ABSTRACT
Ever since Phoenician times, the Mediterranean has been a hospitable sea, allowing easy contact between the cities of the Greek world dotted around its shores. The steep slopes on its northern coasts combined with the difficulties of transportation by land, notwithstanding the extensive network of Roman roads, made the Mediterranean the most effective link between these coastal cities. The Middle Ages inherited innumerable maritime traditions from Greek and Roman times, this great wealth of experience and observations mainly relating to ways of building ships and the practice of navigation by estimation. Extensive fishing throughout the Mediterranean, the salt trade in Venice and compulsive wars against the Saracens led to major advances in seamanship and, from the tenth century onwards, Italian cities found themselves in the vanguard of a revival in seafaring. This is how Italy came to be one of the most powerful countries in the region. Italy seemed to be the source of everything: not only was she responsible for the major inventions, but she then spread the use of these inventions, firstly in the direction of the western basin of the Mediterranean, and later, from the thirteenth century onwards, towards the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal.
