ABSTRACT
Pepper Prices 591 chants were able to sell in Venice at 50 what they had bought in Alexandria at 40.3 A forecast for 1464 of pepper prices under various circumstances reckoned as determining factors not only the supply on hand in Venice and the cargoes and arrival dates of the galleys but also the prices in Damascus and Alexandria.4 Low pepper prices at Venice are in themselves ground for assuming low pepper prices at Alexandria unless there are definite figures to the contrary. Mere adjectives can be misleading, for a merchant or an ambassador may complain of 50 as a "high" price because the price was 40 a few years earlier, even if 50 appears normal or low compared to the average over some decades. I do not know of any extensive series of market prices, or bazaar prices, for pepper at Alexandria. Prices the Venetians paid in buying from the Mamluk Soldan of Egypt are frequently given, to be sure, but it is a mistake to treat them as indicative of the cost of pepper.5 The Venetians bought from the Soldan in the latter part of the fifteenth century only about one-tenth of the total pepper they shipped directly from Alexandria to Venice. They shipped considerably more than 1,000,000 pounds a year;6 they bought from the Soldan only about 100,000 pounds, namely, 210 sporta, for which they paid 80 to 100 ducats per sporta.1
