[BLANK AUDIO] [BLANK AUDIO] My name is Jaume Dant�. I am a lecturer in modern history at the University of Barcelona. We are at the Barcelona Royal Shipyard to talk about the subject of the Mediterranean, a network of ports. The Mediterranean has been described as a world unto itself, the cradle of civilisations, as a meeting point for east and west, north and south. So, there are multiple possible views of a cultural and economic framework, which have a lot in common, but also a lot of differences. This is one if its characteristics. One of these views comes from trade relations that were established through an extensive network of ports, which changed over time, but have also enjoyed a great deal of continuity from antiquity until the present day. Private and community interests converge in commercial pursuits. And for this reason trade activities have been the motive for complicities and conflicts capable of overcoming divisions as great as the one that has separated Christianity and Islam throughout the Modern Age. Despite limiting our analysis to a single aspect as far-reaching and important as everything related to maritime trade, as Fernando Braudel points out in his work, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World of the Age of Philip II, the Mediterranean is made up of all of the life of all the regions surrounding it. He said that the Mediterranean is the sea of olive groves and vineyards, as well as the sea of narrow longships with oars and rounded merchant vessels, and its history cannot be separated from the history of the lands that surround it, like the clay that sticks to the hands of the artisan that moulds it. At the end of the 15th century, a fundamental change took place that affected the hegemony that the Mediterranean world had enjoyed up to that point. The opening of the Atlantic route, both the Hispanic route to the Americas and the Portuguese route to India, led to the progressive movement of trade activities and European economic interests to a much larger arena, the transatlantic. This led to a world economy which did not entail the end of the previous one, but rather an adaptation to new circumstances that promoted relations between the two worlds. Among the changes, as an example, is what we see in the spice trade, and the most important of these spices was pepper. Until the 16th century it came from India by way of the Near East, by land from the Persian Gulf, to Alepo and Tripoli, or by the Red Sea to Cairo and Alexandria. The port of Valencia was the principal destination, from which it was distributed throughout Europe. After the Portuguese arrived in India pepper also arrived in Lisbon and later in Antwerp. This Atlantic pepper created competition that led to the Venetian crisis. Conversely, and despite the important role played by trade with the Americas, the conflicts of the Spanish monarchy with England and the Netherlands in the last quarter of the 16th century led to the re-opening of the Barcelona-Genoa axis, in which not only was Castilian wool traded, but also silver from India that would later go to central Europe. Activity in the city of Barcelona increased to levels not seen since the 15th century, and its products began to arrive in Alexandria. The most active ports in the Mediterranean network of the 15th century were without a doubt the Italian ones such as Venice and Genoa, controlling the movement of vessels in the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas. Venice did not succumb to competition in the spice market, and recovered a large part of its business in the third decade of the 16th century. Conflicts with the Turks occasionally limited its ability to act, which benefited other ports such as Marseilles and Ragusa. Marseilles, which previously was a centre for re-export in the Venetian network, started trading directly with the Near East, supplying a large part of the French pepper market. Genoa was one of the centres with the greatest economic potential, due to its dual role as a major manufacturer, like Venice and Florence, but at the same time it had trade and financial capacity. It was involved in the spice trade, in the raw materials market, and in Castilian wool, which was collected from the ports of Malaga, Cartagena and Alicante, with silk noil from Valencia and leather from Algiers. Marseilles was the port that channelled French trade to the Mediterranean by way of the Rhone Valley. It became an important hub for commerce with Levant, Tripoli and Alexandria and with the Barbary Coast. Re-export was also intensified in order to have American silver on hand for transactions with Muslims. The ensuing conflicts between the Hispanic and French monarchies in the 17th century led to several prohibitions in their relations, weakening the role played by the port of Marseilles and boosting the competition of others like Livorno, Genoa, and Messina, and to a lesser extent Gibraltar, under English rule in the 18th century. The city and port of Seville was a meeting point for the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds in the 16th century and until the second half of the 17th century, when C�diz took over the role. Since Mediterranean-Atlantic trade was subject to the Hispanic monopoly, American demand that could not be met by the city�s production capacity attracted European merchants and products, and Indian silver was obtained in return. While previously Seville and C�diz had participated as intermediaries for the Genoese and Florentine galleys that sailed the European Atlantic, when the Indian route was established, these Andalusian cities and ports became the home of immigrant groups consisting of not only Genoese, but also Flemish, Dutch, French, English and German, so they could take advantage of this new route much more effectively. The indisputable attraction of the Atlantic also led to indirect contributions from other ports on the eastern Iberian Peninsula although they maintained other relationships as well. So ports like Malaga, Cartagena, Mallorca, Alicante, Valencia and Barcelona, and also Seville, despite royal prohibitions with the exception of C�diz, had significant commerce with the Muslims from Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli that intensified after 1580. Importing north African cereals was critical throughout the Modern Age. The Mediterranean-Atlantic relationship, which was present in any case, became even more important after the second half of the 16th century due to a shortage of grain in Mediterranean areas. This situation led to the greater involvement of the English and Dutch, who brought wheat from the Baltic as well as other goods, such as fish from the North Sea and hides from Poland and Russia. This also led to increased exchanges between northern and southern Europe. It was clear that the Mediterranean was not a world unto itself. And the network connected not only the major ports, but extended to most of the populations on both sides of the sea, where the lives of the continents surrounding it converged. In each of the ports, the footprints of the people, products and far-flung cultures could be found. [BLANK AUDIO] [BLANK AUDIO] [BLANK AUDIO]
