IV.
In order to complete the list of the greater guilds, we must say a few words concerning the Doctors and Druggists, and Skinners and Furriers, and particularly the former. Although of less importance commercially than the guilds already described, they had a great share in promoting Florentine trade in the Levant, whence nearly all drugs and spices were received in exchange, and no less than twenty-two different qualities of fur, many of which, being the skins of rare animals, formed some of the dearest articles of luxury. Therefore these two guilds likewise rose to great influence, inasmuch as the Eastern trade has invariably proved the main source of wealth for all nations, and most of all for Italy. It served to sustain the high fortunes of Venice; it had enriched Amalfi, Genoa, and Pisa; and accordingly was constantly coveted by the Florentines, whose highest prosperity indeed was only attained when the Black Sea being opened to their galleys, they could enjoy the same rights as the Venetians in Egypt, Constantinople, and the Crimea. This, so long their principal aim, was not, however, quickly attained: they continued to wrestle for it throughout almost the whole of the fourteenth century.
The struggles maintained by the Florentines for the extension of their trade play a very important part in the history of the Republic, not only demonstrating the progress of their wealth, but likewise the ruling motives of their policy. In fact, the moment they had won their first successes against the nobles of the contado surrounding them on all sides, they immediately tried to monopolise the whole trade with Lombardy. One of the first treaties signed by them was with the Ubaldini, lords of the Mugello, for the purpose of opening that highway for their products; and shortly afterwards they made a treaty with the Bölognese (1203). But in course of time the latter, profiting by their position, exacted heavier tolls on the merchandise now continually passing through their territory; whereupon the Florentines promptly came to terms with Modena, opening a fresh road for their commerce, and thus compelling Bölogna to respect the original agreement. In 1282, at the time of the war against Pisa, they arranged treaties guaranteeing free passage to their merchandise through Lucca, Prato, Pistoia, and Volterra, and thus began their domination over the commerce of Tuscany. Nearly all their wars were undertaken for purposes of trade, and ended with trading agreements. In 1390 they entered into conventions with Faenza and Ravenna, and then step by step with the majority of the Italian cities.
The continual increase of Florentine commerce by land made the necessity of free access to the sea ever more pressing and indispensable. But to reach either Porto Pisano or Leghorn, the only ports convenient for their trade, they must necessarily traverse the republic of Pisa, their powerful neighbour and rival. For if the Florentines were masters of nearly the whole Tuscan trade by land, the Pisans were lords of the sea, and had no intention of allowing their realm to be snatched from them by so industrious and energetic a race as their competing neighbours. Accordingly the Pisans had only to demand heavy tolls for the passage of those neighbours' goods, and the Florentines were left with no remedy save recourse to arms. Hence the continual warfare and perpetual rivalry of the two republics. After the capture of Volterra by the Florentines in 1254, the threatening attitude of their victorious troops drove the Pisans to grant free passage to their merchandise, and in 1273, 1293, 1327, and 1329 similarly compelled them to adhere to the same terms. Pisa, however, never yielded the point with a good grace, but merely to avoid war, or in consequence of defeat.
Meanwhile the Florentines were continually extending their trade to remoter parts of the East, and concluding fresh treaties there. This, while increasing their desire to command the sea, fanned the jealousy of Pisa to a fiercer flame. In Pagnini's work on "La Decima" we find an essay on the "Practise of Trade" ("Pratica della Mercatura"), written early in the fourteenth century by an agent of the Bardi firm, one Balducci Pegolotti. Next to Marco Polo's "Milione," this work is one of our most important sources of information regarding Italian travels and trading enterprises in the Levant, and furnishes specially minute details of Florentine traffic. From what Pegolotti tells us of his own doings, we may judge what was done by his fellow-citizens in general. In 1315 he succeeded in securing for them in Antwerp and Brabant similar franchises to those already enjoyed by the Genoese, Germans, and English. He afterwards went to the Levant, and found at Cyprus that the Bardi and Peruzzi alone shared the privilege granted to the Pisans of only paying 2 per cent. import and export duty; whereas all other Florentines had either to pay 4 per cent., or feign to be Pisans, a device exposing them to many spiteful reprisals from the latter, who treated them worse than slaves or Jews. These proceedings aroused Pegolotti's wrath, so that, although he was one of the Bardi firm, he made great and successful efforts to have the same privilege of franchise extended to the rest of the Florentines (1324). Thus, their common interests being promoted no less by the energy of individuals than by that of their government, these merchants continued to make advance in the East, and stir the Pisans to greater envy. In fact, the latter decided in 1343 to reduce the exemptions allowed on Florentine merchandise, decreeing that goods only to the value of 200,000 florins might pass untaxed through their city; all the rest being charged two soldi the lira—i.e., at the rate of 10 per cent. This left the Florentines no choice save to make war, or find some mode of avoiding the Pisan highway. To prove that their trade was not altogether at the mercy of Pisa, they preferred the second alternative. By making treaty with the Siennese, they obtained the concession of Porto Talamone, and at great expense, and in the teeth of many difficulties, finally succeeded in making it a vast emporium for their wares. The road to Talamone was long and inconvenient; but the Pisans, soon perceiving that they had done greater damage to themselves than to Florence, and that although they might inflict annoyance on the latter, there was no hope of destroying its trade, were therefore presently reduced to permit the free passage of merchandise. Accordingly the Florentines felt braced to more extensive enterprise in the Levant.[357]
