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 Bothnia of Bothnia into a southern gulf and northern lake across the Norra Kvarken area in about 2,000 years. Some historians suggest that the adventurer Ottar was referring to the Gulf of Bothnia when he spoke of the "Kven Sea" in the 9th century. It is also possible that Claudius Clavus's usage of the term "Mare Gotticus" in the 15th century refers to the Gulf of Bothnia. The land surrounding the Gulf of Bothnia is heavily forested. Trees are logged, then transported to the coast for milling. The gulf is also important for oil transport to the coastal cities and ore