City of Fortune focuses on 3 centuries of Venetian history, from about 1200 to 1500. The beginning date marks the notable rise of Venice as a power in the Mediteranean, the end its decline. Venice did very well out of the Fourth Crusade (about 1204), which ended up attacking not a Moslem power, but the Orthodox Christian empire of Constantinople. Although Venice does not seem to planned that outcome (which is a different view from what I had previously understood), it definitely benefited beyond being repaid for the cost of carrying crusaders from western Europe. One result of this successful attack was that Venice got a number of ports and islands which were the centerpiece of its empire. These bases, mainly on Greece or on islands inhabitated by Greeks, were primarily a means to protecting its shipping and trade. The main exception was Crete, in which Venice engaged in a number of vicious actions to conquer and then hold onto the entire island despite the distaste of the Greek orthodox population for their Venetian rulers. The Venetians also gained a large number of tax and trade concessions within the Byzantine empire.

The Venetian focus on business, understandable for a city state with few natural resources, always meant that its relationship with the Vatican and with most other Christian states was uneasy, as much of this trade (with the exception of its trading posts on the Black Sea, which traded with the Mongols for the century or so they were in power across Central Asia and China) was with Moslem countries. The trade also resulted in literal wars with trade rivals, of which Genoa was the most important. The two Italian city states fought a number of long and expensive wars without either side landing a decisivie blow, though Genoa came close in the 1400s in alliance with Padua and Hungary.

The rise of the Ottoman empire, indirectly assisted by the damage Venice had done to the Byzantine Empire, resulted in an enemy too powerful for Venice to handle. Possibly the Venetian decline would have been staved off if the rise of the Ottomans had not coincided with a number of bad choices for military leadership on the part of the Venetians, which resulted in the unnecessary loss of a number of colonial outposts. The successful Portuguese navigation to India and back, undermining the Mediteranean spice trade, was another blow. By about 1500 the Venetian elite was more focused on newly acquired land holdings on mainland Italy than on seaborne trade.

I enjoyed the author's style. I did notice one pecularity; an absence of any important female historical figures. I don't know if this is due to the time and place the author was writing about, or his editorial choices.