1 BENJAMIN ARBEL TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY The Last Decades of Venice's Trade with the Mamluks: Importations into Egypt and Syria For hundreds of years, Venetians and Mamluks were engaged in an economic partnership based on a fundamental interdependence of two economic systems that were both linked to many other commercial networks. During the fifteenth century, Venetian merchants and entrepreneurs became the main middlemen between the territories subject to Mamluk sultans and western Europe. The basic characteristics of the commercial relations between Mamluk lands and Venice stem from their dependence on the continuous presence of Venetians in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. This presence had two main components: on the one hand merchants, commercial agents, and official representatives (consuls and vice-consuls) staying in the main centers of commercial activity, importing and exporting goods and keeping constant contacts with their partners in Venice and in other centers of international trade; and on the other hand, periodic visits of Venetian ships, including both the state-owned and regulated commercial galleys, particularly those operating on the Alexandria, Beirut, and trafego galley lines, 1 and the privately-owned round ships. 2 The latter were also of two kinds: those visiting the Levantine ports in preestablished periods (mude) in spring and autumn, and those that were not dependent on a state-regulated sailing schedule. Thus, Venetians functioned not only as exporters of goods from Venice to the East and from the East to Venice, but also as importers of Western goods and products into Egypt and Syria. No Egyptian or Syrian merchant is known to have been involved in this trade with the West beyond the boundaries of Mamluk territories. The activities of Venetian merchants in Mamluk lands were often disturbed or disrupted, owing to disagreements with Mamluk sultans as to the conditions regulating their activities and to harassments by Mamluk officials, who considered European merchants easy prey to extortion. In particular the policy inaugurated by Sultan Barsba y in the 1420s and pursued by his successors, forcing the Venetians Middle East Documentation Center. The University of Chicago. 1 The trafego line linked Venice, the Maghreb, and the Mamluk ports. On the system of the merchant galleys, see Frederic C. Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic (Baltimore and London, 1973), , Round ships is a term used in Mediterranean shipping to distinguish a certain type of ship (roundish in form, propelled by sails) from another type, namely galleys, which were long in form and could be operated either with sails or with oars.
2 38 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS to buy part of the large quantities of pepper they were always exporting from Mamluk territories from the sultan's warehouses at a high price, was the source of many difficulties. But notwithstanding several moments of crisis, trade always continued, and Venetians never disappeared from the scene for long periods. During the last twenty years of the Mamluk Sultanate, there were further internal and external factors that threatened to destroy this commercial relationship altogether. On the Egyptian and Syrian side, the death of Sultan Qa ytba y in 1497 was followed by approximately four years of violent power struggles over the sultan's throne. The accession of Qa ns u h al-ghu r in 1501 seemed to stabilize the political situation inside the sultanate, but other destabilizing forces continued to disrupt trading activities in the region, particularly the rise of the Safavid power in the east and the ensuing military struggle between Safavid Persia and the Ottoman Empire. At the very same time, in a coincidence that could not have been any worse from both the Mamluk and the Venetian standpoints, the Portuguese caravels began bringing spices to Lisbon through the new sea route around Africa. Mamluk efforts to oust the Portuguese from the Indian Ocean ended in failure, and in 1513 and again in 1516, the Portuguese penetrated the Red Sea, causing damage to Muslim shipping centered around Jidda. In 1513, the Portuguese also reconquered Hormuz. 3 During those years, Venice had to face one of the most difficult phases in its history. The Italian wars that had begun in 1494 with the French invasion of Italy, the war against the Ottoman Empire that lasted from 1499 to 1503, and even more so, the war of the league of Cambrai, which began in 1509 with the loss of all Venetian territories in the Italian mainland, necessitated enormous investment in armies and military equipment. Loss of income, heavy taxation, and forced public loans led to a serious financial crisis. 4 International trade, the basis of the republic's power and wealth, could not be pursued without great difficulty during those years, since many of the products exported from Venice to the east originated from or passed through lands that had become enemy territory, either in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, where the Ottomans constituted a threat, or in the Terra Firma and the Alps controlled by the European enemies of Venice. Confronted with these great difficulties and even by the same threats, such as the rise of Ottoman power and the Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean, one 3 Subhi Y. Labib, Handelsgeschichte Ägyptens im Spätmittelalter ( ) (Wiesbaden 1965), Frederic C. Lane, "Venetian Bankers," Journal of Political Economy 45 (1937), reprinted in Venice and History: The Collected Papers of Frederic C. Lane (Baltimore, 1966), 70 72, 79 80; Gino Luzzatto, Storia economica di Venezia dall' XI al XVI secolo (Venice, 1995),
3 MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, would have expected more collaboration between Venetians and Mamluks. Yet that was not the case. Qa ns u h al-ghu r intervened on two occasions to stop trading relations with Venice. In 1503 he claimed that goods included in the tribute paid by Venice to the sultan in recognition of Mamluk suzerainty over Cyprus were of bad quality, and two years later he tried to raise substantially the quantity of pepper that Venetians were required to buy directly from him. 5 In 1510 another crisis developed on account of Venetian contacts with the Safavids. 6 Consequently, no galleys were sent to Alexandria and Beirut in 1505, to Alexandria in 1506, and to Beirut in These and further pauses in the functioning of the Alexandria and Beirut lines for other reasons were signs of crisis in the trade between Venice and the Mamluks. 7 Under such unfavorable conditions Venetian merchants tried to continue their activities in Mamluk territories. Impressed by the dramatic character of military events and political upheavals, we tend to underestimate the peaceful and often uneventful activities of merchants. But international trade is actually the visible aspect of very strong forces of supply and demand, of patterns of consumption and basic needs that are remarkably resilient. Wars eventually end, regimes change, political leaders rise and fall, but, as we shall see, such patterns of material life cannot easily be swept away. For the last twenty years of the Mamluk Sultanate, we are lucky enough to have a considerable amount of source material that allows us to study in detail the Venetian trading system in general and the commercial exchange with Mamluk territories in particular. Venetian sources are rich and diversified in this respect, including 5 Marino Sanuto [Sanudo], I diarii, 58 vols. (Venice, ), 5:114 15; Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, "Gli ultimi accordi tra i sultani mamelucchi d'egitto e la repubblica di Venezia," Quaderni di studi arabi 12 (1994): 57 60; Francesco Gabrieli, "Venezia e i Mamelucchi," in Venezia e l'oriente tra tardo medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Agostino Pertusi (Florence, 1966), 427; John Wansbrough, "A Mamluk Ambassador to Venice in 913/1507," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 26 (1963): Francesca Lucchetta, "L' affare Zen in Levante nel primo Cinquecento," Studi Veneziani 10 (1968): In addition to the years mentioned above, no galleys were sent to Alexandria in 1508, 1509, 1513, 1514, and See Claire Judde de Larivière, "Entre bien public et intérêts privés: Les pratiques économiques des patriciens vénitiens à la fin du Moyen Age," Ph.D. diss., Université Toulouse II-Le Mirail, 2002, 1:80. However, trade on board round ships, more difficult to follow, did not stop, and as of 1514 the galleys lost their monopoly on transporting spices, which could henceforeward be shipped, alongside other goods, on private Venetian ships: Frederic C. Lane, "Venetian Shipping during the Commercial Revolution," in Venice and History, 14 (originally published in American Historical Review 38 : ).
