674 GEOGRAPHY 



such conditions the central situation of Italy gave it a predominant 

 position, and Venice and Genoa became the natural foci of com- 

 mercial power. 



It was only natural, also, that Italy should prove the- birthplace of 

 the great pioneers of geographical exploration. From Venice came 

 Marco Polo, the great explorer of Cathay, who first to Western eyes 

 unveiled the wonders of the East, and through whom Venice learned 

 "to hold the treasures of the gorgeous East in fee;" from Genoa, 

 Columbus, the pioneer of Western exploration, who sought, but failed, 

 to find a western route to the Indies, and in his failure won a greater 

 fame by the revelation of the road to a new and unsuspected world; 

 while Florence saw the birth of Amerigo Vespucci, the scholarly ex- 

 plorer, who first realized that this new world was totally distinct from 

 Asia, and so led to his name being inseparably linked with it. Cada- 

 mosto of Venice, sometimes called the Marco Polo of West Africa, the 

 Cabots and Verrazano, pioneers of Western exploration for England 

 and France, were likewise Italians. 



The trade with the East, the home of silks and spices, some once 

 almost worth their weight in gold, was till recent times the prize of 

 the world's commerce. It was the fertilizing streams of Eastern 

 commerce, pouring into the Mediterranean by various routes, but 

 mainly up the Red Sea, which nourished Genoa and Venice. But 

 gradually round the Levantine shores there spread, eventually from 

 Cairo to Constantinople, the Turks, an alien race of alien religion; 

 and Turkish dues, exacted on the inevitable land transit across 

 Egypt from the Red Sea, proved a serious and increasing charge on 

 the profits of this commerce. 



In the latter part of the fifteenth century a merchant of Ven- 

 ice, writing to the King of Portugal, said that the greatest trade of 

 Venice was with India, which came by way of Alexandria, whence 

 the Turk derived great profit; he could not say where India was, 

 but it was an affair for a great prince to undertake to find it, for 

 if successful he would be exalted in riches and grandeur above all 

 others. 



The necessity of finding an ocean highway to the East, which would 

 obviate the need of any land-break, with all its consequent expenses, 

 had, however, been anticipated at an earlier period. The natural direc- 

 tion in which to seek such a route was round Africa. No one knew 

 whether this were possible, or even if Africa had a southern end, but 

 it was probable, and, indeed, the impartial record of an incredulous 

 historian, Herodotus, had handed down the tradition of a Phenician 

 circumnavigation of the continent six hundred years before the 

 beginning of the Christian Era. 



For the quest of a route round Africa, the relative position of the 

 Iberian Peninsula at the time foreshadowed the preeminence of Spain 



