Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum 2 Volume Set

This two-volume work contains documents from the Venetian state archives from the period 1300–1454. They refer to Venice's dealings with her own empire across the eastern Mediterranean and with foreign powers, including Turkish sultans and Byzantine emperors. At that time, Venetian power was at its zenith (the doges boasted of being rulers of 'one-quarter and one-half of a quarter of the whole world'), but there were dangers to Venetian naval and mercantile supremacy from the continuous advance of the Ottoman Turks across the territory formerly ruled from Constantinople. Volume 1, published in 1880, covers the period 1300–50. It was edited by the German scholar G. M. Thomas (1817–87), who in the 1850s had published with Gottlieb Tafel on Venice's earlier relations with Byzantium. Volume 2, prepared for the press after Thomas' death by Riccardo Predelli (1842–1909) and published in 1899, contains documents from 1351 to 1454.