Page 370 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

IMAGES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Spices and World Trade
PEPPER, CINNAMON, NUTMEG, and other spices from the East had long been a part of European life. The top right illustration from a fifteenth-century French manuscript shows the harvesting of pepper in Malabar, India. Europeans’ interest in finding a direct route to the Spice Islands intensified after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, causing a thirtyfold increase in the price for pepper. As evident from the number of available spices in the
spice seller’s shop in the Venetian fresco on the bottom right, Venetians played a dominant role in the spice trade via Constantinople. However, it was Vasco da Gama’s success in locating a route to the East by sailing around Africa that shifted much of the control over the spice trade into Portuguese hands. Following the establishment in 1518 of a fort in Ceylon, the center of cinnamon production, the Portuguese were able to dominate Europe’s cinnamon trade. The illustration to the left
shows a portrait of da Gama from around 1600. The artist depicted the explorer holding a large stick of cinnamon in his right hand, an indication of the significance of the spice to his legacy and its role in his expeditions. Without the desire for spices, men such as da Gama and Christopher Columbus might not have ventured around Africa or across the Atlantic Ocean, thereby opening and forever altering European trade.
332 Chapter 14 Europe and the World: New Encounters, 1500–1800
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Marine Museum, Lisbon//Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY
Castello d’Issogne, Val d’Aosta, Italy//Scala/Art Resource, NY Bibliothe`que Nationale, Paris/Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library