Long-running trade disputes with the Byzantine Empire culminated in the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, which crippled the Empire but also greatly expanded Venice's Stato da Màr, its maritime domains such as Crete and Negroponte.
The Republic of Venice began as a humble village on an island on the edge of a lagoon, but in the Middle Ages it grew to become one of the preeminent powers of the Mediterranean.
