A few episodes ago, we left thousands of Venetians languishing in makeshift Byzantine prisons. As the fires of history burned their way through the 1170s, those hostages could have been forgiven for feeling increasingly forgotten. Slowly but surely, though, Venice was working on ways to bring them home. In the end, after a seemingly interminable decade, the solution would come from the unlikely source of a mad Emperor, and an Empire that turns inwards and eats itself.

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Intro and outro music is Primavera from Vivaldi’s Le Quattro Stagioni, used under Creative Commons licence from musopen.org