The old trade-routes between Asia and Europe were effectually and permanently blocked by the Turkish conquests. Not only routes of trade, but methods of exchange, forms of transportation, and, in fact, the whole system by which Eastern goods had been brought to Europe for centuries, were interrupted, undermined, and made almost impracticable. During this period the city republics of Italy, which had been the chief European intermediaries of this trade, were losing their prosperity, their wealth, their enterprise, and their vigor. This was due, as a matter of fact, to a variety of causes, internal and external, political and economic; but the sufferings in the wars with the Turks and the adverse conditions of the Levant trade on which their prosperity primarily rested were far the most important causes of their decline.
Thus the demand of European markets for Eastern luxuries could no longer be met satisfactorily by the old methods; yet that demand was no less than it had been, and the characteristic products of the East were still sought for in all the market-places of Europe. Indeed, the demand was increasing. As Europe in the fifteenth century became more wealthy and more familiar with the products of the whole world, as the nobles learned to demand more luxuries, and a wealthy merchant class grew up which was able to gratify the same tastes as the nobles, the demand of the West upon the East became more insistent than ever. Therefore, the men, the nation, the government that could find a new way to the East might claim a trade of indefinite extent and extreme profit.
This is the explanation of that eager search for new routes to the Indies which lay at the back of so many voyages of discovery of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Southward along the coast of Africa, in the hope that that continent could be rounded to the southeast; northward along the coast of Europe in search of a northeast passage; westward relying on the sphericity of the earth and hoping that the distance from the west coast of Europe to the east coast of Asia would prove not to be interminable; after America was reached, again northward and southward to round and pass beyond that barrier, and thus reach Asia—such was the progress of geographical exploration for a century and a half, during which men gradually became familiar with a great part of the earth's surface. A study of the history of trade- routes corroborates the fact disclosed by many other lines of study— that the discovery of America was no isolated phenomenon; it was simply one step in the development of the world's history. Changes in the eastern Mediterranean led men to turn their eyes in other directions looking for other sea routes to the East. When they had done so, along with much else that was new, America was disclosed to their vision.
To follow out all the remote effects of the upheaval in western Asia and eastern Europe would lead too far afield: but the diversion of commercial interest was only a part: the restless energies of the Latin races of southern Europe turned into a new channel; search for trade led to discovery, discovery to exploration, exploration to permanent settlement; and settlement to the creation of a new centre of commercial and political interest, and eventually to the rise of a new nation.
CHAPTER III
ITALIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO EXPLORATION
(1200-1500)
Although in the fifteenth century Italy lost the commercial leadership which she had so long held, she did not cease to be the teacher of the other countries of Europe. In those arts which lay at the base of exploration, as in so many other fields, Italy was far in advance of all other Western countries. Through the Middle Ages she preserved much of the heritage of ancient skill and learning; by her Renaissance studies she recovered much that had been temporarily lost; and in geographical science she early made progress of her own. "The greatness of the Germans, the courtesy of the French, the valor of the English, and the wisdom of the Italians" is the tribute paid by a fifteenth- century Portuguese chronicler to the nations of his time, and this "wisdom of the Italians" he especially connects with exploration and navigation.[Footnote: Azurara, "Chronicle of Guinea," chap. ii.]
As a nation Italy played but a slight part in the discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but through her scattered sons she used her fine intelligence to initiate and guide much of the work that was completed by the ruder but more efficient and vigorous nations of the Atlantic seaboard. Educated men from Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence emigrated to other lands, carrying with them science, skill, and ingenuity unknown except in the advanced and enterprising Italian city republics and principalities. Italian mathematicians made the calculations on which all navigation was based; Italian cartographers drew maps and charts; Italian ship-builders designed and built the best vessels of the time; Italian captains commanded them, and very often Italian sailors made up their crews; while at least in the earlier period Italian bankers advanced the funds with which the expeditions were equipped and sent out.
Columbus, Cabot, Verrazzano, and Vespucci were simply the most famous of the Italians who during this period made discoveries while in the service of other governments. The Venetian Cadamosto led repeated and successful expeditions for Prince Henry of Portugal; Perestrello, the discoverer of Porto Santo, in the Madeiras, and Antonio de Noli, the discoverer of the Cape Verd Islands, were both Italians. [Footnote: Ruge, "Der Zeitalter der Entdeckungen," 217.] This was no new condition of affairs. In the time of Edward II. and Edward III., in the service of England, we find the names of Genoese such as Pesagno and Uso de Mare. Another Genoese, Emanuel Pesagno, was appointed as the first hereditary admiral of the fleet of Portugal, and by the terms of his engagement was required to keep the Portuguese navy provided with twenty Genoese captains of good experience in navigation. Of the sixty men who made up the complement of Magellan's fleet of 1519, in the service of Spain, twenty-three were Italians, mostly Genoese. [Footnote: Navarrete, quoted in Ruge, Zeitalter, 466, n.] At the same time all Spanish taxes were administered by Genoese bankers, and they or other Italians had a monopoly of all loanable capital. [Footnote: Hume, Spain, Its Greatness and Decay, 87]