Corsairs.
The corsairs, on the other hand, were armed as privateers, if not with the express approbation, at least with the tacit acquiescence of the government, and professed to wage war only with the enemies of their own republic. The corsairs also performed the duties of the men-of-war of more modern times, by searching the vessels of neutral and friendly powers to ascertain if they had on board provisions, arms, or merchandise destined for the enemy. The booty thus acquired was divided among the commanders and cruisers, in conformity with the ancient maritime regulations preserved in the “Consulado de la Mer.”[690]
Bologna and Ancona.
The successful resistance of Genoa to the growing power of Venice had, however, another result, in that it encouraged other states inferior in power to either of them to resist as far as they could the commands of these imperious masters. Bologna and Ancona,[691] the first to make the attempt, signally failed; nor did the latter meet with better success when she joined the Istrians in their revolt against Venice, though her ships had the audacity to commit various depredations on the commerce of that state, while she refused to pay the duty required by the Venetians from all vessels which entered that part of the Adriatic acknowledged to be within their dominion.
Importance of Pisa.
Her trade with the Saracens, about A.D. 1100; and ships.
Amalfi, long before Venice or Genoa, the possessor, as we have seen, of a large and valuable commerce with the East, had now passed away as a place of commercial importance; but Pisa, one of the most ancient cities of Tuscany and the chief pillager of Amalfi,[692] still maintained a high position, and proved, in some respects, a formidable rival to the Venetian and Genoese traders. Despising, in their commercial operations, the narrow dictates of religious bigotry, the Pisans, in frequent voyages to Palermo about the middle of the eleventh century, successfully traded with the Saracen inhabitants. They also traded to the coast of Africa, and, on one occasion, in revenge for a supposed injury, captured and held the royal city of Tunis until they obtained redress. They now played a leading and brilliant part in the maritime commerce of the Mediterranean. Pisa, in the twelfth century, contained two hundred thousand inhabitants, and many beautiful monuments still attest its former greatness and splendour.[693] Among the most conspicuous may still be seen its leaning tower, from which has been copied the following representation of one of its ships, sculptured so far back as the year 1178.
Her first great misfortune.
Besides different sorts of merchant vessels bearing a common resemblance to those of the Venetians, the Pisans constructed ships of war with towers of wood, and machines for attacking an enemy, which they managed with a skill that rendered them most formidable opponents. Their expeditions against the Moors of the Balearic Islands, and their conquests in Corsica and Sardinia conferred on them a high military as well as naval reputation. But the Pisans were not without their share of the calamities of the times. In the year 1120, their city was almost laid in ashes and their islands of Sardinia and Corsica taken from them by the Saracens.[694] They, however, assisted by the Genoese, soon after recovered these islands; but the division of the conquest, and probably the exasperation created by commercial jealousy, immediately kindled a war between the allies, in which the Genoese, with a fleet of eighty galleys and four great ships, carrying warlike engines, besieged their harbour, and obliged the Pisans to submit to their pleasure respecting Corsica. The peace that followed was again soon broken; and a sanguinary war, frequently interrupted by insincere pacifications or truces, continued to distress the two neighbouring and rival republics for almost two centuries.