the venetian economy 265
Mediterranean by a group of fearsome competitors, primarily the French,
Dutch, and English.
The consistency and even the likely growth in Venetian long-distance
trade was not weakened by the opening of the route around the Cape of
Good Hope. True, after the arrival of Portuguese vessels full of eastern
spices, the flow of trade via the Levant witnessed a dramatic interruption,
but the crisis had more to do with the chaotic situation in the Arabian
peninsula.20 After a short time, the Venetians resumed importing precious
spices from eastern Mediterranean ports. News arriving from Alexandria
in the early 1530s spoke of an abudance of spices.21 It is worth noting that
from 1 October 1543 to 31 July 1544 in Lyon arrived 391 bundles of Venetian
spices compared to only 66 from Antwerp, which constituted the distri-
bution center for Portuguese spices destined for central Europe. Thus it
seems that, at least from the vantage point of Lyon, Portuguese competi-
tion did not provoke serious losses and was rather limited from the 1540s
on.22 The emergence of a duopoly, in any case, had the effect of lowering
the real price of spices and, in the last analysis, benefitting the European
consumer.23
At least until the end of the 16th century, Levantine ports continued to
provide encouraging signs for Venetian businessmen. In Aleppo as well
as in Alexandria, trade volume remained quite high. Raw spices, silk, and
cotton were exchanged for western products (wool fabrics, leather goods,
metals, glass products, alum, silver, and gold). According to some esti-
mates, in the early 1590s the Venetians invested several million ducats,
and in 1596–99 they still controlled two-thirds of transit commerce. A
decade later, this share would be cut in half, though it still constituted
a relevant portion of the overall trade. Within a few years, the Venetian
presence contracted to such a point that in the period 1612–15 its share
of the trade volume had fallen to a mere 12 per cent; in Alexandria the
situation was certainly no better.24 Leaving the analysis of the causes of
20 Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “The Birth-Pangs of Portuguese Asia: Revisiting the Fateful
‘Long Decade’ 1498–1509,” Journal of Global History 2 (2007), 272–73.
21 Sanudo, Marin, I diarii di Marino Sanuto, ed. Rinaldo Fulin et al., 58 vols (Venice,
1879–1903), vol. 56, col. 569; and vol. 57, cols 262, 267, 463.
22 Gascon, Grand commerce, p. 89.
23 O’Rourke, Kevin H., and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Did Vasco da Gama Matter for Euro-
pean Markets?” Economic History Review 62 (2009), 655–84.
24 Ugo Tucci, “Un ciclo di affari commerciali in Siria (1579–1581),” in Tucci, Mercanti,
navi, monete nel Cinquecento veneziano (Bologna, 1981), pp. 95–143; Fontenay, “Le com-
merce des Occidentaux,” p. 524; Jonathan I. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade 1585–1740
(Oxford, 1989), p. 55; Niels Steensgaard, Carracks, Caravans and Companies. The Structural