228 benjamin arbel
function of Jewish merchants in this phase.413 However, the insecurity
reigning on the inner roads and the competition of Ragusa and the Aus-
trian ports of Trieste and Fiume delivered fatal blows to this enterprise in
the 18th century.414
Until 1500, Coron and Modon served as major emporia of Venice’s Med-
iterranean trade. Beyond offering maritime outlets for a rich agricultural
hinterland, their location at close quarters to the entry into (or exit from)
the Adriatic Sea made them ideal emporia, with storage and transhipment
services for vessels that brought commodities from the east and preferred
to avoid sailing up the Adriatic. For this and other reasons, these ports
were obligatory stations for Venetian merchant ships sailing outside the
Adriatic Sea. After the loss of these ports, Zante and Corfu filled their
role, a change which transformed these islands into bustling trading cen-
ters, with an expanding local shipping activity connecting Venice with
the coasts of Epirus, Central Greece, Albania, the Peloponnese, southern
Italy, and other markets. These islands also provided Venice with products
that were essential for its economy: acorns, cotton and cotton yarn, wax,
flax, wool, hides, silk, bitumen, kermes, ash, stones, and timber.415 Zante’s
economic importance, which further developed following the Ottoman
invasion of Corfu in 1538, was also linked to its vicinity to the Pelopon-
nese and southwestern provinces of central Greece. But from the late 16th
century its economy became increasingly dependent on the local currant
production and export, mainly by English and later also Dutch vessels.416
Cephalonia, which likewise developed into a major currant producer and
exporter, also specialized in the exportation of farm animals, meat and
413 Benjamin Arbel, Trading Nations. Jews and Venetians in the Early-Modern Eastern
Mediterranean (Leiden, 1995), pp. 26–27, 75, 177–78; Benjamin Arbel, “Jews in International
Trade: The Emergence of the Levantines and Ponentines,” in Robert C. David and Benjamin
C. Ravid, eds., The Jews of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore/London, 2001), pp. 92–93; Kolyvà,
“The Jews of Zante between the Serenissima and the Sublime Port: The Local Community
and the Jewish Consuls,” in Benjamin Arbel, ed., Minorities in Colonial Settings: The Jews
in Venice’s Hellenic Territories, special issue of the Mediterranean Historical Review, 27.2
(2012), 204–13.
414 Paci, La ‘Scala’ di Splato, pp. 124–26; Berengo, “Problemi economico-sociali,” pp.
495–99.
415 Benjamin Arbel, “The Ionian Islands and Venice’s Trading System during the
Sixteenth Century,” in ΣΤ’ Διεθνές Πανιόνιο Συνέδριο, Ζάκυνθος, 23–27 Σεπτεμβρίου 1997.
Πρακτικά, 2 vols (Salonica/Athens, 2000–01), 2:147–60; Pagratis, “Trade and Shipping.”
416 Maria Fusaro, Uva passa. una guerra commerciale tra Venezia e l’Inghilterra (1540–
1640) (Venice, 1996); Daniel Koster, “The Beginning of Dutch Navigation and Trade in the
Levant,” http://www.nia.gr/araproject.hrm, accessed 17 July 2012; Daniel Koster, “The Conquering
Dutch Merchants and Shipowners,” Thesaurismata 36 (2006), 116.