Political and Religious Boundaries
Byzantium historically was the eastern side of the Roman Empire that was the result of the religious, political and cultural schism that occurred between East and West in the 2nd Century AD. The city of Byzantium, or Constantinople, was located in a major strategic trading area between the Adriatic, Black and Mediterranean Seas. As the Western Roman Empire declined, the "New Rome," or Constantinople, became a blend of cultures and viable for about a millennium. Most scholars agree that it was the only long-term stable state in Europe that protected most of Western Europe from the emerging Islamic Empire. It was the most advanced economy in the Mediterranean area until the Renaissance, with trading networks that extended through most of Eurasia and North Africa, as well as the beginning of the Silk Road. Without this economic power, it is unlikely that there would have been funding for the Crusades, which resulted in the revitalization and redevelopment of Europe. Ironically, largely "because of their lengthy common border and shared engagement in the eastern Mediterranean, for almost five hundred years, the histories of Venice and the Ottoman Empire were tightly intertwined" Dursteler, 2006, p. 3).
Eric Dursteler has written a book that moves into the 16th and initial part of the 17th centuries. The work is primarily focused on political and cultural relations, challenging the views that there was only conflict between the Venetians and Ottomans, and finds that much of the writings of della Valle suggest that there was a huge diversity of traders, travelers, and settlers of different faiths and ethnicities that...
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