4 40 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS official documents related to trade, commercial correspondence, notarial acts, judicial records, and diaries. These have already been the subject of substantial research, sometimes in combination with Mamluk narrative sources, and it is not my purpose here to return to the well-known themes that have occupied historians of these issues for many decades. In fact, most studies dedicated to this commercial system have focused essentially on trade in products that were exported from the East into Europe. A great amount of research has been carried out, for example, on the spice trade and its vicissitudes following the Portuguese discovery of the route around Africa to the Far East. In a recent book on Venetian trade in late fifteenth-century Syria, it is stated that "the main scope of Venetian presence in Syria was not to sell [imported] products; on the contrary, the foremost aim of the Venetians was to buy several high-quality products and to sell them in Venice with great profit." 8 I am not entirely convinced that this distinction rightly reflects the attitude of Venetians engaged in trade with Mamluk territories. As we shall see, much attention was paid to, and an impressive amount of capital invested in, products imported into Mamluk lands. These, however, have attracted relatively little attention by historians, and the few studies that do treat such arguments are not focused on a limited time span of about twenty years, which is precisely the aim of the present paper. Among the many Venetian sources that shed light on importations into Egypt and Syria during the last twenty years or so of the Mamluk Sultanate I have chosen to focus especially on two types that are of particular interest in this regard. The first includes cargo lists and references to the cargo of ships sailing to Egypt and Syria, included in the diaries of Domenico Malipiero, Girolamo Priuli, and Marino Sanudo. All three were Venetian patricians who recorded, often on a daily basis, the developments of their times, including trade and shipping. Malipiero's work, which is actually halfway between a chronicle and a diary, covers the period between 1457 and 1500, 9 Priuli's diary, part of which has been lost, covers the period between 1494 and 1512, 10 and Sanudo's diary, the most impressive of the three, covers the years between 1496 and From these diaries I have been able to extract seven detailed cargo lists as well as ten more 8 Eric Vallet, Marchands vénitiens en Syrie à la fin du XVe siècle (Paris, 1999), Domenico Malipiero, "Annali veneti dall'anno 1457 al 1500 del senatore Domenico Malipiero, ordinati e abbreviati dal senatore Francesco Longo, con prefazione e annotazioni di Agostino Sagredo," Archivio storico italiano series 1, vol. 7, pt. 1 and pt. 2 (1843): Girolamo Priuli, I diarii ( ), ed. Arturo Segre (vol. 1) and Roberto Cessi (vols. 2 and 4), Rerum italicarum Scriptores, vol. 24, pt. 3 (Città di Castello and Bologna, ). The third volume, covering the period between September 1506 and May 1509, has been lost. Vols. 5 8, treating the period between October 1509 and July 1512, remain unpublished. 11 See above, n. 5.
5 MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, succinct descriptions of cargoes of merchant galleys that sailed from Venice to Alexandria and to Beirut between 1495 and The cargoes of galleys sailing on the trafego line, which ran between Venice, the Maghreb, Egypt, and Syria, are never referred to, most probably because their role in carrying Western goods to the lands of the Mamluk Sultanate was negligible. Altogether, the cargoes of twenty out of thirty-two galley convoys that sailed to Syria and Egypt during those two decades are described, at least to some extent, by the diarists (some of the descriptions refer to both lines). These descriptions have been put together in Appendix A. Another cargo list used here belongs to a private ship that sailed to Syria in The second type of sources includes two merchant manuals (Tariffe) of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: the unpublished "Tarifa" [sic] of 1494, bearing the name of Lorenzo Rimondo [Arimondo] and mainly concerned with Alexandria, and Bartolomeo de' Paxi's Tariffa, first published in Venice in Both of them offer very precious and generally up-to-date information on Venetian trading activities at the turn of the sixteenth century. 13 Their lists of products imported into Egypt and Syria are included in Appendix B. Other sources, Venetian and Arabic, and, of course, several modern studies, have been used to try and clear up questions concerning the role of Cyprus in this commercial relationship, as well as the provenance and the patterns of consumption of goods imported into Mamluk lands. 14 This last aspect, however, still remains greatly unexplored. Before turning to analyze the material drawn from these two types of sources, it is necessary to refer to their reliability. The cargo lists found in the Venetian diaries are not directly drawn from the ships' manifests, but rather indirect reconstructions, mostly based on reports that the captains of galley convoys sent from the ports of Istria, before sailing to the East. 15 As far as the items mentioned in the lists are concerned, there is no reason to doubt the veracity of data provided by the diarists. More caution should be applied when using the quantitative data included in these lists, in view of the rather uncertain course they had passed 12 Benjamin Arbel, "Attraverso il Mediterraneo nel 1499: una nave veneziana naufragata a Cipro e il suo carico," in Le vie del Mediterraneo: Idee, uomini, oggetti (secoli XI XVI), ed. Gabriela Airaldi (Genoa, 1997), Lorenzo Rimondo, "Tarifa de prexi e spesse achade a metter e ttrar marchadanttie di la terra de Alexandria e alttri lochi etc.," Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, MS It. VII 545 (7530); Bartolomeo de' Paxi, Tariffa de pexi e mesure del prestantissimo miser Bartholomeo di Paxi da Venetia (Venice, 1503). 14 My thanks go to Housni al-khateeb Shehada for helping me locate and use the Mamluk sources. 15 On these and other types of cargo lists, see Benjamin Arbel, "Les listes de chargement des bateaux vénitiens: un essai de typologie," in Mélanges en l'honneur de Michel Balard, Byzantina Sorbonensia (forthcoming).
