221 



proportions in the Middle Ages, as the 

 people of Europe became educated to a 

 hunger for the spicy flavors of the East. 

 From India and China and Persia came 

 not only silks and laces, but, more im- 

 portant, spices and oils and drugs, and 

 Venice was quick to realize the impor- 

 tance of having this commerce pass 

 through her port. • 



The knowledge of medicines used by 

 the Moors and Arabs, which was brought 

 back by the Crusaders, helped to educate 

 the people of many lands to the uses of 

 balsams and spices of the Oriental mar- 

 kets. The embarkation point for Pales- 

 tine was Venice. The Venetian mer- 

 chant marine profited well by furnishing 

 transport service, and during the Fourth 

 Crusade, finding the Crusaders unable to 

 pay their passage money, the Venetians 

 forthwith enlisted them as soldiers in a 

 war against their Christian neighbors, the 

 Dalmatians, and the Infidels got off scot- 

 free! 



THE MERCHANTS OF VENICE 



Acre, held by the Crusaders as a Chris- 

 tian bulwark in the Holy Land from 1 191 

 to 1291, has a custom-house record of 

 great quantities of rhubarb, musk, pepper, 

 cinnamon, nutmegs, cloves, aloes-wood, 

 camphor, frankincense, nutgalls, and gin- 

 ger which were stored there en route to 

 Venice. The Venetian merchants rolled 

 in wealth, for they fared far and wide 

 and their galleys were known on every 

 sea. Huge storehouses were erected 

 wherever they traded — as far away as 

 Beirut, Ajaccio, Aleppo, Alexandria, and 

 even in the thirteenth century they im- 

 ported from these places myrrh, sandal- 

 wood, camphor, indigo, and spices. In 

 the fourteenth century Venice fought 

 Genoa for trade mastery, and thence for- 

 ward was supreme. Daru in his "History 

 of Venice" estimates and translates the 

 value of Venetian exports in the fifteenth 

 century as $10,000,000 annually— a sum 

 larger that a billion in these times. She 

 possessed at this time 300 great man-pro- 

 pelled galleys, or argosies, and several 

 thousand smaller vessels, with 45 large 

 war craft. 



In the Rialto was the center of Vene- 

 tian commercial life. Here Shakespeare 

 pictured his Antonio, whose mind he rep- 



resents as "tossing on the ocean" with 

 his argosies. Across the Alps went Ger- 

 man caravans from Venice; up to Hol- 

 land and Belgium sailed her Flanders 

 galleys, precursors of our armed mer- 

 chantmen, each rowed by 180 oarsmen, 

 with archers for protection against pi- 

 rates. Venice met at Bruges the mer- 

 chants of northern Europe, though some 

 galleys also went to London and South- 

 ampton. Venice served Europe well as 

 a carrier, but she exacted heavy toll in 

 payment. 



THE DECADENCE OE VENICE A MATTER OF 

 GEOGRAPHY 



The monopoly of Venice was resented, 

 as is inevitable ; her prosperity was en- 

 vied. This is why all the explorers of 

 that period sought a short ocean route to 

 India. Columbus, it will be remembered, 

 sought the "spices of the Indies" rather 

 than a new land. So from the hour 

 when, on May 20, 1498, Vasco da Gama 

 fulfilled the ambition of his Portuguese 

 sovereign, blazed a new trail in the un- 

 charted deep and sailed into Calicut, after 

 rounding Cape of Good Hope, the com- 

 mercial greatness of the Italian port was 

 doomed. 



When the news reached Venice that 

 Portuguese carracks laden with spices 

 had come into the harbor at Lisbon with- 

 out the necessity of touching at Venice 

 "the whole city was disturbed and as- 

 tounded," so says the ancient chronicler, 

 Priuli, in his diary. They had ample 

 cause for worry, for they faced the in- 

 evitable. 



THE WARS OF THE CEOVE 



How Venice warred on Portugal ; of 

 the later wars between Portuguese, Span- 

 ish, Dutch, and English to assert su- 

 premacy in the spice and drug trade; of 

 the long voyages, with decimation of the 

 crews by pirates, by mutineers, and by the 

 often fatal and always horrible scourge 

 of scurvy — these tales belong to the he- 

 roic age of the seas, and have furnished 

 inspiration to many a poet and novelist. 

 Noyes' "Knight of the Ocean-Sea," sing- 

 ing the praise of the English navigators, 

 has caught well the spirit of those daunt- 

 less adventurers : 



