A Brief History of the Future: A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-First Century by Jacques Attali
Authors: Jacques Attali
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part. Venice encounters the opportunity with the late-eleventh-century Crusades. To build the Crusaders’ vessels, financed with money stolen from the Jewish communities massacred en route, the Most Serene Republic constructs shipyards.
Even though the early-thirteenth-century sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders and their departure from Venice briefly interrupt this traffic, the Serenissima remains throughout the century Europe’s only shield against the Turkish menace, and an obligatory stopover for Asian products destined for northern Europe. In addition, a daring bridge on the flanks of the Brenner Pass opens the route from Saint-Gothard and directly links the German silver mines to the Adriatic. It allows the cities of the North to receive products from the empires of the East, with no more need to use the threatened Flemish ports nor the arrogant merchant houses of northern Europe. Germany is still just a point ofpassage, and the North Sea ports, from Altona to Talinn, will never succeed in rising to the status of a core or scarcely even that of environs.
When, midway through the fourteenth century (and after the end of the Great Plague), Bruges suddenly declines, Europe experiences a fresh craving for life and its pleasures. For the next hundred years Venice becomes the core of the mercantile order. Although living in the shadow of the Turks, the city takes control of trade between Europe and the East.
Like Bruges, Venice by now is an entity ruled with an iron hand by princes who are at once merchants and soldiers. The doge (duke), chief of the executive and theoretically elected for life, can be forced to resign under pressure from the oligarchs. For its own account, the city establishes the workshops and financial institutions necessary for shipbuilders, bankers, and merchants, who now pour in from the four corners of the world. Even more than was the case in Bruges, it enjoys a formidable intellectual, artistic, and human freedom. Waging a war never won and never lost against the Roman Empire of the East, and then against the Ottoman Empire, Venetian leaders constantly negotiate skillful compromises, often trading glory for wealth. Meanwhile, the Hundred Years’ War exhausts the rest of Europe.
The Chinese empire suffers successive coups d’état, with the Jin dynasty replaced by the Mongols and then, in 1368, by the Ming. In spite of these political upheavals, an unprecedented mastery of farm production and a redoubtable bureaucratic system allow China to implement major technical advances (such asthe movable press), to produce more than ten tons of iron each year and to finance a million-man army. Turned once again toward the exterior, the imperial fleet sends exploratory missions led by a certain Zheng He as far afield as Africa, Australia, and perhaps even the Americas, but without gaining control of the trade routes or seeking to conquer markets or spread knowledge. Other empires — Indian, Russian, Mongolian, Turkish, and Greek — still separate China from Europe.
Venice, a very modest city in comparison with these huge empires, now becomes the center of the mercantile world. Venetians set the price of the major commodities, manipulate the rates of their own currency, accumulate profits, and establish aesthetic, architectural, graphic, and musical canons. Writers, philosophers, and architects — of whom Palladio will soon be master — flock in to write and to theorize about freedom before spreading their ideas throughout Europe. The Catholic city distances itself from the Roman Church and rejects all its attempts to moralize. By the end of the fourteenth century, Venice dominates Europe. Venetian money changers control all the continent’s financial markets, from France to Flanders, Castile to Germany. Differences in power are enormous — the Venetian standard of living is fifteen times higher than that of Paris, Madrid, Antwerp, Amsterdam, or London.
Venice is now a complex city, ruled by a
Even though the early-thirteenth-century sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders and their departure from Venice briefly interrupt this traffic, the Serenissima remains throughout the century Europe’s only shield against the Turkish menace, and an obligatory stopover for Asian products destined for northern Europe. In addition, a daring bridge on the flanks of the Brenner Pass opens the route from Saint-Gothard and directly links the German silver mines to the Adriatic. It allows the cities of the North to receive products from the empires of the East, with no more need to use the threatened Flemish ports nor the arrogant merchant houses of northern Europe. Germany is still just a point ofpassage, and the North Sea ports, from Altona to Talinn, will never succeed in rising to the status of a core or scarcely even that of environs.
When, midway through the fourteenth century (and after the end of the Great Plague), Bruges suddenly declines, Europe experiences a fresh craving for life and its pleasures. For the next hundred years Venice becomes the core of the mercantile order. Although living in the shadow of the Turks, the city takes control of trade between Europe and the East.
Like Bruges, Venice by now is an entity ruled with an iron hand by princes who are at once merchants and soldiers. The doge (duke), chief of the executive and theoretically elected for life, can be forced to resign under pressure from the oligarchs. For its own account, the city establishes the workshops and financial institutions necessary for shipbuilders, bankers, and merchants, who now pour in from the four corners of the world. Even more than was the case in Bruges, it enjoys a formidable intellectual, artistic, and human freedom. Waging a war never won and never lost against the Roman Empire of the East, and then against the Ottoman Empire, Venetian leaders constantly negotiate skillful compromises, often trading glory for wealth. Meanwhile, the Hundred Years’ War exhausts the rest of Europe.
The Chinese empire suffers successive coups d’état, with the Jin dynasty replaced by the Mongols and then, in 1368, by the Ming. In spite of these political upheavals, an unprecedented mastery of farm production and a redoubtable bureaucratic system allow China to implement major technical advances (such asthe movable press), to produce more than ten tons of iron each year and to finance a million-man army. Turned once again toward the exterior, the imperial fleet sends exploratory missions led by a certain Zheng He as far afield as Africa, Australia, and perhaps even the Americas, but without gaining control of the trade routes or seeking to conquer markets or spread knowledge. Other empires — Indian, Russian, Mongolian, Turkish, and Greek — still separate China from Europe.
Venice, a very modest city in comparison with these huge empires, now becomes the center of the mercantile world. Venetians set the price of the major commodities, manipulate the rates of their own currency, accumulate profits, and establish aesthetic, architectural, graphic, and musical canons. Writers, philosophers, and architects — of whom Palladio will soon be master — flock in to write and to theorize about freedom before spreading their ideas throughout Europe. The Catholic city distances itself from the Roman Church and rejects all its attempts to moralize. By the end of the fourteenth century, Venice dominates Europe. Venetian money changers control all the continent’s financial markets, from France to Flanders, Castile to Germany. Differences in power are enormous — the Venetian standard of living is fifteen times higher than that of Paris, Madrid, Antwerp, Amsterdam, or London.
Venice is now a complex city, ruled by a
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