6 42 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS before ending up in these diaries. This uncertainty is reflected in the inconsistencies between different reports referring to the same convoy, when available. 16 Except for a short analysis of overall figures referring to the comprehensive value of cargos and precious metals shipped eastward, we shall therefore forego quantitative speculations, contenting ourselves with identifying those products that appear time and again on these lists, and using the numerical data mainly to get a general idea of the order of magnitude of the shipments concerned. For the sake of brevity, this reservation will not be repeated henceforward whenever numbers taken from these lists are cited. The two commercial manuals present a different problematic. As for Rimondo's Tariffa, thanks to Ugo Tucci we may consider it one of the new types of manuals that appeared in the Venetian commercial milieu at the end of the fifteenth century, being composed by Venetian factors overseas (in this case by Lorenzo Arimondo who was active in Alexandria) and intended for practical use by these agents. We may therefore consider it to authentically reflect the Egyptian market for Venetian imports during those years. 17 Paxi's book, on the other hand, has been attributed by Tucci to another category of manuals, which mainly served for training of young merchants. But Tucci also emphasized that the training of merchants necessitated up-to-date instruments, 18 and there is no reason to exclude the possibility that an impressive work like that of Paxi genuinely reflected the movements and content of Venetian trade in the Levant at the time of its first appearance in print (1503). In the prologue to his work, Paxi declares that it was the fruit of long and serious effort and laborious study (grave e longa mia faticha e laborioso studio). 19 In fact, there are several indications that Paxi's book was indeed the consequence of a genuine effort to provide up-to-date material on the world of international trade in the period of its original publication. Tucci has noted, for example, the updating of the measure for oil in Constantinople, 20 and Paxi's careful reference to the spice kanter [=qint a r] of Damascus, 21 to which I may add the absence of Coron and Modon, the important Venetian ports in the southern Peloponnese, 16 See, for example, Appendix A, for Malipiero's and Priuli's reports on the galleys sailing to Alexandria in summer 1498, and Sanudo's and Priuli's reports on the Alexandria convoy of For problems related to the use of merchant manuals, with special emphasis on the Venetian ones, see Ugo Tucci, "Tariffe veneziane e libri toscani di mercatura," Studi veneziani 10 (1968): , esp ; idem, "Manuali di mercatura e pratica degli affari nel medioevo," in Fatti e idee di storia economica nei secoli XII XX: Studi dedicati a Franco Borlandi (Bologna, 1976), Tucci, "Manuali," Paxi, Tariffa, 1v. 20 Tucci, "Manuali," Tucci, "Tariffe veneziane,"
7 MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, which had been lost in 1500, and which were not re-integrated into the post-war system of Venetian commerce. 22 Admittedly, the opening of the Atlantic spice-route to India is not yet reflected in this book, 23 but this is quite understandable, considering its date of publication. 24 In any event, our scope in using this sort of source is limited to defining the main categories and nature of goods imported by Venetians to the Mamluk lands, and possibly to tracking down their provenance. For this purpose, and although no systematic research has yet been carried out to corroborate this hypothesis, I tend to consider the first edition of Paxi's manual as a trustworthy presentation of the contents of Levantine trade in general, and of importations into Mamluk lands in particular, in the late fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth century. A comparison between the lists of goods shipped to the Levant that are included in these manuals with the cargo lists of galleys sailing to those parts, as well as with other commercial papers, seems to corroborate this hypothesis. The cargo lists of Venetian merchant galleys sailing eastward, and the cargo list of a round ship wrecked off Cyprus on its way to Syria, present a quite coherent picture of which products were expected to find buyers in eastern markets. A first group of such items includes different kinds of metals and their products. Precious metals constituted a most important item among Venetian importations into Egypt and Syria. Gold reached Venice mainly from the Maghreb and from Hungary, and silver from the Tyrol, and probably also from Serbia and Bosnia. 25 They were exported to Mamluk lands in the form of silver and gold coins (including Mamluk ashraf s), 26 silver ingots, silver and gold artifacts, and even as gold dust 22 Benjamin Arbel, "The Ionian Islands and Venice's Trading System during the Sixteenth Century," Acts of the Sixth International Panionian Congress, 1997 (Athens, 2001), 2: The war with the Ottomans was concluded in Tucci, "Tariffe veneziane," Only in July 1501, two years after the event, was the news about Da Gama's return from India confirmed in Venice. Besides, though no spices were found in Alexandria in 1499, the quantities of spices that reached Venice from Alexandria and Beirut in 1500 and 1502 were far greater than those reaching Lisbon. See Ruggiero Romano, Alberto Tenenti, and Ugo Tucci, "Venise et la route du Cap: ," in Mediterraneo e Oceano Indiano: Atti del sesto colloquio internazionale di storia Marittima, ed. Manlio Cortelazzo (Florence, 1970), Eliyahu Ashtor, Les métaux précieux et la balance des payements du Proche-Orient à la basse époque (Paris, 1971), 41 42, 46, See Fernand Braudel and Alberto Tenenti, "Michiel da Lezze, marchand vénitien ( )," in Wirtschaft, Geschichte und Wirtschaftsgeschichte: Festschrift zum 65 Geburtstag von Friedrich Lütge, ed. Wilhelm Abel et al. (Stuttgart, 1966), 43 (1497), 62 (1507), 71 (1511).
8 44 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS (tiber) that reached Alexandria from Tripoli on board Venetian galleys. 27 These distinctions are not reflected in the cargo lists of our diarists, who preferred to express the overall value of precious metals sent on board these ships in terms of Venetian ducats. This does not mean, however, that the entire sum referred to consisted of gold ducats. In fact, silver ingots and coins are never mentioned separately in the cargo lists, although we know for certain that they were shipped to Mamluk territories in great quantities. 28 The Venetian mint even issued special silver coins for exportation to the Levant, worth less than the standard silver coins circulating in Venice. 29 In a commercial letter sent from Famagusta to Venice in 1511 it was reported that the galleys sailing that year to the Levant were carrying silver coins to the value of 100,000 ducats. 30 And at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a French observer noted that in the Venetian mint, silver ingots weighing about 25 marks each (some 6 kg.), were especially produced for exportation to the Levant, to a total annual amount equivalent of about 800,000 ducats. 31 A great part of those must have reached Mamluk territories. Though not bothering to distinguish between gold and silver, our diarists do, however, use other distinctions that cannot be easily understood. For example, with reference to the Beirut galleys of November 1502 and to the Alexandria galleys of March 1503 and of March 1511, Priuli distinguishes between what he calls aver di cassa a nollo or al nolo, and aver di cassa di marcadanti; Sanudo, on the other hand, uses different distinctions in 1501 and 1511, referring to aver di cassa d'aviso and aver di cassa in scrigni. 32 These distinctions may partly be understood if we consider that cash money or silver ingots transported on the 27 See Appendix B-I. 28 For overall estimations of precious metals shipped to Egypt and Syria during the period under examination, see Appendix C. For silver, see Ashtor, Les métaux précieux, 50; and Frederic C. Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic, 287, 299. E.g.: expressing his dissatisfaction with the fact that Venetians unloaded their ships at Tripoli instead of Beirut in 1499, the governor of Damascus seized 52 sachets (groppi) of silver coins kept by Venetian merchants (Malipiero, "Annali," 649); see also the list of coins sent in 1505 by Michiel da Lezze on board the Barbary galleys, where the value of each coin sachet is expressed in ducats, specifying at the same time that they actually contained silver coins (Mozenigi) (Braudel and Tenenti, "Michiel da Lezze," 57). 29 Sanudo mentions a decision taken in March 1498 by the Council of Ten in this regard: Sanudo, I diarii, 1: Ugo Tucci, "Monete e banche nel secolo del ducato d'oro," in Storia di Venezia dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, vol. 5, Il Rinascimento: Società ed economia, ed. Alberto Tenenti and Ugo Tucci (Rome, 1996), Frederic C. Lane and Reinhold C. Mueller, Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, vol. 1, Coins and Moneys of Account (Baltimore and London, 1985), See Appendix A.
