1434 by Gavin Menzies Read Free Book Online Page B

the Western Rosetta Channel leading to Alexandria, linked to the Nile by a canal. In Alexandria the Mamluk authorities insisted all passing ships deposited maps they had used for their journey. These were copied and the originals returned. That done, the Chinese drifted into the Mediterranean.

7
TO THE VENICE OF NICCOLÒDA CONTI
    I n the Middle Ages, sea traffic between Egypt and Europe was determined by the geography of the Mediterranean. 1 Surrounding the Mediterranean are mountain ranges—in the southwest the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, then moving clockwise, the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain; the Pyrenees; the French, Italian, and Yugoslav Alps; the mountains of Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey; and finally the Anti-Lebanon Range between Lebanon and Syria.
    These mountains dictate the Mediterranean climate. Between the September and March equinoxes, a high anticyclone builds over the Azores, allowing Atlantic depressions to rush through the Strait of Gibraltar and then scurry west to east, the length of the Mediterranean. As these warm, wet winds reach the cold mountains on the coast, they create blustery winds and rain. The mistral in France is perhaps the best-known, but every Mediterranean region has gusty wet squalls in winter that make sea voyages hazardous.
    The whole Mediterranean shares a common climate; wet winter is followed by calm, hot summer. As regular as clockwork, the sun moves north each year, carrying with it the anticyclone over the Azores until it stops opposite the Strait of Gibraltar. The wet Atlantic winds are now shut out of the Mediterranean, and the air is still. By July, the whole sea is flat as glass, without a breath of wind. Dry Saharan air marches north, the skies clear to infinity, and searing hot summerwinds—typically the terral in southern Spain—blow across the coast. The three major seafaring powers of Europe—Aragon, Genoa, and Venice, exploited this geography to conduct trade with the east through Alexandria and Cairo. Venice and Genoa were entirely dependent on trade for their huge wealth. The Venetian ceremony of La Sensa, which takes place on Ascension Day, suggests just how passionately Venice embraced the sea. 2
    The doge embarks at Saint Mark’s in his great gilded ship, the Bucintoro. Perched on a golden throne, he sits high above a crew of 150 oarsmen, who row across the lagoon to the Lido. The doge’s golden robes are embroidered with the Lion of Saint Mark’s and he wears a diamond-studded cap, la renza —the same hat worn by Chinese admirals in the early Ming. Silk standards flutter above his head. After a short service, the doge casts a golden ring into the lagoon. As it sinks through the azure sea he proclaims: “Mare, noi ti sposiano in segne del nostro vero perpetua dominio” (O Sea, we wed thee in sign of our true and everlasting dominion).
    By 1434, the marriage ritual was already more than four hundred years old. It originated when Pope Alexander III gave the doge a ring and told him: “Receive this ring as the symbol of your empire over the sea…. You and your successors be married to her each year, so that succeeding generations may know that the sea is yours, and belongeth to you as a spouse to a husband.” 3
    Venice’s wealth was rooted in her capture of Byzantium. In 1204 a Crusade had been launched to take Jerusalem. Financing for the Crusade was hard to come by until the Doge Dandolo offered support—provided the Crusaders would capture Zara (contemporary Zadar in Croatia) on their way south. The Crusaders agreed, becoming mercenaries in the process.
    The temptation to capture Byzantium for Venice, as well, proved irresistible to the Crusaders, who initiated the sack of the Orthodox Christian capital by another Christian state. 4 When Byzantium fell, her empire was divided amongst the victors. Venetian spoils, exemplified by the four bronze horses and marble on the façade of Saint Mark’s