ABSTRACT
Throughout much of the Middle Ages Venice’s most formidable and persistent rival was her fellow maritime republic of Genoa. Genoese merchants disputed her commercial ambitions; Genoese fleets commanded by some of the most illustrious names in the long history of galley warfare challenged her naval aspirations and, indeed, for a time threatened her very existence. Genoese merchants sold spices in Nurnburg and bought, like the Venetians, textiles in northern Europe. Genoese ships worked in not only the great traffic between Europe and the Middle East, but also from Byzantium to Egypt, or carried African grain and slaves to Alexandria so, to the disgust of the pious, linking and sustaining the two halves of Islam. Genoese merchants were establishing an ever-tightening grip on the economies of Iberia, dominating the sugar trade of the new Portuguese Atlantic islands, and monopolizing alike the Castilian mercury mines at Almaden and the export of fruit from Moorish Granada.