9 MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, galleys were subject to freight charges. When writing about the quantity of gold and silver (referred to as "ducats") on the Alexandria galleys of 1498, Priuli comments that the sum might be much higher than 240,000 ducats, because "they always declare a lower sum, since they have to pay freight charges" (sempre se dice de menno [sic] per el pagar del nolo). 33 The sums mentioned by the diarists should therefore be taken as estimates, including a sum on which freight charges were paid, according to the report (aviso) of the convoy's captain, and an additional sum, which could not be accurately evaluated, since it pertained to gold and silver kept in private strong-boxes (scrigni) on board. Another expression found in Priuli's diary with reference to the Alexandria convoy of 1510, namely traze le galie di nolo, d'aviso, does not appear to refer to specie shipped on board, but rather to the sums owed to the galleys on account of freight charges. In any case, huge amounts of silver and gold yearly reached Egypt and Syria not only on board state galleys, for which we have more information, but also on the privately-owned ships, though on the whole it can be surmised that the latter carried smaller amounts of precious metals, since spices, normally shipped on galleys, were much more expensive than goods exported from Mamluk lands on round ships, and galleys were also better protected against pirates. As a rule, sums sent to Alexandria were higher in comparison with those sent to Syria. The fact that large quantities of gold and silver were imported annually by Venetians into Mamluk lands is often referred to as a reflection of Venice's unfavorable trade balance with the Mamluks. Without discarding this claim altogether, it seems that behind this steady flow of precious metals into Mamluk territories there is another economic factor. Precious metals, even in the form of coins, were considered a commodity, similar to copper, tin, or woolens. Merchants had to pay freight charges for gold or silver coins shipped on the galleys, and when reaching Egypt, they were also subject to customs dues. 34 Even more significant is the fact that during the period under consideration, it was more profitable to export silver to the East than gold. This can be inferred, for example, from a remark made by Marino Sanudo in August 1498, writing that considerable quantities of old coins and gold were sent on the galleys sailing to Alexandria; however, he writes, one could not expect to make a profit out of these gold pieces (di li qual 33 Priuli, I diarii, 1: On freight charges on coins, see, for example, the account made in 1413 at H ama h by Lorenzo Priuli, where a sum is accounted for the payment of freight for a sachet containing 200 ducats: Archivio di Stato di Venezia (hereafter: ASV), Miscellanea di carte non appartenenti ad alcun archivio, busta 18. In Alexandria, gold ducats were subject to a customs due of 1 per cent, whereas silver coins and ingots had to pay 1 ducat for every 6 rotoli zeroi [=rat l jarw ] and 1 ounce (1 ducat for 12 lire grosse). See Paxi, Tariffa, 49r.
10 46 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS ori non si farà bene). 35 In fact, it is very likely that the large sums expressed in ducats were actually often brought eastward in the form of silver coins and silver ingots. 36 On silver ingots exported to Alexandria, which had 60 karats of copper per mark of silver (the same alloy as the Marcelli coins in Venice), Venetians could make a profit amounting to 4-5 per cent when selling them in Alexandria. This is explicitly stated in Paxi's commercial manual, though with reference to the past, before a slight change in the standard weights of silver was introduced. 37 But it can be surmised that profit could still be substantial, considering the great sums involved. These profits seem rather low in comparison with those that could be enjoyed from other branches of trade, but silver (like gold) was a merchandise that Venetians could dispose of immediately, whereas in the case of other goods it was not always certain when and at what price they could be sold. Besides for coinage, silver and gold were widely used by the Mamluks for many purposes, such as robes of honor, riding outfits, writing instruments, and various ornaments. 38 Briefly, silver was in demand and was more valuable in the East than in Europe. Moreover, this demand for silver in Mamluk territories seems to have been connected to an even higher demand in India and the Far East, ensuring the constant flow of this metal from Venice into Egypt and Syria, and most probably also farther eastward. 39 Among other metals shipped eastward, copper in particular was highly sought after in Mamluk lands, since all lists discovered so far include at least one sort of copper cargo, and mostly more. During the fourteenth and early fifteenth century, Italian merchants imported copper into Egypt from the northern shores of Anatolia Sanudo, I diarii, 1: In 1497, no ingots could be found for shipment to the East. See Appendix A-III. 37 Paxi, Tariffa, 49r. 38 Taq al-d n Ah mad ibn Al al-maqr z, Al-Mawa iz wa-al-i tiba r f Dhikr al-khit at wa-al-a±tha r (Cairo, 1996), 2:3:158 59, ; Leo A. Mayer, Mamluk Costume: a Survey (Geneva, 1952), 25 (silver and golden belts), 35 (spurs overlaid with silver or gold); Carl Petry, "Robing Ceremonials in Late Mamluk Egypt: Hallowed Traditions, Shifting Protocols," in Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. Stewart Gordon (New York, 2001), 363 (golden sword, gold saddle, gold insignia). 39 Ashtor, Les métaux précieux, 52; idem, "Ma din," The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 5:963b; J. Michael Rogers, "To and Fro: Aspects of Mediterranean Trade and Consumption in the 15th and 16th Centuries," Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditéranée (1990): 61, 63. Rogers' statement that Venetian merchants settled their purchases in gold (ibid., 63) seems to be based on the wrong assumption that all the sums of cash and other forms of precious metals shipped eastward, which are expressed in ducats, represent real gold coins. 40 Philippe Braunstein, "Le marché du cuivre à Venise à la fin du Moyen Age," in Schwerpunkte der Kupferproduktion und des Kupferhandels in Europa , ed. Hermann Kellenbenz (Vienna, 1977), 85; Ashtor, "Ma din," 963b.
11 MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, Yet the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, and the gradual closing of the Black Sea to Italian ships, may have enhanced the importance of copper imported by the Venetians to Egypt and Syria from Europe, where copper production considerably expanded precisely during those decades. 41 Quantities mentioned in our sources are impressive. In 1496, according to Malipiero, the galleys left in Alexandria no less than 10,000 qint a rs of copper, equivalent to some 954 tons; 42 in 1501, 381 tons were sent to Beirut; in 1503, Priuli noted in his diary that the copper exported to Egypt, all sent by one Venetian merchant, Michiel Foscari, amounted to 1,000 miera (about 477 tons), in addition to 400 miera loaded on private ships and 300 more awaiting further passage, altogether about 811 tons. 43 In 1510, the value of copper exported to Alexandria on board the galleys was estimated by Sanudo at 50,000 ducats. 44 Comparing these impressive quantities to the much lower ones included in two late fourteenthcentury cargo lists of the Alexandria galleys about 212 miera (94.6 tons) and 70 miera (33.3 tons) in 1395 and 1400 respectively one may wonder whether what seems to be a spectacular increase really represents a marked rise in the demand for copper in Egypt and Syria towards the end of the Mamluk period. 45 Most of the copper shipped eastward had originated from the Tyrol and from Slovakia and was brought to Venice by German merchants. It could have reached Venice in various forms, but part of it may have undergone some industrial 41 It has been estimated that between 1460 and 1530, the production of European copper had quintupled: J. U. Nef, "Mining and Metallurgy in European Civilization," Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1952), Copper was weighed in Venice in thousandweights (miera) of lire di grossi; each miera was equivalent to around 477 kg. In Alexandria it was weighed in qint a rs jarw (in Venetian terminology: canter ceroi or geroi), each one of which was equivalent to around 95.4 kg. Paxi, Tariffa, 7v, 44r; Lettres d'un marchand vénitien: Andrea Berengo ( ), ed. Ugo Tucci (Paris, 1957), 357; Eliyahu Ashtor, "Levantine Weights and Standard Parcels: A Contribution to the Metrology of the Later Middle Ages," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 45 (1982): Priuli, I diarii, 2:255. Between 1495 and 1503, Michiel Foscari exported to Alexandria 1555 tons of copper. See Braunstein, "Le marché du cuivre," Sanudo, I diarii, 9:516. See also Ashtor, Les métaux précieux, Though mainly brought on board Venetian ships, copper could occasionally reach Egypt on board other vessels (ibid., 64). See also idem, "Profits from Trade with the Levant in the Fifteenth Century," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38 (1975): Since Ashtor does not specify what the original terms translated by him as "copper plates" and "polished plates" were, his data should be treated cautiously. 45 Jacques Heers, "Il commercio nel Mediterraneo alla fine del sec. XIV e nei primi anni del XV," Archivio Storico Italiano 113 (1955): 167. If the amount of copper shipped in 1395 and 1400 can really be considered "important quantities" (ibid.), how should we describe the shipments of 1497 and 1503, which were about eight or nine times as big?
