The Venetian Mercantile Empire
Othello’s Venice was a thriving maritime powerhouse
Originally scheduled for spring 2020 and postponed until further notice, Lantern Theater Company’s production of William Shakespeare’s Othello is a story of love, loyalty, jealousy, and murder. The tragedy unfolds on the sun-drenched shores of Cyprus — but it begins in the winding alleyways and canals of Venice.
Venice is built on more than 100 small islands in a lagoon in Northern Italy on the Adriatic Sea. Even today, Venice has no roads, only a labyrinth of canals, bridges, and sidewalks. With its position on the Adriatic, it was a storied and powerful financial center, trading hub, and commercial powerhouse specializing in spices, art, grain, and silk.
As the capital of the Republic of Venice and an independent maritime state from 697 to 1797, Venice was the seat of power in what is now Northern Italy. It functioned as an oligarchy, with the wealthy merchant and aristocratic class sitting on the Great Council of Venice, making laws and electing the Doge, who ruled Venice for life but could not pass the position to a descendant.
Othello’s Venice was already a long-established, cosmopolitan trading center when Shakespeare’s play was written. Situated at the most northwestern point of the Adriatic portion of the Mediterranean Sea, it was a prime destination for merchants and traders from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. As such, it was a surprisingly multi-ethnic city. In the 1570s (when Othello is loosely set), the historian Francesco Sansovino observed in Venice “an infinite number of men from different parts of the world, with diverse clothing, who come for trade; and truly it is a marvelous thing to see such a variety of persons.” But while a typical Venetian might encounter and be fascinated by someone from Africa or Turkey, the upper classes of society were closed to non-Italians.
There was a very specific — albeit temporary — place for foreigners in Venetian government: Venice purposefully hired foreign mercenaries to lead military campaigns, as they do with Othello, so that they could be dismissed easily once the conflict was over.
These military campaigns were necessary as Venice conquered and then defended territories along the Adriatic coast and built an empire on the strength of its powerful navy. The republic included the neighboring cities of Padua and Verona, land along the Dalmatian Coast including modern-day Albania, and the island of Crete. Another important territory, both for historical Venice and for Othello, was Cyprus.
Cyprus was part of the Venetian Republic from 1473 to 1570. Located in the Mediterranean Sea roughly 1,300 miles from Venice’s shores, the island of Cyrpus was far enough from home, perhaps, for the Venetians of the play to find themselves less bound by the social structures of home. Cyprus was no wilderness, though; it was an important and cosmopolitan commercial hub, inhabited by Venetians, Cypriots, Turks, Greeks, and Jews. But it was also the site of frequent raids and piracy, especially by Turkish forces. The Venetian government worked to strengthen their territorial holding, but a series of full-fledged attacks by Turkey from 1570 to 1573 — roughly when Othello is set — ended with Cyprus under the control of the Ottoman Empire.
A key battle in the ongoing conflict with the Ottoman Empire may play an important role in Shakespeare’s choice of time and place for Othello. While the source material is set in Venice and uses the Turkish-Venetian tension as background, Shakespeare makes more direct reference to the especially fraught period from 1570 to 1573 and to the sea battle at Lepanto. In this naval battle, the Ottoman Empire’s forces were badly beaten by a coalition led by Venetian ships during the Ottoman campaign to conquer Cyprus.
Shakespeare’s choice to pin the story more specifically in the early 1570s may have been political: James I, who ascended to the English throne in 1603 when Shakespeare was writing Othello, was fascinated by the subject and even wrote an epic poem about that sea battle.
Although the Ottoman Empire was defeated in that 1571 battle, they would win Cyprus away from Venice just two years later, presaging the decline of the once-powerful Venetian Republic. When trade routes in the Atlantic opened and the Dutch and English took over the spice trade, Venice’s power began to ebb. The once-mighty republic fell to Napoleon in 1797 and was split between France and Austria before joining the unified Italy in the 19th century.
But Othello comes before the fall, when the republic was still in the height of its power and its beauty. Othello, an outsider to this mysterious and intoxicating place, works on behalf of his adopted home, marries into the halls of its power — and is ultimately destroyed by it.
Lantern Theater Company’s production of Othello was originally scheduled for spring 2020 and has been postponed until further notice due to Covid-19. Visit our website for more information.
