In 2021 Venice celebrates 1600 years since its legendary birth. The early descriptions of the lagoon depict its inhabitants engaged in fishing, salt gathering, and trade. At first limited to a circumscribed area, later expanded to the Adriatic Sea and then to the Mediterranean, trade has marked the space of the city and the attitude of its inhabitants. From the earliest By Luciano Pezzolo© Euihwan Cho41stages of their commercial expansion, the Venetians had to deal with products and peoples from the Levant and the Orient, which at the time was far more developed than Europe.

In the second half of the eighth centuryA.D., Iraq and the Persian Gulf experienced rapid economic growth. They stood at the center of an empire and economy which sprawled from the Atlantic eastward toward India and beyond. Under the Abbasid caliphate, beginning about 750 C.E., the Middle East began a period of substantial economic growth and scientific and cultural achievements. In the later eighth and early ninth century, the Persian Gulf port of Siraf took off. The presence of Chinese and Iraqi ceramics in its ruins testifies to the ambit of its commerce. In the ninth century, Iraq became the empire’s economic as well as political center of gravity.

From the family of Marco Polo to the lesser unknown merchants of the 18th century, the Venetians showed a remarkable familiarity with the Eastern world. For them, India began at the gates of Aleppo and Damascus, extended along the caravan route to Baghdad and the river route that led to Basra, and then went on to Sindi,Diu, Goa, Chaul. It is, in short, the India of the old spice route, well known to the Venetians and for which there was no need to delay in describing it. They had long been accustomed to that world and its inhabitants.

To read more, download our webzine Silkroadia Vol.3 No.2Luciano “City of Venice Enriched With History Marks 1600th Anniversary” by Professor Pezzolo (A Professor of Early Modern History department at the Ca’ Foscari university of Venice, Italy).