Battle of Chioggia

The naval Battle of Chioggia took place on June 21, 1380 in the lagoon off Chioggia, Italy, between the Venetian and the Genoese fleets, who had captured the little fishing port in August the preceding year. This occurred during the War of Chioggia.

The port was of no consequence, but its location at an inlet to the Venetian Lagoon threatened Venice at her very doorstep. The Venetians, under Vettor Pisani, were victorious; by some accounts, it was the fortunate arrival of Carlo Zeno at the head of a force from the east which ensured the Venetian victory. The Venetians both captured the town and turned the tide in the war in their favor. A peace treaty signed in 1381 in Turin gave no formal advantage to Genoa or Venice. But it spelled the end of their long competition: Genoese shipping was not seen in the Adriatic after Chioggia.

Fernand Braudel sets the end of sporadic warfare between the two early centers of capitalist empire as a result of the economic retrenchment of the 14th century: "Perhaps the answer is that only prolonged prosperity and a rising tide of trade had made it possible to indulge for so long in battles which were fierce but not in the end mortal,... Both major and minor wars had become too expensive a luxury. Peaceful coexistence would have to be the rule." (The Perspective of the World 1984 p. 118).