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| 1261 |
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| The Greeks seized Constantinople during the absence of the Venetian fleet; they favored Genoa, turning over Galata to her. | 1 |
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| 1264 |
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| The Venetians destroyed the Genoese fleet at Trepani and soon returned to their old status in Constantinople. | 2 |
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| 1271–95 |
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| Second journey of the Polos, including Nicolo's 17-year-old son Marco (1254–1324?), greatest of all medieval European travelers. They took the route Mosul-Baghdad-Ormuz-Kerman-Pamir-Kashgar, then across the Gobi Desert to the court of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. Marco Polo became a favorite of the khan, who employed him on several administrative missions; during the next 15 years he became acquainted with much of China, parts of Vietnam, Burma, and India. The Polos returned by sea through Sumatra, India, and Persia. Although he was almost overwhelmed by the splendors of the East, Marco Polo's account of his travels, Book of Various Experiences, dictated in 1297 while a prisoner of Genoa, proved basically accurate, promoted the study of scientific geography, and provided virtually the only source of solid European information about East Asia before the 17th century. Christopher Columbus and others relied heavily on it. | 3 |
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| 1289–99 |
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| The advance of the Mamluks (See 1291); capture of Tripoli, 1289; of Acre, 1291) led Venice to a treaty with this new power in the eastern Mediterranean. Genoa met this with an effort to close the Dardanelles, and won a victory (1294) at Alexandretta; Venice forced the Dardanelles and sacked Galata. The Genoese defeated the Venetians at Curzola (1299), but Matteo Visconti negotiated an honorable peace (1299) for them. | 4 |
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| 1284 |
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| The first ducat was coined. | 5 |
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| 1290–1300 |
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| The perfection of the great galleys. Establishment of the Flanders galleys (1317). | 6 |
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| 1297 |
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| The great council was restricted in membership to those who had been members within the preceding four years. A commission added other names and then the council was closed to new members (except by heredity). In effect this excluded a large section of the citizens from any share of the government, in favor of a narrow, hereditary, commercial oligarchy. Popular reaction led to a revolt (1300), the leaders of which were hanged. | 7 |
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| 1310 |
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| Tiepolo's rebellion, the only serious uprising in Venetian history, was crushed. This seems to have been a patrician protest against the extreme oligarchy, and led to the creation of an emergency committee of public safety, the council of ten, which soon became permanent (1335). | 8 |
| The Venetian government thus consisted of: the great council (i.e., the patrician caste); the senate (a deliberative and legislative body dealing with foreign affairs, peace, war, finances, trade); the council of ten (a secret, rapidly acting body concerned with morals, conspiracy, European affairs, finance, and the war department, which could override the senate); the collegio or cabinet (the administrative branch); the doge and his council, which, sitting with the ten, made the council of seventeen. (See Venice) | 9 |
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