108 chapter three
and you may reckon that you can buy for one sommo of silver nineteen
or twenty pounds of cathay silk, when reduced to genoese weight, and that
the sommo should weigh eight and a half ounces of genoa, and should be
of the alloy of eleven ounces and seventeen deniers to the pound.
You may reckon also that in cathay you should get three or three and a
half pieces of damasked silk206 for a sommo; and from three and a half to five
pieces of nacchetti of silk and gold,207 likewise for a sommo of silver.
clearly, the fact that the florentine author of this guide chose to use
genoese units of conversion and measurement proves that the route was
used predominantly, though not exclusively, by merchants from the lig-
urian republic. also informative here is the trading venture undertaken
in 1338 by a group of venetians. they crossed the lands of the golden
horde by the well-known route from tana to Urgench, but thence did
not take the eastern route to china which pegolotti recommends, but set
out southward, on a route not described in the famous manual; after they
had crossed the hindu Kush, they reached ghazna and then delhi, where
the sultan richly rewarded their journey. they returned from india by the
same route, although their profits were largely eaten up in bribes and bak-
shish paid to the generous ruler’s customs agents.208
the extent of Özbek Khan’s involvement in, and contribution, to the
development of this impressive economic activity may be glimpsed with
the help of several sources, which give fragmentary pictures of the way
things were. as well as offering the genoese and venetian merchants free-
dom to trade within his borders,209 he was strict in upholding a ruler’s
principal obligation to “guests” from other lands, by offering them his pro-
tection: when pegolotti praises the golden horde route from the Black sea
to china with the superlative sicurissimo, “by night and by day,” this is also
a word of praise for the chinggisid khan in the cuman steppe. the visible
signs of his concern for the safety of the road were those same “Moccoli,
that is to say, of gens d’armes”210 whom the merchants encountered at
206 pegolotti/evans, p. 415: “a silk cloth, possibly damasked or brocaded with gold.”
207 ibid., p. 423: “a precious stuff of silk and gold.”
208 lopez, “luci,” pp. 361–368, 393–398; Berindei, veinstein, “tana-azaq,” p. 121; petech,
“marchands,” p. 559, also cites the case of the venetian andreolo dandolo, who reached
Urgench in 1363.
209 see chapter 4.2.4.
210 Yule, Cathay, ii, p. 287. in this instance, the word Moccol for mongol is used exclu-
sively as a professional designation rather than an ethnonym, although at least some if
not all of the highway patrols (if not the entire internal security apparatus) must have
been descended from the group which Batu Khan brought to the country in 1242, not yet
assimilated entirely with the local cuman majority; ibn Baṭṭūṭa/defrémery, sanguinetti, ii,