venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 229
dairy products, as well as olive oil.417 As will be described shortly, from the
1740s onwards, Corfu’s place in the Venetian map of commerce was based
mainly on olive oil production and exportation.
Crete, or rather the port of Candia, was an essential maritime station
on the routes between Venice and the eastern Mediterranean, particularly
Egypt, but also between Venice and western Europe. During the first half
of the 15th century, Candia was still a slave-trade emporium (in addition
to being a market by its own right); at that stage slaves mainly reached
the island from the northern Black Sea area.418 However, with its rich
agricultural production, predominantly of wine, cheese, and oil, which
were exported in great quantities, Crete had much to offer to Venice, to
other Venetian colonies, and to various regions outside the Venetian state.
Istanbul offered a regular market for Cretan lemons, oranges, olives, oil,
wax, honey, cotton, raisins, cheese, and, of course, wine.419
Wine, especially the famous Malvasia (Malmsey), was Crete’s princi-
pal export product during the last two centuries of Venetian rule.420 Fol-
lowing the appearance of English ships in the Mediterranean and their
involvement in the exportation of Cretan wine to England in the late
15th century, a fierce commercial rivalry developed between England and
Venice, in which the two states tried to discourage foreign ships from car-
rying Cretan wine to England. But Cretan wine production did not depend
on the English market exclusively, since other regions, especially in the
Mediterranean and the Balkans, were also greatly attracted by this product.
In this case too, the merchandise concerned did not pass through Venice,
and in many cases it was transported not on board Venetian ships but,
rather, on Cretan ones.421 In the early 17th century, Dutch ships seem to
417 Cephalonia was reported in 1548 to have 100,000 heads of livestock. See Zapanti,
Κεφαλονιά, pp. 267–68. See also Pagratis, “Trade and Shipping,” p. 190, and for the 18th
century, Vincenzo Antonio Formaleoni, Topografia veneta, ovvero descrizione dello stato
veneto etc., 4 vols (Venice, 1787), 3:63.
418 Charles Verlinden, “La Crète, débouché et plaque tournante de la traite des esclaves
aux 14e et 15e siècles,” Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfani, 6 vols (Milan, 1962), 3:591–669.
419 Ibid., pp. 249–50; Eric R Dursteler, Venetians in Constantinople (Baltimore, 2006),
p. 81.
420 Kostas T. Tsiknakis, ed., Il miglior vino del mondo. Το κρητικό κρασί στις αρχειακές πηγές
της βενετοκρατίας (Gazi, 2005); Ilias Anagnostakis, ed., Μονεμβάσιος οίνος-Μονεμβάσ[ι]α-Malvasia
(Athens, 2008).
421 Geor von Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des Mittelalters, mit besonderer
Berücksichtung des Zeitalters der beiden ersten Tudors, Heinrich VII Und Heinrich VIII
(Leipzig, 1881), pp. 130–42; William Reginald Lowder, “Candie Wine: Some Documents
Relating to Trade between England and Crete during the Reign of King Henry VIII,”
Ελληνικά 12 (1952), 97–102; Ugo Tucci, “Le commerce maritime du vin de Crète,” in Klaus