Okay, because no one seems to be answering the Venice question:

- They had a strong navy (and shipbuilding capacity), making a blockade difficult

- They traded with many nations, so no one group could cut off their food supply

- Fish

- They had a near monopoly on the trade of salt and spices, the former of which was important to everyone and the latter of which was important to aristocrats

(note: I read a few sources but this is not thorough research)

▲

Animats 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Venice is the extreme "tail wagging the dog" situation. Venice is dinky. It's not much bigger than San Francisco. Yet it was a major European power for centuries.

	▲	BurningFrog 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Venice was small by land mass, but controlled the Eastern Mediterranean, and therefore the Black Sea endpoint of the Silk Road, which was immensely profitable. Consequently, Vasco da Gama rounding Africa in 1498 doomed Venice as a great power. (All from memory, 100% factuality not guaranteed)

▲

eulgro 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Thanks. Ironically, the article started off great with that but clearly it wasn't going to answer the question, so I only read the first paragraph.