Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/587

 under whom the people of that rich and sunny land were held in subjection until the sympathies of the free states of Europe and the arms of a near and powerful nation were able in our own time to restore Italy to independence.

Reference has already been made to Amalfi, Bologna, and Ancona, and to the part they took during the Middle Ages in the commerce of the Mediterranean. Though their trade, and that of Naples, Sicily, and Milan, was insignificant when compared to the trade of Venice, Pisa, Genoa, or Florence, it contributed essentially to the employment of merchant shipping. Naples and Sicily, for instance, furnished large quantities of grain, oil, cotton, sugar, and wines, requiring export to distant parts where they were in demand. Bologna was famous for its cloths and silks; Florence received a considerable portion of its Indian produce through Ancona; and Milan, towards the close of the Middle Ages, was an inland entrepôt of no mean commercial importance. Before the close of the fifteenth century the maritime commerce of Spain and Portugal had risen to a position second only to that of Venice, which was destined soon to be eclipsed by the still greater maritime discoveries of that period. But before taking a glance at the progress of these nations during the Middle Ages, or referring to those interesting episodes in their history, whereby they became the instruments of discovering America, and