Domini di Terraferma
Terra firma (Italian mainland ) or officially Domini di Terraferma is the designation of areas in the eastern part of Upper Italy, which had been subjected by the Republic of Venice since the 15th century.
Together with the Dogado (area of the city of Venice and coastline of Loreo and Grado to Chioggia ) and the Stato da Mar ( Mittelmeerbesitzungen of the Republic) was the Terraferma (also called Stato da Terra ) the totality of the State of Venice.
The Venetian Terraferma policy is usually stated at the Conquest of 1337 Mestre and Treviso and Bassano del Grappa in 1339, but especially associated with the reign of Doge Michele Steno starting around 1400 and its successors. They served to secure the long-distance trade sintered food and nutrition, but has been controversial particularly among the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo and Francesco Foscari, but which they both continued very forced. "Both were right Foscari and Mocenigo: the Serenissima would have died if you trade in the Mediterranean had been beaten and devalued by better -armed rivals, but she could not also admit that the hinterland great adventurers like the Della Scala family, the Carraresi and the Visconti would the Dukes of Milan surrendered. "
Venice 1433 could fix in a treaty with Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, the Terraferma and Dalmatia as his possession. 1437 the conquest of the Terraferma was recognized by the emperor: On August 16, 1437 Marco Dandolo received for Venice in Prague Terraferma as an imperial fief. It was specifically noted that this fiefdom does not affect the Dogado, because this did not belong to the realm of the western emperor. The later Emperor Charles V ( HRR ), waived on July 29, 1523 expressly waive all rights of a feudal lord on the Terraferma. At the time of its greatest expansion included the Terraferma the Veneto, Friuli and parts of Lombardy from the Po to the Adige, the southern edge of the Alps and the Julian Alps.
They were mostly the native princes, who did not accept as masters the Venetians, in contrast to their subjects. But Venice had the existing structures in the Terraferma exist, usually sent only some superintendents, judges and auditors and, of course, called for a tax. The native nobility in the Terrferma was monitored by Provveditori sopra Feudi ( overseer of the feudal lords and feudal ).
Reports that the energetically driven by the Doge Francesco Foscari extension of the Terraferma a lessening of strength and striking power of the fleet was gone hand in hand and thus the gradual decline of the Venetian domination have used in the eastern Mediterranean, are controversial. Since the Renaissance Venetian Nobili increasingly invested in agriculture in Terraferma, settled there, impressive estates built and spent the summer time. This is commonly seen as an expression of decadence and economic decline of Venice.
The fertile Terraferma woke repeatedly desires of France and the Habsburgs. Especially on the part of Austria, there have been plans to acquire the Terraferma, or divide between itself and France. Finally, Napoleon Bonaparte secured to the top-secret Additional Articles to the Treaty of Leoben April 18, 1797 France would Venetian territories " legally sound " is passed to Austria. Austria was given to these " countries donation" Finally 1798 Venice itself