The Egyptian route was the easiest and most direct for trading purposes; but sultan and califs barred the road to Christians. The Venetians alone, from having concluded treaties, it was said, "in the holy name of God and Mahomet," had made some way in that country to the jealous exclusion of all other Italians, who therefore usually travelled by Constantinople and the Black Sea, where they, and more especially the Genoese, had founded some populous and flourishing cities. Farther on, by the Sea of Azoff, a mile or so from the mouth of the Don, stood the town of Tana (Azov), a great business centre for traders from Russia, Arabia, Persia, Armenia, Mogul, and Southern China; and the chief place of exchange for Eastern and Western products. The Italians brought silk or woollen fabrics, oil, wine, pitch, tar, and common metals, and bartered them for precious stones, pearls, gold, spices, sweetmeats, sugar, Eastern tissues of silk, wool, or cotton, raw silk, goatskins, dye-woods, and likewise for Eastern slaves of either sex, who were to be seen in Italy down to the end of the fifteenth century.[358] All this varied commerce, originally started by Amalfi and other southern states, was afterwards carried on by the Venetians, Genoese, and Pisans. The argosies of those republics traversed all parts of the Archipelago, the Bosphorus, and the Black Sea. Italian was spoken in all the harbours of the East, where, besides Italian banks, workshops, and factories, there were cities founded and inhabited solely by Italians, with buildings in the Genoese or Venetian style, but where Italian, and especially Venetian, architecture became modified by Oriental influences. A great number of Genoese were settled in those parts. To give some idea of the naval strength of Venice, it will be enough to say that during the Crusade of 1202 that Republic equipped a fleet able to convey 4,500 horsemen, 9,000 squires, 30,000 infantry, and stores for nine months. Their galleys, never less than 80 feet in length, sometimes measured 110 by 70 in width, and in the fifteenth century were forty-five in number, with a total of 11,000 seamen. At the same time they also possessed 3,000 other vessels of from ten to one hundred tons, with 17,000 men, and 300 big ships with 8,000 men. In all, therefore, 3,345 vessels, with 36,000 seamen,[359] a strength that seems positively incredible, when we remember that the 'Serenissima' Republic of Venice was a city built on the sandbanks of the lagoons; that the entire management of its policy and trade was in the hands of men born within the narrow bounds of those lagoons. Accordingly we may imagine how great was the united strength of all the maritime republics, and how signal the courage of the Florentines in competing with them so obstinately for the Levantine trade.
Before launching a single galley, the Florentines had already established many houses and banks in every place, and contrived to introduce their merchandise in all the principal Eastern ports. We not only find them doing a vast business at Tana with great energy and enterprise, but also pushing on thence to far remoter regions. Pegolotti minutely describes the route followed by them, their manner of travelling, and the time employed in it. They journeyed, he tells us, through Astracan (Gittarchan), to Saracanco (Sarai) on the Volga, thence by Organci in Zagataio,[360] not far from the Caspian Sea, and crossing Asia by many places of which the names cannot be identified with any known at this day, they penetrated as far as Gambaluc, or Gamulecco, the chief city of China, that is to say, the city of Pekin. They employed eight or ten months to go from Tana to Pekin. Thus a period of almost two years was required for the journey there and back and time of sojourn, and when we also calculate the voyage from Porto Pisano or Leghorn to Tana and back, it is plain that a Florentine bound for Pekin could rarely count on returning home within three years.[361]
During the growth of this Eastern trade, carried on with such indomitable energy, amid difficulties of all kinds, the Florentines were always aiming at the command of the seaboard, and never losing sight of the necessity of having a port of their own. And when, by the capture of Pisa in 1406, that long-desired object was finally attained, a new era began for their commerce. All their business concerns became most rapidly extended, and the first half of the fifteenth century was the time in which their greatest wealth was accumulated. In 1421 they appointed "consuls of the sea," who were ordered to immediately build two wide-beamed merchant galleons (galee di mercato) and six narrow galleys, and to continue to launch one of either kind every six months, for the which purpose a monthly sum of one hundred florins was assigned from the revenues of the Pisan university. Accordingly Florence soon possessed a merchant fleet of eleven stout galleons and fifteen narrow galleys continually employed in the Eastern traffic by command of the Republic. All these vessels had strict sailing orders as to the course to be taken, the ports to be touched at, and the freight to be carried. Announcements of their departure and arrival were hung in the arcades of the New Market; and the vessels being chartered by private individuals, the government was enabled to keep the Eastern routes open to all, without any outlay. In 1422, when, as already related, the "galley florin" was coined, the Florentines, at the instance of one Taddeo Cenni, a merchant long established in Venice, despatched two envoys to Egypt to obtain the right of having a church, warehouses, dockmen, and porters of their own at Alexandria. The negotiation proving successful, in 1423 they instructed the "consuls of the sea" to appoint extra consuls at every port where their presence might be useful to Florentine trade. Some had been established for more or less time at Constantinople, Pera (1339), and London (1402); but from this moment we find them at Alexandria, Majorca, Naples, and other ports in all directions. These consuls had offices and clerks of their own, interpreters, men-at-arms, and places of worship; and all their expenses, salary included, were deducted from the freight dues received by them.[362]
To fully understand to what extent and in what way the Florentines profited by the new conditions resulting from their conquest of Pisa, it is necessary to point out that this event not only marks the time of their highest commercial prosperity, and the beginning of their navy and merchant fleet, but also indicates the date of their first attention to nautical and astronomical studies. We gain another proof of their great intelligence and untiring activity when we see that their first efforts in a branch of learning of which they had no previous knowledge enabled them to initiate the era of scientific triumphs, opening with Paolo Toscanelli, the first inspirer of Christopher Columbus, continued by Amerigo Vespucci, and closing with Galileo Galilei and his imperishable school.