As the title says, can Genoa or Venice have a colonial empire outside the Mediterranean? What would it look like?
I devised a situation for Venice colonizing in the Caribbean for my TL. In my TL Spain isn't united, and Castile is focused on matters closer to home, and Columbus (who was born before my PoD) finds favor with the Venetians instead of the Castilians because of an earlier discovery of the around Africa route by the Portuguese, which is cutting into their eastern trade monopoly and making them want to discover an even shorter route where not all of the resupply points are owned by the Portuguese. Of course, the colonies are less than a decade old, and not likely to last long, but it's something.As the title says, can Genoa or Venice have a colonial empire outside the Mediterranean? What would it look like?
For a Venetian empire in the Americas some factor are needed:
1. A broader demographic base: Venice has to posses at least all of nortern-east Italy, or southern Italy. - somewhat possible, but with a lot of PODs.
2. A more secure close environment: no lethal rivals in the Italian peninsula, good relations with the Ottomans. - Rather impossible: the Pope, Milan, Florence, Genoa and the French king would never tolerate such a powerful Venice. About the Ottomans: Venice has to accept rather bad terms for her commerce in the East, and the loss of Cyprus and Crete since the beginning of the 16th century, but I doubt they would accept that.
3. Neutralization or diminishing of the Babrbary corsairs. - Rather difficult.
4. A Spain that is not united and powerful.
5. A dramatic shift in the focus of the Venetian commerce: Venice has to shift from slave and spice commerce, meaning a huge cost.
6. A shift on navigation and shipbuilding: the Portuguese and the Spaniards developent vessels more competend for open seas, because they have coast in the Atlantic, and it took them some time to make ships fit for safe nad cheap journeys to the New world. How a mediterranean-centered Venice could achieve that?
In order for a venetian colonial empire in the Americas to happen, all of the above factors must be achieved... Sorry, it seems impossible!
The closest you're gonna get to this is a genovese Crimea.
How did they get Caucasian colonies? I have never heard of that.
Genoa had a single colony in Caucasia, specifically in what is now coastal Georgia, it was however more a small trading center and settlement than anything else.
How did they get Caucasian colonies? I have never heard of that.
I think the idea of a couple of sugar islands isn't impossible; after all, Denmark had one, as did Courland.
The Codex Parisinus latinus references (apparently) about 20 "stable territories" controlled by Genoa around the Black Sea (including Lo Vati in what is now Georgia, I think). These were in the territories described as 'Tartary' at the time, or the Khanate. Or in the Empire of Trebizond.
Ragusa also had at least three colonies in Tartary, Ancona appears to have had at least one. It is important to bear in mind that until quite recent times, Venice and Genoa were not the hegomonic Mediterranean trading estates which they later became: earlier, they had serious challengers
After the fall of Constantinople, Ragusa was the only Christian state allowed free access to the Black Sea.
There is also record of a Ragusan colony in Goa (India) in the 17th century (large enough to build a church).
These 'colonies' were colonies in the original sense, groups of traders and merchants . But if such proto-colonies could be preserved, it should not be hard for them to separate out as "modern" colonies as the Ottoman Empire decays.
Ragusa also had, perhaps , an advantage in the setting up of remote modern colonies, since Ragusa, to a much greater degree than Venice or Genoa, built ocean going sailing ships rather than galleys or small coasting vessels.
I have seen a number of references in 17th and 18th century works to Ragusan vessels in the Atlantic, though the fact that the sightings warranted mentioning might imply that they were a rarity so far west.But Pepys knew enough of the Ragusan marine to mention them , ranking them on a level with Venice
Ragusa also had a shipbuilding advantage, with local access to excellent oak-woods, and shipwrights considered amongst the best in the world.
Some differences in history , somewhere around the late 15th or 16th centuries, and a Ragusan colonial "empire" does not seem impossible, though given Ragusan preference for diplomacy over militarism, it would likely be some sort of Federation rather than an Empire. And nothing can butterfly away the earthquake.
Denmark has an Atlantic Coast with direct interests in the New World, while Courland's colonies were only under one ruler and were quickly taken away from Courland. By this precendent, we could say that Augsburg/Bavaria could have had colonies because an Augsburg banking family owned Venezuela for a short period.