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 La Spezia Gulf of La Spezia The Gulf of La Spezia (Italian: "Golfo della Spezia" or "Golfo dei poeti") is a body of water on the north-western coast of Italy and part of the northern Tyrrhenian Sea, specifically of Ligurian Sea. It measures some 4.5 (length) by 3-3.5 (width) kilometers. The gulf is named for the Italian city of La Spezia, located at its middle point, which is also the main military and cargo port in the gulf, including several arsenals of the Italian Marina Militare. At the gulf extremities are the two tourist resorts of Lerici (western) and Porto Venere (eastern).