Galee, bombarde e guerre di simboli.Innovazioni negli assedi anfibi di Chioggia tra genovesi e veneziani (1379-1380)

Abstract

The battles fought between the Genoese and the Venetians in the lagoon of Chioggia, between 1379 and 1380, marked a turning point for naval warfare. Namely, these battles saw for the first time a massive use of embarked artillery, in a process carried out thanks to the navies in the Mediterranean rather than in the Northern seas, despite what a certain historiography claims. The early presence of bombards on galleys, cogs and ganzaroli would change the course of sieges and of amphibian operations: since Chioggia, naval warfare had not only been left in the hands of crossbowmen and crew anymore, but it would have become also one of exhausting bombardments. My contribute will be an attempt to propose hypothesis on the tactics and aims of the Genoese, that almost reached the enemy’s capital; to investigate the symbolic dimension of the conflict, always present in the fighting between Genoa and Venice, with the stealing of relics and insignias. The usage of the new weapons employed in the lagoon will be then examined, starting from the coeval chronicles that can give first-hand information on their first use, showing the changes occurring in the art of warfare. This will allow to carry out an in-depth analysis on the new ways of managing the conflict, especially in the uncommon circumstances of an amphibian siege. This naval and trenches warfare, in which artillery was for the first time relevant, marked one of the transformations that preconized the positional warfare of the following centuries.