Sack of Constantinople
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The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the city, the Latin Empire was established and Baldwin of Flanders was crowned Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople in the Hagia Sophia.
Venetian mosaic in the San Giovanni Evangelista depicting the fall of Constantinople, 1213
The siege of Constantinople in 1204, by Palma il Giovane
The original Horses of Saint Mark displayed inside St Mark's Basilica in Venice; replicas adorn the outside.
Fourth Crusade
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The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate. However, a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army's 1202 siege of Zara and the 1204 sack of Constantinople, rather than the conquest of Egypt as originally planned. This led to the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae or the partition of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders and their Venetian allies leading to a period known as Frankokratia, or "Rule of the Franks" in Greek.
A 15th-century miniature depicting the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204
Venetian Navy landing in Constantinople, from a XV Century miniature
The crusaders conquering the City of Zadar, painted by Tintoretto
Dandolo Preaching the Crusade by Gustave Doré