Word: lepanto
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After the crushing of the Turk at Lepanto, Venice had no challengers of any size left in the Mediterranean. Its empire, secured by an invincible fleet of galleys, ran from the northern Adriatic to Crete, and its trade embraced half the world, reaching as far as China. It was the richest, the most socially coherent and the most formidably armed state south of the Alps. Its doges and merchants were cunning and civil-minded, and its women notable for beauty if one could get used to their obsession with the vagaries of chic: "They weare very long crisped hair," remarked...