A Venetian patriarch now said Mass in St Sophia.

Venice received the proud title of 'Ruler of a half and a quarter of the Roman Empire,' ('quartae partis et dimidiae totius imperii Romaniae'-- the words have a ring of trumpets), and the Doge, buskined in scarlet like the ancient Roman emperors, now ruled supreme over four seas--the Adriatic, the Aegean, the Sea of Marmora, and the Black Sea.

Venetian factories studded all the Levantine coasts, in Tripoli and Tyre, Salonica, Adrianople, and Constantinople, in Trebizond on the Black Sea, even at Caffa in the far Crimea, whence ran the mysterious road into Russia.
Crete and Rhodes and Cyprus were hers; her galleys swept the pirates from the seas and brooked no rivals; all trade with the East must pass through Venice, and Venice only.

The other trading cities of Italy struggled against her, and Genoa came near to rivalling her, but in 1258, and again in 1284, she utterly defeated the Genoese fleet.

Not for the city of 'sea without fish, mountains without woods, men without faith, and women without shame' was it to bit the horses on St Mark's.[5] In 1268 Venice seemed supreme.