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 Finland depression was somewhat reshaped by glacier's activities. Its retreat formed the Littorina Sea, whose water level was some 7–9 metres higher than the present level of the Baltic Sea. Some 4,000 years ago the sea receded and shoals in the gulf have become its islands. Later uplifting of the Baltic Shield skewed the surface of the gulf; for this reason, its ancient northern shores are significantly higher than the southern ones. The climate in the area is humid continental climate, characterized by temperate to hot summers and cold, occasionally severe winters with regular precipitation. The vegetation is dominated by a