The Sinews of Empire: Venice to Istanbul

Abstract

Among Henry Blount’s virtues as a writer is his ability to balance the excitements of personal adventure with detailed information. In telling the story of his journey, he keeps up a fast pace, describing conditions of travel and interesting incidents along the way without losing sight of more abstract principles. Recounting his sea journey from Venice and the overland trek across the Balkans, Blount’s major concerns are with those complex economies of extracting, moving, and protecting trade goods and military supplies that enable the Ottoman Empire to run.² Although, like Biddulph, he wants to set the record straight, he does not have all the answers beforehand. By travelling from Venice as a paying passenger among a caravan of Turkish and Jewish merchants, he enables himself to notice and describe conditions along the Venetian–Ottoman trade routes as well as the efficiency and strength of local administration. Almost immediately, he observes how the commercial–military connection allows trade to take place between the Venetians and the Ottomans. Sailing down the Adriatic, he comments on the fortifications at Venetian ports, observing that Zara (Zadar) is ‘apt to command the whole Adriatique’ because of its central location (p. 6). A stopover of three days after leaving ship in Spaletro (Split) afforded him the opportunity to witness how the strategic trade links between Venice and the Ottoman Porte operated at this major Venetian entrepôt.

Now bicause Goulde is the Sinowes of Warres: & as if it were Spirit or Soule, gives life & motion to an Army: I will remember some thinges, that I have understoode of the Turkes Riches.

Humphrey Conisby (c.1600)¹