the disintegration of the empire 123
We might suspect from the start that the same motive that led the
ilkhan’s genoese allies to the trebizond-tabriz route in the 1290s also
impelled them onwards via ormuz to the indian ocean, at which they
had aimed for so long. examined more closely, the documentary evidence
of persian trade links in their network in 1291 can only be chronologically
and logically explained by the drastic deterioration in trading conditions
in the armenian kingdom from 1285, which the great genoese-ilkhanid
campaign against the mamluk overlords did nothing to improve.280 ayas
thus to a large extent lost its double role as the end-point of the silk road
and the iraqi river routes—a role which from now on it would have to at
least share with tabriz, if it was not to cede it entirely.
the new commercial axis from the Black sea to the persian gulf was
first opened with great fanfare around 1290, but its development was
interrupted by the venetian-genoese war, lasting from 1294 to 1299, which
generally disturbed the whole levantine web and brought trade to a halt
in the Black sea basin and adjacent territories.281 shortly after the close
of hostilities, genoese merchants once again began to frequent, in even
greater numbers, the route opened some years previously: countless con-
vergent pieces of evidence point to the new route seeing most use in the
decade of the 1300s, and it seems to have become mongol persia’s most
important commercial artery.282
the capital of the ilkhans, but also a great emporium of international trade. foreign mer-
chants found there both the indian spices and the products of the persian manufactures.
[.. .] ten years after the conquest of Baghdad, the sultan of cairo captured antioch, which
had been the great commercial town at the other end of the overland route along which
the indian articles were transported from the persian gulf to the mediterranean. the
enmity between the rulers of tabriz and cairo, or rather the almost permanent state of
war between them, was another reason for the shift of this great trade route.” the conclu-
sions offered by Karpov, Impero, p. 32, are rather too simple, though he does consider of
“grande importanza il generale mutamento delle vie commerciali levantine: se prima esse
andavano verso la costa siriana e dell’asia minore del mediterraneo e avevano come meta
Baghdad, dopo la sua distruzione ad opera dei tartari nel 1258, quest’arteria venne inter-
rota. Un secondo colpo al commercio del mediterraneo orientale fu apportato nel 1291, con
la caduta degli ultimi capisaldi dei crociati in siria e con la pubblicazione dell’interdetto
papale per tutti i cristiani di commerciare con l’egitto dei mammalucchi.”
280 see chaper 3.2; ashtor, History, p. 264, seems not to have known of the outlet to the
Black sea, which in the context of the times was preferable: “a considerable part of the
indian articles which arrived on the shores of the persian gulf was sent to tabriz and then
on the route north of lake van, via erzindjan, to little armenia.”
281 see chapter 4.2.2, pp. 160 ff.
282 Balard, Romanie, i, p. 140, analyses commercial documents and reaches the follow-
ing conclusion: “les liens d’affaires des génois avec tabriz sont surtout florissants de 1300
à 1314, puis de 1338 à 1344: les minutiers notariaux nous ont livré 21 actes commerciaux
concernant tabriz et des investissements s’élevant à 38.951 livres 17 sous, soit par acte une