128 chapter three
in summing the data on italian merchants on the south asian sea route,
we reach an apparently paradoxical conclusion: although the route was
known to some extent in europe, along with other invaluable information
on parts of the medieval east (largely thanks to the “revelations” of marco
polo), for the first half of the fourteenth century it was overwhelmingly a
genoese creation. the genoese kept it a closely-guarded secret, thereby
defending it for their own exclusive use.300
the unique position which the ligurians enjoyed in the indian ocean
was merely an extension of their practical monopoly on trade in the
ilkhanate, dating back to their cooperation with arghun. We may see how
strong a position they occupied from the fact that it endured even after
the initial conditions had vanished. moreover, the genoese very success-
fully used the positions they had gained earlier to resist the last ilkhans’
attempts to counterbalance their dominance with venetian help.
the genoese star began to wane in mongol persia once the republic
signed a truce with the mamluks in may 1290, bringing hostilities to a per-
manent end: it responded neither to ghazan’s nor to Öljeitü’s subsequent
calls to arms against the sultan, addressed to all Western powers.
the rulers of the republic did not trouble to inform their great eastern
ally arghun that they had signed the truce even by 1291, the last year of
his life and reign. When ghazan launched an offensive in syria at the end
of the decade, his initial successes stirred up a certain enthusiasm among
some circles in genoa but his allies came from other quarters. Where once
the admiral Benedetto Zaccaria had commanded the galleys which were
to cut off the sultan’s communications in the eastern mediterranean, this
role was now taken by cypriot warships blockading the egyptian port of
rosetta with the help of the ilkhan’s designated ambassador, the pisan
ozolo. this naval arm of the combined operation ended just as ignomini-
ously as the war on land.301
300 cf. here the arguments advanced by lopez, “luci,” pp. 451–452 and taken up by
petech, “marchands,” p. 554; we should add that apart from the three polos, there is not
the least indication that any other venetian had ever travelled this route, and since they
returned from china as part of the great Khan’s embassy to persia, they constitute a special
case. the venetians who arrived in delhi in 1338 had set out from tana, turned south at
Urgench and travelled via Kabul to ghazna, which was in heyd’s term (heyd, Histoire, ii,
p. 140) the second gateway to india after ormuz; the venetians recorded in china at this
time (petech, “marchands,” pp. 559, 567–570) seem exclusively to have used the northern
route via the cuman steppe and central asia; the only venetian attempt to reach the indian
ocean was too late: “pendant l’anarchie totale qui s’ensuivit, en 1339, un certain marco
morosini envoya ses agents à sultaniyeh et à ormuz” (petech, “marchands,” p. 569).
301 petech, “marchands,” p. 565.