It Began In A Quarrel About
A Very Old Church Called St. Sabba's, Which Stood On The Common Boundary
Of The Venetian And Genoese Estates In Acre,[2] And This Flame Was Blown
By Other Unlucky Occurrences.
Acre suffered grievously.[3] Venice at this
time generally kept the upper hand, beating Genoa by land and sea, and
driving her from Acre altogether.
+ Four ancient porphyry figures from St.
Sabba's were sent in triumph to Venice, and with their strange devices
still stand at the exterior corner of St. Mark's, towards the Ducal
Palace.[4]
But no number of defeats could extinguish the spirit of Genoa, and the
tables were turned when in her wrath she allied herself with Michael
Palaeologus to upset the feeble and tottering Latin Dynasty, and with it
the preponderance of Venice on the Bosphorus. The new emperor handed over
to his allies the castle of their foes, which they tore down with
jubilations, and now it was their turn to send its stones as trophies to
Genoa. Mutual hate waxed fiercer than ever; no merchant fleet of either
state could go to sea without convoy, and wherever their ships met they
fought.[5] It was something like the state of things between Spain and
England in the days of Drake.
[Illustration: Figures from St. Sabba's, sent to Venice.]
The energy and capacity of the Genoese seemed to rise with their success,
and both in seamanship and in splendour they began almost to surpass their
old rivals.
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