ABSTRACT
Marco Polo declares he heard from a customs official that every single day 43 cartloads of pepper were brought to the city, each cartload containing 223 lb. Pepper, and other spices such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg, were the oriental products most essential to medieval Europe. Aside from spices, which were a virtual necessity, Far Eastern luxury items were also appreciated in Europe, and of these silk was the most significant. Far Eastern silks continued to be brought to Europe, mainly by the overland route organised by Persian middlemen, until the development of direct European trade via sea routes in the sixteenth century. One of the most tantalising monuments to Italian trade with China is the tombstone of a young Italian girl found in Yangzhou in 1951. In the context of trade with the East, and Venetian trade in particular, the Polos were well placed.
