page_title: Indian Ocean trade
section_title: Portuguese period
hierarchical_section_title: Indian Ocean trade / European colonial exploration period / Portuguese period
caption_attribution_description: This famous canvas, probably painted in the workshop of Gentile Bellini (d. 1507), depicts the Mamluk governor of Damascus granting and audience to some Venetians at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The very exact description of the Mosque of the Omeyyads and Damascan houses in the picture’s background leads us to suppose that the workshop worked on different studies. The emblems depicted – a cup and two gunpowder vessels – belonged to the sultan Qâ’it Bay. But the date the work was finished: 1511, inscribed under the cavalier, situates this embassy under the reign of Qânsûh al-Ghawrî. The characters appear to be the governor Sîbay, and on the Venetian side Nicolò Malipiero, consul to Damascus that year, or perhaps Pietro Zen, whose face we know from one of Titian’s protraits. This considerable character, who fell to disgrace with the Mamluks because he was involved with the Persian shah Ismâ‘îl, had handed in his accreditation letters in 1508. This is perhaps the moment which is set in the painting. (Press "edit" to read more) https://www.qantara-med.org/public/show_document.php?do_id=1156&amp;lang=en
context_page_description: Indian Ocean Trade has been a key factor in East–West exchanges throughout history. Long distance trade in dhows and proas made it a dynamic zone of interaction between peoples, cultures, and civilizations stretching from Java in the East to Zanzibar and Mombasa in the West. Cities and states on the Indian Ocean rim focused on both the sea and the land.
context_section_description: The Portuguese under Vasco da Gama discovered a naval route to the Indian Ocean through the southern tip of Africa in 1497–98. Initially, the Portuguese were mainly active in Calicut, but the northern region of Gujarat was even more important for trade, and an essential intermediary in east–west trade.
  Venetian interests were directly threatened as the traditional trade patterns were eliminated and the Portuguese became able to undersell the Venetians in the spice trade in Europe. Venice broke diplomatic relations with Portugal and started to look at ways to counter its intervention in the Indian Ocean, sending an ambassador to the Egyptian court. Venice negotiated for Egyptian tariffs to be lowered to facilitate competition with the Portuguese, and suggested that "rapid and secret remedies" be taken against the Portuguese. The Mamluks sent a fleet in 1507 under Amir Husain Al-Kurdi, which would fight in the Battle of Chaul.
  The Ottomans tried to challenge Portugal's hegemony in the Persian Gulf region by sending an armada against the Portuguese under Ali Bey in 1581. They were supported in this endeavor by the chiefs of several local principalities and port towns such as Muscat, Gwadar, and Pasni. However, the Portuguese successfully intercepted and destroyed the Ottoman Armada. Subsequently, the Portuguese attacked Gwadar and Pasni on the Mekran Coast and sacked them in retaliation for providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
caption: Reception of Venetian ambassadors in Damascus in the time of Qaitbay.
exif: {}