cities.
NEW ROUTES
The first ships to ply the Atlantic’s waters in regular trips were the galleys of Genoese
entrepreneurs. By the 1270s they were leaving the Mediterranean via the Strait of
Gibraltar, stopping to trade at various ports along the Spanish coast, and then making
their way north to England and northern France. (See Map 7.3 on p. 246.) In the
western Mediterranean, Majorca, recently conquered by the king of Aragon, sent its
own ships to join the Atlantic trade at about the same time. Soon the Venetians began
state-sponsored Atlantic expeditions using new-style “great galleys” that held more
cargo yet required fewer oarsmen. Eventually, as sailing ships—far more efficient
than any sort of galley—were developed by the Genoese and others, the Atlantic
passage replaced older overland and river routes between the Mediterranean and
Europe’s north.
Equally important for commerce were new initiatives in North Africa. As the
Almohad Empire collapsed, weak successor states allowed Europeans new elbow
room. Genoa had outposts in the major Mediterranean ports of the Maghreb and new
ones down the Atlantic coast, as far south as Safi (today in Morocco). Pisa, Genoa’s
traditional trade rival, was entrenched at Tunis. Catalonia and Majorca, by now ruled
by the king of Aragon, found their commercial stars rising fast. Catalonia established
its own settlements in the port cities of the Maghreb; Majorcans went off to the
Canary Islands. Profits were enormous. Besides acting as middlemen, trading goods
or commodities from northern Europe, the Italian cities had their own products to sell
(Venice had salt and glass products, Pisa had iron) in exchange for African cotton,
linen, spices, and, above all, gold. In the mid-thirteenth century, Genoa and Florence
were minting coins from gold panned on the upper Niger River, while Venice began
minting gold ducats in 1284.