12 48 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS process in Germany, in Venice itself or in its neighboring territories, before being sent eastward in the form of semi-finished or finished products. 46 It is indeed listed under different headings in the cargo lists: the greatest quantities appear to have been shipped as copper "loaves" (rami in pan), most likely raw copper packed in baskets or cases; another common form of shipment included copper bars (rami in verga); copper wire (fil di rame) was also often shipped on galleys sailing to the east; another category included "worked copper" (rami lavoradi). The significance of the latter can be deduced from a passage in Paxi's manual mentioning "worked copper products, that is coppers" (rami lavorati, zoè caldiere). Ugo Tucci explains that this term signifies semi-finished copper vessels, ready for further elaboration by Egyptian or Syrian coppersmiths. 47 Some of these vessels could have been made of brass, an alloy widely diffused in Mamluk lands for various purposes. 48 Another copper product shipped to Mamluk ports was verdigris (verdirame), a green crystallized substance formed on copper by acetic acid. It could have been produced from copper in Venice or Murano, before being shipped eastward. The uses of all these kinds of copper (nuh a s), brass (shabah, b rinj), and 46 Braunstein, "Le marché du cuivre," Copper also reached Venice by sea, on board the Flanders galleys; see ibid., 86, and Ugo Tucci, "Il rame nell'economia veneziana del secolo XVI," in Schwerpunkte der Kupferproduktion, Tucci, "Il rame," Michael Rogers suggests that the absence of zinc from bills of lading means that much of the rami must actually have been brass, yet zinc was only identified as a distinct metal at a much later stage; cf. Rogers, "To and Fro," 65. The Beirut galleys of 1498 are said to have carried 164 baskets (coffe) of copper loaves, whereas those sailing to Alexandria that year had, according to Sanudo, 1,168 (according to Malipiero 1,100) copper baskets on board. The cargo list of 1499 includes 19 packs of "worked copper" (rami lavoradi) sent by Antonio Negro to his son Alvise in Beirut (Arbel, "Attraverso il Mediterraneo," 113). In 1500, the galleys of Beirut had 354 cases of copper loaves (rami in pan), and 51 cases of copper bars for Alexandria; the Alexandria galleys of the same year carried 1,234 baskets (coffe) of copper loaves, 40 loads of copper bars, 30 of "worked copper," and 28 of copper wire. The Alexandria galleys of 1501 had 800 miera (some 381 tons) of copper loaves on board (all of them shipped by the firm Agostini dal Banco), and those sailing to Beirut an unspecified quantity of the same. The Beirut galleys that departed in November 1502 had on board 233 cases of copper loaves, 5 of worked copper, and 12 bundles of copper wire. The galleys of Alexandria that sailed in March 1503 (originally the 1502 galleys) had 2,463 cases of copper loaves, 188 bundles of copper bars, 76 bales of worked copper, and 24 bundles of copper wire. The galleys of Alexandria that sailed in October 1503, though rather poor and empty, nevertheless carried 268 copper baskets. In 1504 the Alexandria galleys carried 500 copper baskets. In 1510, the galleys of Alexandria had on board 316 baskets of copper loaves, 327 barrels of copper bars, 16 bales of worked copper (rami lavoradi), and 14 bundles (fardi) of copper wire. The galleys of Alexandria sailing in 1511 had 505 lots of copper rods, 527 cases of copper loaves, 106 of worked copper, and 9 cases of verdigris. The Beirut galleys of 1513 carried 77 copper loaves and 2 bundles of copper wire. For references to the galleys' cargo lists, see Appendix A.
13 MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, derived products in Egypt and Syria were, of course, manifold, such as the minting of coins (both small coins fulu s and silver coins with copper alloy), military uses, house utensils and ornamental objects, the roofing of mosques and palaces, as well as for medical use and for dyeing (in the case of verdigris). Copper was regularly accepted as barter payment in exchange for pepper and other spices in Syria and Egypt. 49 Copper objects also seem to have served as status symbols. In his fifteenth-century description of Cairo, al-maqr z 's mentions ornamented copper objects carried in a procession, as well as copper watering vessels in the stables of a prominent amir. 50 Tin was also a common cargo on Venetian ships sailing to Egypt and Syria. Paxi mentions Flanders as the origin of tin bars imported into Syria, but that must have been associated with the fact that Venice imported tin on board the Flanders galleys, which also called on English ports. In fact, most of the tin traded by Venetians must have originated from Cornwall. 51 According to Paxi, tin reached Alexandria in the form of rods (in verga). 52 This important material could, of course, be used for preparing bronze (s afr), but it has been pointed out that in fifteenth-century Egypt bronze appears to have been replaced by leaded brass. 53 However, tin was also used for tinning of copper vessels, kitchen utensils, and implements. Eric Vallet suggests that since it always followed woolens in price lists of merchants' letters, it was, among non-precious metals, the greatest in demand on the Syrian market of the early 1480s. 54 Steel (azzali), probably produced in the area of Brescia, appears only once in our lists. 55 It was, of course, an important material for Mamluk armorers, and Egypt and Syria might have been supplied with it from other sources. On the other hand, tinned iron plates always figure in these cargo lists, where they appear under three headings: banda larga, banda raspa, and piastre di laton. 56 Iron 49 Tucci, "Il rame," Al-Maqr z, Khit at, 2:3: The galleys sailing to Beirut in 1498 carried 22 bundles (fardi) of tin. The ship wrecked in 1499 had 8 bundles of tin [bars?] sent by Marcantonio Morosini to Syria: Arbel, "Attraverso il Mediterraneo," 113. The 1500 galleys of Beirut had 112 such bundles; the galleys sailing to Beirut had 130 tin bundles (fassi) on board. The 1503 galleys of Alexandria carried 182 bundles; the 1510 galleys of Alexandria carried 45 cases (casse). The 1511 cargo list of the galleys of Alexandria has 106 packages; the Beirut galleys of 1513 carried 11 bundles of "fine tin." 52 Paxi, Tariffa, 43v. 53 Rogers, "To and Fro," 64, based on P. T. Craddock, "The Copper Alloys of the Medieval Islamic World Inheritors of the Classical Tradition," World Archaeology 9, no. 1 (1979): Vallet, Marchands vénitiens, azalli packages figure in the cargo list of the Alexandria galleys of The galleys sailing to Alexandria in 1498 had 71 bundles of banda larga and those sailing to
