Book description
A magisterial work of gripping history, City of Fortune tells the
story of the Venetian ascent from lagoon dwellers to the greatest
power in the Mediterranean - an epic five hundred year voyage that
encompassed crusade and trade, plague, sea battles and colonial
adventure. In Venice, the path to empire unfolded in a series of
extraordinary contests - the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, the
fight to the finish with Genoa and a desperate defence against the
Turks. Under the lion banner of St Mark, she created an empire of
ports and naval bases which funnelled the goods of the world through
its wharfs. In the process the city became the richest place on earth
- a brilliant mosaic fashioned from what it bought, traded, borrowed
and stole. Based on first hand accounts of trade and warfare,
seafaring and piracy and the places where Venetians sailed and died,
City of Fortune is narrative history at its finest. Beginning on
Ascension Day in the year 1000 and ending with an explosion off the
coast of Greece - and the calamitous news that the Portuguese had
pioneered a sea route to India - it will fascinate anyone who loves
Venice and the Mediterranean world.
Roger Crowley read English at Cambridge before going to live in
Istanbul. His first book, Constantinople was published in 2005 and was
followed by Empires of the Sea, which was chosen as the Sunday Times
History Book of the Year in 2008.
