Week 3 Reflection

Adrian Barrios

27, October, 2015

Making the Mediterranean

Venice and the Ottoman Empire

Colonization. A word that rings barbaric genocides driven by strong motives to conquer and rule lands that would soon be wrongfully captured is subconsciously dismissed by certain groups. On one hand you have strong nations expanding over large lands, and on the other hand you have cultures that were compromised and even entirely erased. While this is a discussion that deserves adequate dissection, my focus is on the implicit cultural clashes and take overs that occur when nations openly trade with one another. Through lecture and our readings we have learned that Venice and Genoa were, although physically small, giant commercial traders with the Ottoman Empire. In Istanbul when discussing Western trade with the Ottoman Empire, much of the narrative revolved around how the West appropriated only desirable parts of Eastern Culture. In Italy, with our focus on Venice as a leading city in trade, the narrative focuses on the liberating opportunities the East presented.

What I found most interesting about our discussions on the static commercial interchanges between Western and Eastern culture is that it allowed people to also exchange lifestyles. At first, I was stunned at the leniency present when people chose to convert religions. Secondly, I was surprised that people were willfully converting to Muslims. At this moment, I find it important to recognize that this reaction is drawn from subconscious biases engrained in me that present Eastern culture and religions as oppressive entities. Despite my personal reaction, it was evident that Christians and Muslims were two prominent people active in this trade. The exchanges between these two religions essentially created two opportunities for the same person. Men and women were allowed to convert between the two religions and live two separate lives on two separate lands. Motives to convert ranged from having more power and influence to having multiple intimate partners. Despite the motive, upon returning to their first land knowledge of the other life was brought back with them. These constant exchanges further created a melting pot in Venice.

 Venice had a strange dynamic in which it was presented as a culturally diverse and free lives, but was also home to ghettoization and brutal oppression. The aforementioned personal biases manufacturing predefined notions of the East distract me from recognizing that the West has a long history of intolerance for nonconforming cultures. While Venice was geographically in between the East and the West, it still very much received the benefits of trade that most Western nations do. Venice being the center of trade in the Mediterranean was the recipient of high levels of wealth. The Venetian lifestyle became a life of art, literature, fashion, entertainment, fine dining, and more. What I found most interesting about the Venetian lifestyle is the presence, importance, and soon hatred of courtesans. Courtesans were prostitutes that were granted certain privileges over other women: specifically access to the library and knowledge. As in any case, there was a range of courtesans from the valued educate ones, to the ones that were used primarily for male pleasure which were of course less valued. While courtesans played a vital role in shaping Venetian culture, religious influence deemed these women that soon antagonized these women as witches calling for their death. While Venice benefited economically from trade in the Mediterranean, it was left behind with a mixed culture and landscape as trade with the New World rose.

Lastly and coincidentally, my set trip to Venice this past Saturday lined up perfectly with lecture as we deeply analyzed Venice’s role in Mediterranean trade. As I arrived in Venice there were endless boats moving through the water transporting everything. As I entered a water taxi and drove through the Grand Canal, a mosque captured my mosque. On our walking tour, we stopped at the Piazza San Marco and saw the Ottoman influence on the Basilica di San Marco. Overall, it was a rewarding experience visiting Venice with this knowledge.