14 50 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS mainly reached Venice from Styria and Carinthia, and its tinning was probably carried out in Venice itself, or in the Venetian mainland. 57 The importation of iron plates into Egypt and Syria must have been intended for specific purposes, whose exact nature can only be guessed at this stage. Military uses have certainly to be taken into consideration, but civil uses, for construction and for all sorts of instruments and utensils should not be excluded either. Lead, most probably brought from the Balkans, can also occasionally be found in those cargo lists. 58 Lead was used for the production of leaded brass, for water conducts in aqueducts, for public and private baths, for roofing of important buildings, and generally for protecting iron from corrosion. 59 A kind of lead, called ras a s qal, served for manufacturing breast chain-mail. 60 Information on further uses of lead in these regions can be found in the thirteenth-century pharmaceutical treatise of Ibn al-b t a r (died in 1248), who was also active in Damascus. The fact that it was still relevant in the later Mamluk period and even afterwards is attested by the medical treatise of a sixteenth-century doctor from Antioch, Da u d al-ant a k (died in 1599). The latter distinguished between two different qualities of lead (ras a s ): asrab and qal (a synonym for qas d r). The former was of inferior quality, not fully distilled, and could be easily processed by smiths. The pharmaceutical uses of lead were manifold. It was ground into different ointments (especially for cosmetic purposes), rendering them more effective, and also used for disinfecting wounds and stopping bleeding. It served against various skin diseases, against tumors, especially in the sexual organs, against hemorrhoids, against stings of scorpions, and against masturbation of Beirut, 63 barrels of banda. The 1499 cargo list has 6 barrels of banda raspa' sent to Beirut by Hieronimo and Jacomo Striga: Arbel, "Attraverso il Mediterraneo," 113. The 1500 galleys of Beirut had 18 barrels of banda raspa'; those sailing to Alexandria that year had 50 bundles of banda larga. The galleys of Alexandria departing in March 1503 had 282 bundles of banda larga on board. The Alexandria galleys of 1510 had 4 barrels of banda raspa'. The Alexandria galleys of 1511 had 19 barrels of banda raspa' and 57 packages of banda larga as well as piastre di latton. The Beirut galleys of 1513 carried 15 bundles of banda larga, and 2 of banda raspa'. Paxi explicitly explains the term banda larga as tinned iron (Banda larga zoè ferro restagnado): Paxi, Tariffa, 51r. 57 Philippe Braunstein, "Le commerce du fer à Venise au XVe siècle," Studi Veneziani 8 (1966): 268, 277. Michiel Foscari, whom we have already encountered as a copper exporter to Egypt, was also involved in iron production and exportation: he invested in mines, controlled the processing of iron at Belluno, and exported iron products to Crete and the Levant (ibid.). 58 Paxi gives equivalents for weight units of Ragusa and Alexandria with reference to lead. See Paxi, Tariffa, 44r. The galleys sailing to Alexandria in 1498 carried 55 lots (pr.) of lead; the Beirut galleys of 1500 had 32 m. [miera?] of lead; the Alexandria galleys of 1510 had 130 "pieces." 59 Ashtor, "Ma din," 963b. 60 Al-Munjid f al-lughah wa-al-a la m, 28th ed. (Beirut, 1986), 654.
15 MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, adolescents. Putting five dirhams under someone's pillow could cause hallucinations, and a few drops sprinkled into one's ear were considered an effective protection against murder. Rings made of lead were considered effective against becoming overweight. It was also used in agriculture, to prevent fruits from falling immaturely, and in small quantities it was used as a pesticide. 61 Mercury also seems to have been in demand both in Syria and Egypt, since it figures on four of our cargo lists. 62 Mercury veins were discovered in 1490 at Idria, in the province of Gorizia, and later it was from there that Venetians acquired this material. 63 Among other purposes, especially gilding, 64 mercury (zi baq) was commonly used in Mamluk lands for medical purposes, such as against lice (in combination with other substances), for treating dermatological problems, as well as against muscle and joint pains. It was used externally against bad smells and swollen throats. 65 Mercury also served for preparing cinnabar (zenabrii), or mercuric sulfide (vermilion), a decorative dyestuff figuring on several of these cargo lists, 66 which was produced on the island of Murano. Textiles of various types constituted an important component of Venetian shipments to Syria and Egypt. Most of them were woolens of different qualities and provenance. Eliyahu Ashtor dedicated a long and detailed study to the exportation of Western textiles to the Muslim Orient in the later Middle Ages, a study that opens much wider vistas than our cargo lists, which hardly specify the origins of these products. 67 Only cloths made in Venice and a few specific types of cloth are occasionally listed separately. Such is the case of kerseys, which were 61 Da u d ibn Umar al-ant a k, Tadhkarat U±l al-alba b wa-al-ja mi lil- Ajab al- Uja b (Beirut, n.d.), 1:168; cf. D ia al-d n Ab Muh ammad Abd Alla h Ibn Ah mad al-andalus al-ma liq Ibn al-b t a r, Al-Ja mi li-mufrada t al-adwiyah wa-al-aghdhiyah (Beirut 1992): 1: The galleys sailing to Beirut in 1498 had 35 lots of mercury according to Sanudo and 63 boioli (vases) of the same product according to Malipiero; in 1500 the Beirut galleys had 248 barrels marked "for Alexandria"; in 1503 the Alexandria galleys 60 barrels; in 1510, 50 barrels were sent to Alexandria, and in 1511, 251 [barrels?]. 63 Philippe Braunstein, "Zur Frügeschichte des Bergbaus und Quecksilberhandels von Idria," Neues aus Alt-Villach, vol. 2, Jahrbuch des Stadtmuseums (Villach, 1965), Rogers, "To and Fro," Zi baq was widely used for dermatological purposes, both for humans and non-human animals: Ibn al-b t a r, Al-Ja mi, 1:487 88; al-ant a k, Tadhkarat U±l al-alba b, 1: On the Venetian production, see Luzzatto, Storia economica, 180. In 1498, 27 lots of cinnabar were sent to Beirut; in 1500 the Beirut galleys carried 256 cases and those sailing to Alexandria, 307 cases. In 1503 the Alexandria galleys had 78 barrels of cinnabar on board; in 1510 the Alexandria galleys had 44 cases, and in 1511, 21 cases, 5 of which belonged to Michiel da Lezze. See Braudel and Tenenti, "Michiel da Lezze," 71. See also Rogers, "To and Fro," Eliyahu Ashtor, "L'exportation de textiles occidentaux dans le Proche Orient musulman au bas Moyen Age ( )," in Studi in memoria di Federigo Melis (Naples, 1978), 2:
16 52 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS relatively cheap woolens originally produced in England but subsequently imitated in many other places. 68 The latter may probably be identified with the woolen cloth called al-ju kh, the use of which became so widespread in al-maqr z 's time. 69 Some lists also mention separately linen cloths (tele), serge cloths (sarze), and grixi, or grisi, which were cheap woolens, as well as a few specific types of garments, imported in small quantities, such as bernusi (women's gowns known in the east as burnus), carpette (most likely also women's garments), and gonele de griso (probably a type of men's coats). 70 Since our cargo lists provide only a little information on the origin and type of cloth sent to Egypt and Syria, it is worthwhile to cite the relevant paragraphs of Paxi's Tariffa, more helpful in this regard. Among those sent to Alexandria, he mentions: Fine Venetian cloths, scarlet and dark blue (paunazi) cloths, Paduan scarlet cloths, Brescian cloths, "bastard" cloths, Southampton cloths (panni santani), rocha cloths, 71 cloths from Geneva and from Feltre, that is dyed bianchete [a type of cheap cloth], and other kinds of cloths The galleys sailing to Alexandria in 1498 had 71 bales of cloths on board, while those sailing to Beirut had 418 bales; the ship wrecked in 1499 had 6 bales and one bundle of woolens sent to Syria: Arbel, "Attraverso il Mediterraneo," 113. The 1500 Beirut galleys had 400 bales of panni and those sailing that year to Alexandria, 133 bales; the galleys sailing to Beirut in October 1501 carried 330 bales of woolens; the Beirut galleys of 1502 had 560 bales of panni on board; those that sailed to Alexandria in 1503 had 127 bales. The Beirut galleys of 1504 had 450 bales; the Alexandria galleys of 1510 had 180 bales of Venetian woolen "of various sorts," 110 bales of woolens originating from Western Europe (panni di Ponente) of various sorts, and 100 bales of kerseys. The Alexandria line of 1511 had 134 bales of woolens on board; and the Beirut galleys of 1513 carried 241 bales. 