What was Othello's Venice like?

Answer 1

Venice at the time in which the play was set was a tiny city-state ruled by a republican government and led by a series of incredibly elderly and astute leaders called the Doge. Despite the fact that it was a city built on a bunch of islands in a swamp and connected by canals, it was a great maritime power, and its colonial interests in what is now Greece brought it into conflict with the expanding Ottoman empire. Hence the conflict with "the Turk" over Cyprus. Venice at the time was wealthy, sophisticated and cosmopolitan.