History of the Republic of Venice were little compensation. This was the last war of the Republic with Turkey. The decline of Venice in the 18th century was also due not only to Genoa, Venice's old rival, but also to Livorno, a new port on the Tyrrhenian Sea created by the grand dukes of Tuscany and chosen as staging-post for British trade in the Mediterranean. Still more injurious were the Papal town of Ancona and Habsburg Trieste, a free port since 1719, in the Adriatic Sea, which no longer constituted a "Venetian Gulf". An eminent Venetian politician of the time declared, "Apart from the residue which
Gulf of Sirte Gulf of Sirte Gulf of Sirte (, "Khalij Surt"), or Gulf of Sidra (, "Khalij as-Sidra") after the port of Sidra, is a body of water in the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya. Historically it has been also known as the Great Sirte or Greater Syrtis (Latin: "Syrtis Major", Greek: , contrasting with "Syrtis Minor" in Tunisia). The Gulf of Sirte has been a major centre for tuna fishing in the Mediterranean for centuries. It gives its name to the city of Sirte situated on its western side. The gulf measures from the promontory of Boreum (now