69 Al-Maqr z, Khit at, 2:3:159; Mayer, Mamluk Costume, 25; Ashtor, "L'exportation," See the list of the Beirut galleys of 1502 (12 bales of sarze, 11 of tele, and 11 rolls of grixi), and the Alexandria galleys of 1510 (8 bales of bernusi) and 1511 (2 packings of gonele de griso). For bernussi, see Salvatore Battaglia, Grande dizionario della lingua italiana (Turin, ), 2:186; for sarze, ibid, 17:580; for carpetta, see Nicolò Tommaseo and Bernardo Bellin, Nuovo dizionario della lingua italiana (Turin, 1865), 1:1253; on griso (pl. grisi), see Achille Vitali, La moda a Venezia attraverso i secoli: Lessico Ragionato (Venice, 1992), Rocha may derive from roça, i.e., madder, meaning cloths dyed with this material. According to another interpretation, not entirely contradictory, this term denotes low-quality cloths. I am grateful to Dr. Edoardo Demo and Dr. Andrea Mozzato for their assistance in trying to sort out the expressions related to woolens in Paxi's Tariffa. 72 Paxi, Tariffa, 48r.
17 Woolens exported to Damascus are listed by him as follows: MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, Fine Venetian cloths, some scarlet, some dark blue, Paduan "bastard" cloths, fine Florentine cloths, Brescian cloths, narrow cloths from Bergamo, washed and sheared (bagnadi e cimadi), expurgated cloths from Bergamo (panni bergamaschi tiradi), Guildfort cloths (panni Zilforto), Southampton cloths, sesse [Essex] cloths, 73 Saint Ursula cloths, narrow Geneva cloths, full-size cloths from Majorca (panni maiorini integri), large Geneva cloths, half-size cloths from Majorca (panni mezzi maiorini), cheap cloths of the Fontego (panni de fontego), large Flemish serge cloths, narrow Flemish serge cloths, panni zinese le vestrine, 74 hemp cloths. 75 Shorter lists are given by Paxi for Aleppo and Tripoli, though with slight variations, as for instance concerning the colors preferred on the Aleppo market: beside the dark violet (paonazo) and scarlet, typical for Venetian cloth also shipped to Egypt, we have azure, white, and green, as far as Florentine cloth was concerned. 76 Judging by a few merchant letters written in Syria in 1484, Western woolens sold on the Syrian market at that time were those from Bergamo, Brescia, and Vicenza in the Venetian mainland, as well as cloths from Geneva, Southampton, Essex, the cloths known as panni bastardi, cloths of the fontego, and serges. 77 Silk cloth of various types was imported in smaller quantities than woolen cloth to the Mamluk East. Our cargo lists mention gold cloth (panni d'oro) or simply "silk cloth" (panni di seta), very likely products of Venice's important luxury industries, exported for the refined Mamluk clientele. 78 Al-Maqr z explicitly 73 The term sesse sometimes denotes oriental textile, but in the present case it is obviously a Western product sent eastward. Cf. Ambasciata straordinaria al sultano d'egitto ( ), ed. Franco Rossi (Venice, 1988), 225; John Wansbrough, "A Mamluk Letter of 877 (1473)," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 24 (1961): 209, citing Quatremère. 74 The significance of these terms remains to be elucidated. 75 Paxi, Tariffa, 54r. 76 Ibid., 56r 56v. 77 Vallet, Marchands vénitiens, 281, 288, 297, On panni bastardi, see Ashtor, "L'exportation," According to Ashtor, panni de fontego were of the cheapest sort (ibid., 313). 78 The 1500 Beirut galleys had 6 cases with pani d'oro et de seda and those sailing to Alexandria, 7 cases of silk cloth (pani de seda). The Beirut galleys of 1502 had 10 cases of silk cloth; the galleys sailing to Alexandria in 1503 had 3 cases of silk cloth and one of gold cloth. The Alexandria galleys of 1510 had 2 cases of silk cloth whereas those of 1512 had 15 cases with silk and gold cloth. At the beginning of the sixteenth century there were as many as one thousand silk looms in Venice: Luzzatto, Storia economica, 176. See also Luca Molà, The Silk Industry of
18 54 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS mentions silk cloths worn by Mamluk amirs as being of Ru m, that is European, origin. 79 We can partly overcome the succinct character of our lists with the help of the report on gifts presented in by the Venetian ambassador to Mamluk officials, which included luxurious silk cloths, 80 and also with the help of Paxi's Tariffa, mentioning, for the Alexandria market, damask (damaschi), velvet (veludi), and cloth of gold (panni d'oro) and of silver (panni d'arzento). 81 For Damascus Paxi provides a slightly different and more detailed list, probably reflecting the tastes of local clients: to Damascus, the Venetians sent, besides damask and velvet, also gold brocade, campo d'oro, and silver brocade. 82 Another category of luxury items included furs. We know, for example, from al-maqr z 's writings that during his times, Egyptians of both sexes, especially but not exclusively Mamluks, used to ornament their clothing with furs of different sorts. The bestowal by the sultan of robes lined with expensive furs was customary as a reward for service, confirmation of an elite status, reconciliation, and restoration. 83 Another indication of the special interest of Mamluks in furs is the fact that they were exempt from customs dues when imported to Alexandria. 84 This weakness for Western furs seems to have been well known in Venice, for when Venetian ambassadors came to Egypt to negotiate with the Mamluks they brought along with them great amounts of furs to be presented to the sultan and his officials. 85 Our cargo lists mention sables (zebellini) and vairs (vari), which according to Paxi's book were imported either raw or dressed. 86 To these we may Renaissance Venice: The Challenge of Innovation in a Mercantilist Economy (Baltimore- London, 2000). 79 Al-Maqr z, Khit at, 2:3: Ambasciata straordinaria, Paxi, Tariffa, 48r 48v. 82 Ibid., 54r. For Aleppo and Tripoli, see ibid., 56v. 83 Ibid., , 369; Mayer, Mamluk Costume, 14, 19, 23, 25; Petry, "Robing Ceremonials," , Paxi, Tariffa, In 1489, Ambassador Pietro Diedo brought along 3,000 pieces of vairs and 80 of sables: Ambasciata straordinaria, 79. In 1512, Ambassador Domenico Trevisan brought as presents 120 sables, 4,500 vairs, and 400 ermines: Jehan Thenaud, Le voyage d'outremer suivi de la relation de l'ambassade de Domenico Trevisan au Soudan d'egypte, ed. Charles Schefer (Paris, 1884), The 1500 Beirut galleys had 2 cases of marten's furs and 3 of vairs; those sailing to Alexandria in the same year had 4 cases containing "zebelini armilini" and 2 containing vairs; the 1502 Beirut galleys had 9 barrels of vairs; the 1503 Alexandria galleys carried 8 barrels of vairs; the 1511 Alexandria galleys had 2 cases of marten furs and 19 of vairs; and the Beirut galleys of 1513 had 4 barrels of vairs, one case of ermines, and one of sables.
