WI: City-states in the Ottoman Empire

A major city-state region neighbouring the Osmans was North Italy.

And yet, although 7th...9th century North Italy was urban compared to 7th...9th century Northern France or Britain, it was nowhere as urbanized as 12th...15th century Northern Italy would be.

What enabled redevelopment of city-states in North Italy?
 
If the Ottomans ever managed to seize the Dalmatian hinterland from Venice, there's a good chance that the cities there would form Ragusa-esque analogues. Like Ragusa, their culture was separate from the Croatian littoral (they spoke Dalmatian, a neolatin dialect - by the Ottoman era, it had become heavily influence by the Venetian language), and they were difficult to conquer from the landward side. It's quite possible that Zara (Zadar), Spalatro (Split), Tragura (Trogir) and Sebenico (Sibenik) could enter into a relationship with the Ottomans very similar to that of Ragusa.

Though in order to achieve this, the Turks would have to displace Venetian control, which was entrenched by the time the Venetian-Ottoman Wars began. One way of eliminating this control would be to have an earlier POD in order to have an independent or at least autonomous Dalmatia. Perhaps the Fourth Crusade never sacks Zara (though you'd have to have it move on to Constantinople somehow, otherwise you butterfly away the Ottomans even if the Basileía Rhōmaíōn eventually falls to someone else)? Another potential POD would be if Domald of Sidraga's liberation of Zara in 1204 lasted longer - IOTL, Venice retook the city just a year later, but if Comes (Count) Domald holds out, Venice's position is undermined. However, even that relatively minor change is probably enough to butterfly the Ottomans, even if not the Turks as a people.

Of course, Venice only achieved final control over Dalmatia in 1409, so avoiding this would keep the cities tied to Hungary-Croatia as autonomous communitates, more amenable to tributary-isation at Ottoman hands. That might be the most realistic POD.

TL/DR: The Dalmatian city-states would be good candidates for this WI.
 
Okay, okay, so I'll beat a dead horse and say that a city-state must have some form of self-government and a great deal of autonomy for it to exist within an empire. It's why the HRE was just that, a collection of small self-governing territories that centered around one major city (with some exceptions like the Hapsburg lands) but still had the Emperor as their liege. Indeed, the entrenchment of feudalism in Europe is why small city-states were even viable to begin with as it was natural for small areas to have a great deal of autonomy. However, in an empire with a stronger centralized government like the Ottomans that is harder to pull off, especially since granting autonomy means a higher of chance of the city-state doing things against your central government's wishes. It's the reason why France didn't go the way of the HRE and balkanize into various noble statelets; the (relatively) strong authority of the king made it difficult to free oneself from vassalage for these large estates, let alone a city.

Furthermore, there would have to be some reason for the city to submit without the Ottomans straight up annexing them into the larger territory around them. Ragusa was an excellent example of this, as it was protected from being seized by Venice by Ottomans and was granted special trading rights. In exchange, it had to send a hefty tribute as well as a representative and had to ensure its interests did not conflict with the Ottomans. As Iluvatar said above, the Dalmatian cities are your best candidate for this WI, especially since any closer and it might be more efficient to annex the territory. A secondary option might be the Ionian Islands if they were seized from Venice, and perhaps the cities of the Maghreb if only the main cities were captured like Tripoli and Tunis. In the Red Sea, Suakin, Massawa, and Hirgigo (under the OTL Habesh eyalet with Hejaz) are pretty distant and could function as autonomous ports if separated from Hejaz.
 
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