War of Chioggia

War of Chioggia
Part of Venetian–Genoese Wars

The town of Chioggia
Date1378–1381
Location
coasts of Adriatic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea, Cyprus
Result Venetian victory and control over Mediterranean commerce, Hungary conquers Dalmatia, Venice forced to pay annual tribute to King of Hungary; Treaty of Turin
Belligerents
Republic of Venice
Supported by:
Milan under Bernabò Visconti
 Republic of Genoa
Supported by:
Padua
Kingdom of Hungary
Patriarchate of Aquileia
Duchy of Austria
Commanders and leaders
Andrea Contarini
Vettor Pisani
Carlo Zeno

The War of Chioggia (Italian: Guerra di Chioggia) was a conflict fought by the Republic of Genoa against the Republic of Venice between 1378 and 1381, the conclusion of an open confrontation that had lasted for years and which had already included some occasional and limited military clashes.

Initially the Genoese managed to conquer Chioggia and vast areas of the Venetian Lagoon, but in the end the Venetians managed to recover Chioggia and the Lagoon and Istrian cities that had fallen into the hands of the Genoese. The war then ended diplomatically with the Treaty of Turin on 8 August 1381, which sanctioned the exit of the Genoese and Venetians from a conflict in which both maritime republics had suffered enormous economic damage.

The War of Chioggia represented the last major clash between the Genoese and the Venetians, from which Venice soon recovered thanks to its solid internal organisation, while Genoa, at that time also tormented by internal struggles for power, entered a period of clashes which led it to a coexistence with its Venetian rivals, and their commercial interests towards the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean were de facto divided in the following centuries, with the areas of the Dodecanese, Constantinople and the Black Sea to Genoese trade, while the Adriatic, the Ionian Islands and Crete to Venetian trade.

The events of this war - which led to the complete destruction of Clodia minor, the current Sottomarina - are still recalled in the Palio della Marciliana, which is held annually in Chioggia.