How to keep Venice Byzantine?

The obvious answer would be the victory of the pro-Roman factions in the city, which were mostly based on the rejection of a continental political influence : but these were tied to the existence of a relatively strong continental power (namely, Carolingia). Not only this significantly depolarized the inner politics of the early republic, but the lack of a strong adriatic rival made Dalmatian coast an after-tought in Byzantine geopolitics, which allowed South Slavic polities to gradually take on the region (partially out of a rear-alliance against Bulgars), which allowed Venice to pull a Carthage (by becoming the "natural" Roman-issued regional protector).

Maintaining Francia in one piece, or having a strong late Carolingian/post-Carolingian Italy would be really hard changes to get (altough the former much more than the latter), but a less chaotic post-Carolingia situation AND a lesser Bulgarian threat in Balkans (or, possibly, a stronger Bulgaria that would appear as an Adriatic rival, but this is less likely to work out IMO) could do the trick, for a while.
 
One possibility occurs to me: A strong Byzantine presence in southern Italy. If one power controls the entrance to the Adriatic, then Venice is effectively a dependency of them through sheer economic calculus. If its Byzantium that controls the entrance, Venice will at least have the solace that it they're part of the same state, on paper.
 
I wonder how much it wouldn't be counter-productive eventually : a very strong Byzantine presence in southern Italy could make a strong suzerainty over Venice a bit redundant. After all, the byzantine operations in Italy and Sicily happened in the same time than the general political withdrawal from Dalmatia.

Now, that said : it would be a same political continuity, on paper, so it fills your objective.
 
One possibility occurs to me: A strong Byzantine presence in southern Italy. If one power controls the entrance to the Adriatic, then Venice is effectively a dependency of them through sheer economic calculus. If its Byzantium that controls the entrance, Venice will at least have the solace that it they're part of the same state, on paper.

Problem is, pre-telegraph ships were more or less free to go as they please and as shown IOTL the Venetians learned a lot of Greek from the sheer amount of trade they did and yet still preferred Venetian anyways. The reason the Venetians diverged wasn't a lack of contact unless the Byzantines keep Veneto somehow. In my opinion the reason they diverged was time and the antagonism of the Byzantines. The Byzantines resented Venetian trade privileges, they resented them as merchants but also as foreigners, they saw them as some distant backwater unworthy of attention or respect yet they changed their mind whenever they needed the Venetians navy , at the same time they never hesitated to go to the Genoese to screw over the Venetians whenever it suited them. In the end I don't think there was any interest from Constantinople in keeping Venice and that a change in attitude was needed.
 
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