story in a brilliant fashion. Bravo!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It really was. I found it informative, fascinating, and extremely well presented.

Any additional comments?

If the reader has any interest in European History during the five hundred years between 1000 and 1500, this is a wonderful main avenue to take a gondola ride upon.

Good, Solid History

I enjoyed this, I liked the narrator. I would have liked a little more about the city itself, but I guess this isn't about Venice the city, it is about the warfare and shipping,.

Compelling well researched historical account of Venetian power won & lost

This is a very lengthy realistic account of the great sea power Venice and how it came to be and how it kept its power for centuries. Very very well detailed and compelling accounts of sea battles won and lost.

Very Good

Done very well. Matches up with other historical books I have listened to. I am sure you will enjoy it.

So detailed sometimes, hard to hear story

Author knows and includes names and details and dates and ships etc. but especially listening, it was hard to keep the story straight. Battles with play by play don’t make sense when heard. So, a bit too much for me. It covers a short period and is best in the first half and very end.

A little flowery for my taste

This book is pretty dang sympathetic to the Venetian point of view, painting the city in its most heroic light. It doesn’t flinch away from the truly heinous stuff it did, either, but it couches everything in Venice’s justification for its atrocities. That said, I still enjoyed this book immensely. I feel like I have a great sense of what the Venetians thought of themselves, and I have a much greater understanding of how their empire fit into the late Middle Ages and how it helped to bring about the Renaissance. Good read.

The Adriatic Empire Built upon Commerce

Having visited the spectacular city of Venice several times, it has been on my list to read a history of the Stati del Mare for some time. Roger Crowley’s “City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas” fit the bill perfectly for this read. While the book does not cover the breadth of Venetian history (for example, only touching on the mythical roots of the origins of the city built upon sand flats in a lagoon), it covers the most important period of time which formed Venice into the fantastical city we find today. Beginning with the Venetian attack upon Constantinople in 1204 and ending with the finality of the Ottoman-Venetian war in 1503, the book covers the amazing rise of this city built upon trade, and ends with its sad decline, succumbed to forces from the east and west. Venice truly was a city built upon trade and commerce; however, it is worth noting from the book how such city-states inevitably fall prey to the same tides of war as any other nation. As such, Venice built a powerful navy, and used it to great effect to secure their navigational rites of the sea. Another thing that the book did a great job of describing was how the influence of Venice in the Easter Mediterranean, along with its famous and frequent wars with Genoa, played a significant role in the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and the rise of the Ottomans. It also describes in detail the challenges Venice faced in maintaining its many colonies spread throughout the Mediterranean Sea; a challenge many other European nations would discover for themselves in the years ahead. Overall, this was a wonderful and engaging read. For any person interested in the Stati del Mare, this book is highly recommended.