The Mediterranean has always attracted the imagination of modern historians as the epicentre of great political entities, such as the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, Venetians, and Spanish. However, it seems that the sea itself was always on the margins of historical inquiry -- at least, until the publication of the famous two-volume work by F. Braudel in 1949, which profoundly shaped the understanding of how societies living around the Mediterranean interacted in a single period of history, offering what David Abulafia has coined "a horizontal history of the Mediterranean." This collection of essays aims to offer a rather vertical history of war in the Mediterranean Sea, from the early Middle Ages to the early modernity, putting the emphasis on the changing face of several different aspects and contexts of war over time.

Introduction : War, Warfare, and the Mediterranean Military History -- Part 1. Naval Activity. 1. The Byzantine War Navy and the West, Fifth to Twelfth Centuries / Tilemachos C. Lounghis -- 2. The Defence of the Venetian Dominio Da Mar in the Sixteenth Century : Ship Design, Naval Architecture, and the Naval Career of Vettor Fausto's Quinquereme / Lilia Campana -- 3. Sea Power and the Ottomans in the Early Modern Mediterranean World / Elina Gugliuzzo -- 4. Conflict and Collaboration : The Spanish and Ottoman Navies in the Mediterranean, 1453-1923 / Wayne H. Bowen -- Part 2. Weapons & Armour. 5. A Sixth or Early Seventh Century Ad Iconography of Roman Military Equipment in Egypt : The Deir Abou Hennis Frescoes / Raffaele D'Amato -- 6. Σωχος : An Unusual Byzantine Weapon / Georgios Theotokis -- 7. Post-Byzantine Art and Western Influences in Military Iconography : The Case of Staff Weapons in the Work of Michael Damaskenos / Iason-Eleftherios Tzouriadis -- Part 3. Strategy & Command. 8. The Middle Ground: The Passage of Crusade Armies to The Holy Land By Land and Sea (1096-1204) / Alan V. Murray -- 9. The Theory of the Passagium Particulare : A Commercial Blockade of the Mediterranean in the Early Fourteenth Century? / Cornel Bontea -- 10. Faith and Authority : Guy of Lusignan at the Battle of Acre (4th October 1189) / Stephen Bennett -- 11. By the Sword or by an Oath : Siege Warfare in the Latin East 1097-1131 / Ian Wilson -- Part 4. Military Literature. 12. Late Byzantine Elites and Military Literature : Authors, Readers and Manuscripts (c.1050-c.1450) / Philip Rance -- 13. The Byzantine Influence on the Military Writings of Theodore I Palaiologos, Marquis of Montferrat / Nikolaos Kanellopoulos -- 14. Warfare in the Histories of John Kantakouzenos / Savvas Kyriakidis -- Part 5. Military Roles within Society. 15. Stradioti, Cappelletti, Compagnie or Milizie Greche : 'Greek' Mounted and Foot Mercenary Companies in the Venetian State (Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries) / Stathis Birtachas -- 16. A Secret War : Espionage in Venetian Corfu during the Construction of the San Marco Fortress / Chrysovalantis Papadamou -- 17. "Rather the Wealth to Support Their Status than Their Quality as Soldiers". The Social Position of the Officers in Lucca's Ordinanze della Montagna, 1550-1600 / Jacopo Pessina -- 18. Commanders of the Janissary Army : The Janissary Agas, Their Career and Promotion Patterns / Aysel Yildiz.