This article aims to make revisions of a widely accepted opinion
according to which the discovery of the Cape route to India has lead
to the decline of the Mediterranean trade, particularly spice trade, so
that the centers of Western trade have shifted from the Mediterranean
towards the Atlantic during the sixteenth century.
First of all, the Portuguese route to India did not strike an
immediate death blow to the Mediterranean spice trade in the sixteenth
century as some historians pointed out. In addition, although spices
were regarded as one of the most important goods in the Mediterranean
trade, the trade of other merchandises including cotton, grain, alum,
and raw materials for textile industry, represented a enormous volume
of business. Therefore the decrease or crisis in spice trade caused by
the Portuguese route to India does not mean the decline of the whole
Mediterranean trade.
Two maritime republics of Venice and Genoa that had played a
major role in the Mediterranean trade in the Later Middle Ages have
faced several challenges, particularly the opening of the Cape route to India by Portugal and the expansion of Ottoman Turks in the
Levant. However Genoa has adapted herself to new situations by
recovering her losses in the East with increasing commercial activities
in Spanish-Portuguese peninsula and by playing a leading role in
international banking and finance. Venice developed new fields of
economic enterprise, particularly textile industry, retaining her traditional
activities of transportation and commercial trade. Venetian woollen and
silk industries made a phenomenal expansion during the sixteenth
century.
Lastly, ships of the Atlantic strove to penetrate and intrude into
the Mediterranean sea since the late fifteenth century, which meant
that new opportunities resulted from economic expansion in the
Mediterranean. English trade with the Mediterranean saw a remarkable
success since the Levant company was founded in 1581. More and
more English ships sailed into the Mediterranean sea and finally came
to get a monopolistic position in the Mediterranean transportation.
In conclusion, it did not happen that the Mediterranean trade has
declined after the opening of the Portuguese route to India. The
mediterranean continued to function as an important space of economic
and cultural exchanges during the sixteenth century as for previous
centuries.