19 MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 8, NO. 2, add common marten furs (martore), stone marten [=beech marten] furs (fuine), and ermines (ermellini), mentioned in Paxi's manual among goods imported to Alexandria. It would be useful to identify the kinds of furs imported by the Venetians with those mentioned by al-maqr z. 87 Vair (varo) must correspond to sinjab, whereas ermine (ermellino) probably corrsponds to qama qin (=mod. Arabic: qa qu m?). Sable (zibellino) is normally translated as sammu r, but the same Arabic term is also given as a translation for common marten (martone). 88 Fuina denotes stone marten fur, though Dozy suggested that it was beaver fur, corresponding to al-maqr z 's qird aswad, or qundus. 89 Washaq, another sort of fur mentioned by al-maqr z, seems to be lynx fur. If it denotes European lynx and not the Middle Eastern caracal, it is not clear to which sort of furs mentioned in Venetian sources it corresponds. Hats are also encountered on board ships sailing to Alexandria. Our lists include both capelli and barete, which seem to represent two different kinds of headgear. 90 Venetian hat manufacturing seems to have undergone an impressive expansion around the turn of the sixteenth century. According to a petition presented by the hatters to the Venetian government in 1506, the number of workshops producing headgear in Venice had risen within a few years from 5 to over Was this impressive expansion somehow related to a demand for Venetian hats in Mamluk territories? Were the green, blue, and red hats mentioned by al-maqr z as being fashionable in his times imported by the Venetians? 92 A kind of textile not intended for clothing, but often exported to Egypt and Syria, is hemp cloth (canevaza, pl. canevaze). This coarse material was produced in Venice from hemp grown around Montagnana, in the Venetian mainland. 93 It served particularly the Venetians themselves, for preparing sacks and packages for goods exported by them westwards. This was especially important for the exportation of raw cotton and cotton thread, shipped in great quantities from Syria 87 Al-Maqr z, Khit at, 2:3: Mayer, Mamluk Costume, 23; Ra shid Barra w, Qa mu s al-nahd ah al- Arab yah (Cairo, 1983), 674, 968; Reinhart Pieter Anne Dozy, Dictionnaire detaillé des noms des vêtements chez les Arabes (Amsterdam, 1845), Dozy, Dictionnaire detaillé, The galleys sailing to Alexandria in 1503 had nine bales of capelli on board; those sailing there in 1510 had 21 cases of barete, and the ones sailing to the same port in 1511 carried 12 cases of barette. 91 Judde de Larivière, "Entre bien public et intérêt privés," See al-maqr z, Khit at, 2:3: On Mamluk headgear, see Mayer, Mamluk Costume, Frederic C. Lane, "The Rope Factory and Hemp Trade in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries," in Venice and History, (originally published in Journal of Economic and Business History 4 (1932):
20 56 BENJAMIN ARBEL, VENICE'S TRADE WITH THE MAMLUKS and Palestine on board Venetian vessels. 94 Various glass products, originating from Venice's famous glass manufacturies at Murano, 95 were also common on board Venetian ships sailing to the Mamluk Sultanate. 96 Michael Rogers wrote that by the fifteenth century the Mamluk market had already been enslaved to Venetian glass exports, and our cargo lists seem to corroborate this statement. 97 Among the goods imported to Damascus and Tripoli, Paxi's manuals mentions "common glass" (veri comuni), rosaries (paternostri) made of yellow glass, and glass crystal (veri cristalini). 98 Among those imported to Alexandria, Rimondo's "Tarifa" makes reference to "glass for mirrors" (veri da spechio) and to "worked glass" (veri lavoradi). 99 Vases made of glass crystal also seem to have been in demand in the Mamluk lands. 100 The term veri cristalini, or cristal[l]i, as it appears on our cargo lists, is worthy of some further comment. The word cristalli had manifold meanings in Italian writings of the early modern period. It could denote products made of rock crystal or of glass crystal, as well as of mirrors, phials, lenses, drinking glasses, glass panes, and even saltpeter. 101 However, in the late fifteenth century Venetian context, cristallino or cristallo were terms used to denote a special kind of highquality colorless and transparent imitation of rock-crystal, invented in Venice during the second half of the fourteenth, and further improved during the first half of the fifteenth, century. 102 The term Veri cristal[l]ini seems to have denoted 94 The ship wrecked in 1499 had 2 ruotoli of canvas on board: Arbel "Attraverso il Mediterraneo," 113. The Beirut galleys sailing in November 1502 had 85 baloni of canvas on board; the Alexandria galleys of 1503 had 3 balle; and the Beirut galleys of ruotoli. Cf. Ashtor, "L'exportation," On the Murano glass industry, see particularly Luigi Zecchin, Vetro e vetrai di Murano: Studi sulla storia del vetro (Venice, ); Rosa Barovier Mentasti et al., ed., Mille anni di arte del vetro a Venezia (Venice, 1982); Rosa Barovier Mentasti, Il vetro veneziano (Milan, 1982). 96 The ship wrecked in 1499 carried 6 barrels of rosaries: Arbel, "Attraverso il Mediterraneo," 113. The Alexandria galleys of 1500 carried 3 cases of christalli; the Beirut galleys of 1502 had 11 barrels of rosaries and 5 cases of lavori de cristalo. The galleys sailing to Alexandria in 1503 carried 12 cases of glass products; the 1510 Alexandria galleys had 3 cases of cristali and those of 1511 had 85 cases of glass rosaries. The Beirut galleys of 1513 had 4 cases of glass products (veri) and 20 of rosaries. 97 Rogers, "To and Fro," 68, n See Paxi, Tariffa, 54r 54 v, 108r. 99 Ibid., 56v; Rimondo, "Tarifa," fols. XVIII, XLIV. 100 On arrival at Jaffa in July 1480, the captain of the Venetian pilgrims' galley sent vases made of glass crystal (vasi christalini) to the dawa da r of Damascus, to ensure favorable treatment of the pilgrims. See Santo Brasca, Viaggio in Terrasanta, ed. L. Momigliano Lepschy (Milan, 1966), Battaglia, Grande dizionario, 3: Luigi Zecchin, "Il 'Vetro cristallino' nelle carte del Quattrocento," in his Vetro e vetrai di
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