ABSTRACT
The major Italian maritime power, the Venetian Republic, maintained its medieval practice of restricting trade between Venice and the Eastern Mediterranean to the two upper classes of Venetian society, the nobility and the original citizens (cittadini originam), who between them comprised around ten percent of the population of the city. The establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal four years later, in 1536, was to have a major impact on the course of events, for it induced many New Christians – the term initially used to refer to the actual converts came also to be applied to their descendants – to leave, either because they were secretly judaizing or were afraid that they might falsely be accused of so doing. In 1570, after the outbreak of war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, all Turks, Levantine Jews, and other Ottoman subjects in Venice were detained along with their merchandise.
