VENICE: HISTORY
The Fourth Crusade (1202 - 1204) enabled Venice to found a vast colonial empire in the Balkan peninsula and the Aegean Sea, which withstood the restoration of the Byzantine Empire (1261) but exacerbated the rivalry with Genoa. This originated numerous naval battles with alternating victories on both parts.
At the beginning of the 14th century, a period marked by the setting up of signories, some attempts were made (Baiamonte Tiepolo, 1310; Marin Faliero, 1355) to turn into a signory the oligarchic government of Venice too (since 1297 
it had been restricted to a limited number of families) thanks to the support of the populace (sailors, fishermen), but they failed. In the meantime Venice started to expand to the hinterland (in particular after the serious threat faced in 1378 during the war for Chioggia, when the lagoon was besieged both by sea and land by Hungary, Padua and Genoa which had joined in a coalition). As the context was favourable, within few years Venice conquered the whole Veneto region, Friuli, Brescia and Bergamo starting a long series of wars against Milan and later on against Florence and Ferrara too.
The gains in Puglia (1495) and Romagna (1503) and the ill-advised idea to help the French conquer Milan in order to acquire the Cremona area (1499) proved fatal to Venice: it was attacked by allEuropean powers, set up against it by the pope Julius II (League of Cambrai) and defeated by the French at Agnadello (1509), which definitely stopped its expansion in Italy. Meanwhile, despite its strong resistance, it lost its dominions in the East under the Turkish attacks, and the discovery of America diverted trade (to which it owed its prosperity) from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
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