The assemblies of the people were usually held on the Saturday, and were at first called markets; but afterwards the rarer and more important ones, which were held annually and for several consecutive days, were termed fairs, from the Latin word feria, because they always took place on the feast of some saint. Many rights and privileges were granted at an early period to the merchants who exhibited wares at these yearly gatherings; for without such inducements few cared to undertake a journey with a part, or perhaps the whole, of their earthly substance about them, along roads and across ferries beset by robber-nobles, who levied toll from passers-by and sometimes seized goods and persons for their own use.
The Venetians began earlier to sail on distant seas, and maintained themselves longer on the water, than did the natives of any other parts of Italy. Cassiodorus represents them in the sixth century as occupied solely in salt-works, from which they derived their only profit; but in course of time they issued from their lagoons to become the most industrious and venturesome traffickers in the world. At the beginning of the ninth century they had already introduced into Italy
some of the delicacies of the East, but drew odium on themselves for conniving with pirates and men-stealers to capture people and sell them into slavery in distant quarters of Europe and Asia. On the opposite shore of Italy the inhabitants of Amalfi showed themselves the most successful navigators during the early middle ages, trading with Sicily and Tarentum, and even with Egypt, Syria, and Constantinople. Their city is described by the poet-historian William of Apulia, in the eleventh century, as the great mart for Eastern goods, and the enterprise of its sailors as extending to all the ports of the Mediterranean. Flavio Gioja, a citizen of Amalfi, if he did not invent the mariner’s compass, as is somewhere asserted, certainly improved it about the year 1302, either by its mode of suspension or by the attachment of the card to the needle itself. This discovery gave such an impulse to navigation that what had been for ages hardly more than a skilful art became at once a science, and vessels no longer crept along the shore or slipped from island to island, but attempted “the vasty deep” and crossed over the ocean to the New World.
Another rich emporium at an early period, on the same side of Italy, was Pisa. The city was four or five miles from the sea, but had a port formed by a natural bay to the southward of the old mouth of the Arno at a place called Calambrone. The Pisans at first traded principally with Sicily and Africa. They fitted out expeditions against the Saracens,[31] seized several islands
in the Mediterranean, and with both land-troops and seamen took an important part in the first Crusade, being careful, before returning from the East, to establish factories at Antioch and Constantinople. They also sent fleets to humble the Mohammedan cities of Northern Africa. Through commercial jealousy and political reasons they became involved in bitter wars with the Genoese for the possession of Corsica, and with the Amalfitans, who had sided against the emperor. The Pisans, as auxiliaries of the Emperor Lothaire, sent a strong squadron to Amalfi, which was held by the Normans, and, after a rigorous blockade, took it by storm in 1137. It was on this occasion that a copy of the long-lost Pandects of Justinian was found, which is said to be the original from which all subsequent copies in Italy were made, thus reviving the study of Roman law. It was taken from its captors by the Florentines in 1411, and is now preserved in the Laurentian Library at Florence. The monk Donizo, in his metrical life of the Countess Matilda, being annoyed that the mother of the countess should have been buried in Pisa, describes the city somewhat contemptuously as a flourishing emporium whose port was filled with large ships and frequented by many different races of people, even by swarthy Moors.
To the north of Pisa rose her haughty rival, Genoa, surnamed the Superb from her pride and magnificent natural position. After four sanguinary wars with the Pisans, the Genoese swept their fleets from the sea, destroyed their port, and ruined their foreign commerce. The city never recovered from that blow, and the population, which once exceeded 100,000, has fallen to a fifth of that number.
The Genoese had at first been the allies of the Pisans, and united with them to drive the Saracens out of several important islands. They also ravaged the coast of Northern Africa in the eleventh century, and, taking part in the first Crusade, obtained settlements on the shore of Palestine, particularly at Acre. Owing to their secure position at home and their foothold in the East and the islands of the West, their city became one of the two great maritime powers of Italy and the only noteworthy rival of Venice. The power of the Genoese and Venetians was immensely increased by the Crusades, and at one time so feared were they in the Levant that they were able to draw pensions and exact tribute from the pusillanimous emperor at Constantinople. The Venetians were especially favored by Alexius Comnenus, through whom they acquired convenient establishments along the Bosphorus and at Durazzo in Albania. Their doge was honored with the pompous title of Protosebaste. In the meanwhile intestine disturbances and wars with neighboring republics had reduced several of those cities which had lately been most flourishing, and none could compete successfully in the fourteenth century with Venice and Genoa, to which the foreign trade of Italy was left, and to whose marts the produce of the Levant and the countries bordering on the lower Mediterranean was brought, and either there or at the great cities of the interior exchanged for domestic manufactures and the industries of Central and Northern Europe. The carrying trade was almost exclusively their own, but the home or inland business was shared by many other cities—principally by Bologna, Ferrara, Florence, Lucca, and Milan.
At that period the Atlantic ocean and northern coasts of Europe were but rarely navigated by Italian merchants. The Venetians alone despatched annually a large fleet, which—taking its name, the Flanders fleet, from its destination—carried on an enterprising and lucrative traffic with the Low Countries, and, in connection with the Hanseatic League or directly, spread over England, Scotland, and the nations lying on the North Sea and the Baltic, the spices, gums, silks, pearls, diamonds, and numerous other articles of oriental origin which they had procured from the Levant and further Indies. The Genoese furnished the same things to the French, Spaniards, and Moors of Andalusia; but Portugal was served by their rivals.
A maritime power had risen before this time which disputed with the Genoese and Venetians the ascendency on the Mediterranean. This was Barcelona, whose sailors were among the best on the sea, and whose merchants were largely engaged in commerce. Many bold encounters took place between the Catalans and Italians, through jealousies of trade, but the former finally succumbed.
The products of the more distant East reached Italy in Genoese and Venetian ships, through Armenian merchants at Trebizond, and through Arabs by way of Alexandria and Damascus. Those of the north, so necessary for a seafaring people, were brought from the mouth of the Don, the merchandise being floated down that great river in boats from the interior. The Mongols were the masters of all the region thereabouts; but the insinuating Italians, aware of the interest of this branch of commerce, played upon their barbarous pride with so