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The city was a sort of clearing house center. Venetians controlled the Mediterranean trade and depended heavily on their privileged presence in Constantinople t
by namaria 3y ago
The city was a sort of clearing house center. Venetians controlled the Mediterranean trade and depended heavily on their privileged presence in Constantinople to do so. Losing that led to its inability to make the market, making everything much more expensive to Christian traders shut out of the financial system that underlined this trade. Which in turn led to the incentives for Lisbon based traders to go around Africa.
- ffgjgf1 3y agoYes but the Portuguese had no real part in that trade and the return of investment for their initial expeditions was massive. They would have still been extremely profitable even if the prices of spices in Europe was a bit lower.
- namaria 3y agoThis is incorrect. Portuguese and Lisbon based traders more generally linked Mediterranean and North Sea ports. The transit between Ghent/Antwerp, Lisbon and Barcelona, Pisa, Genoa and Venice was a mainstay of late middle ages European trade. The run around Africa was massively more risky than this status quo and average profits did not increase significantly. The main change thereafter was the market capture.