Venice's overseas domains reached its greatest nominal extent at the conclusion of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, with declaration of the acquisition of three octaves of the Byzantine Empire.

Venice remained an important player in Constantinople, holding the key position of Podestà until its Byzantine reconquest in 1261, and more broadly in the region during the politically complex period known as the Frankokratia.

[3] In 1402, the Battle of Ankara temporarily reversed the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the east, and the death of Duke of Milan Giangaleazzo Visconti created a power vacuum in northern Italy that enabled expansion of the Domini di Terraferma.

The changed climate created by the Ottoman Interregnum and the ensuing Treaty of Gallipoli in 1403 led to a growth of commerce and the acquisition of a new string of fortresses in Greece: Lepanto in 1407, Patras in 1408, Navarino in 1410, and temporarily Thessalonica in 1423.

After that date, the remaining overseas domains, kept until the Fall of the Republic of Venice to Napoleon I in 1797, were all in Istria, Dalmatia, and the Ionian Islands, with none left east of Kythira and Antikythera.