216 Jacoby
infrastructure, Italian landowners, stewards, merchants and bankers, mostly
settled in coastal cities, implemented structural changes in the exploitation
and management of rural resources and in the marketing of export-oriented
surpluses. Coupled with these changes, the growing monetisation of the econ-
omy decisively stimulated an increase in agricultural and pastoral productivity
and output. The growing supply of services brought about an additional infu-
sion of liquid capital. As a result, Latin Greece experienced a free flow of cash
and an ever stronger economic interaction between its rural sector, the cities,
and maritime trade. The gradual consolidation of Venetian economic domi-
nation in the western Aegean decisively contributed to the intensification of
local, regional and trans-Mediterranean commerce and shipping.