Medieval and modern times : an introduction to the history of western Europe form the dissolution of the Roman empire to the present time . entury, which led to the exploration byEuropeans of the whole globe, most of which was entirelyunknown to the Venetian merchants and those who carried onthe trade of the Hanseatic League. The Greeks and Romansknew litde about the world beyond southern Europe, northernAfrica, and western Asia, and much that they knew was for-gotten during the Middle Ages. The Crusades took manyEuropeans as far east as Egypt and Syria. About 1260 twoVenetian merchants, the P
Medieval and modern times : an introduction to the history of western Europe form the dissolution of the Roman empire to the present time . entury, which led to the exploration byEuropeans of the whole globe, most of which was entirelyunknown to the Venetian merchants and those who carried onthe trade of the Hanseatic League. The Greeks and Romansknew litde about the world beyond southern Europe, northernAfrica, and western Asia, and much that they knew was for-gotten during the Middle Ages. The Crusades took manyEuropeans as far east as Egypt and Syria. About 1260 twoVenetian merchants, the Polo brothers, visited China and werekindly received at Pekin by the emperor of the Mongols. OnMarco Polo a second joumey they were accompanied by Marco Polo, theson of one of the brothers. When they got safely back toVenice in 1295, after a journey of twenty years, Marco gavean account of his experiences which filled his readers withwonder. Nothing stimulated the interest of the West more thanhis fabulous description of the abundance of gold in Zipangu(Japan) ^ and of the spice markets of the Moluccas and Ceylon. 1 See below, p. 233 234 Medieval and Modern Titnes The dis-coveries ofthe Portu-guese in thefourteenthand fifteenthcenturies The spicetrade About the year 1318 Venice and Genoa opened up direct. communication by sea with the towns of the fleets, which touched at the port of Lisbon, aroused thecommercial enterprise of the Portuguese, who soon began toundertake extended maritime expeditions. By the middle of thefourteenth century they had discovered the Canary Islands,Madeira, and the Azores. Before this time no one had ven-tured along the coast of Africa beyond the arid region ofSahara. The country was forbidding, there were no ports,and mariners were, moreover, discouraged by the general beliefthat the torrid region was uninhabitable. In 1445, however,some adventurous sailors came within sight of a headland beyondthe desert and, struck by its lu
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