In 1298, Genoa had routed the Venetian fleet off Curzola. Eighty years later, in August 1379, she seized Chioggia, a little fishing port which commanded one of the gateways from the lagoon of Venice to the Adriatic. The proud city of Saint Mark seemed doomed, but with a prodigious effort managed to reverse the situation: in June 1380, Vettor Pisani recaptured Chioggia and destroyed the Genoese fleet. The peace treaty, signed the following year in Turin, gave no formal advantage to Venice.¹²⁶ But it spelled the beginning of the end for the Genoese - who would never be seen in the Adriatic again - and the assertion of Venetian pre- eminence which would subsequently remain undisputed.

Genoa was not banished from the ranks of rich cities after Chioggia but this battle effectively put an end to the struggle in the Mediterranean millpond, in which the two rivals had so long been at one another's throats, sacking a coast here, capturing a convoy there, destroying the rival's galleys, calling on princely intermediaries such as the Angevins, the Hungarians, the Palaeologi or the Aragonese.

Only prolonged prosperity and a rising tide of trade had made it possible to indulge for so long in battles which were fierce but not in the end mortal, since the wounds healed quickly. If the war of Chioggia marks a break, is it because in the 1380s a long period of growth had unquestionably been brought to an end. Both major and minor wars had now become too expensive a luxury. Peaceful coexistence would have to be the rule - particularly since the interests of both Genoa and Venice, as merchant and colonial powers discouraged them from righting to the death of one or other: capitalist rivalries always admit a degree of complicity, even between determined adversaries.

Both cities were colonial and this tells us that they had already reached an advanced stage of capitalism. Genoa was first in the field, with a uniquely modern approach to capitalism. Genoa was far more modern than Venice from this point of view; and may indeed have been somewhat vulnerable by virtue of this forward position.

However, as long as the East was the chief source of wealth, Venice with the facilities of her route through the islands to the Levant would have the advantage. When in the 1340s, the 'Mongol route' was blocked, Venice outstripped all her rivals to be the first to knock at the gates of Syria and Egypt in 1343 - and she did not knock in vain. Finally, Venice had better contacts than any other Italian city with Germany and Central Europe - the most reliable customers for her cotton, pepper and spice and the best source of silver coin which was the key to the Levant trade.