Republic of Ragusa

The Republic of Ragusa was the aristocratic sea-republic of Dubrovnik, lasting from 1358 to 1808. Freed from Venice by the Treaty of Zara in 1358, the little city-state acknowledged Hungary's nominal crown and then played the great game of the Adriatic to perfection: paying tribute to the Ottomans, trading with everyone, fighting no one it could pay instead. At its fifteenth- and sixteenth-century height Ragusan argosies sailed to the Black Sea ports the Turks closed to others, and Dubrovnik's walls, diplomats and motto, liberty is not sold for all the gold, made it the one Adriatic rival Venice could never swallow. The republic was an oligarchy of a few dozen noble houses, prudent, rich and famously neutral, surviving earthquakes, plagues and the fall of empires around it. Napoleon ended the game: his armies occupied the city in 1806, and in 1808 he formally abolished the republic, folding five centuries of Ragusan liberty into his Kingdom of Italy.