Jan-Maat’s Reviews > De Middellandse Zee en de mediterrane wereld ten tijde van Philips II. Deel I > Status Update

Sugar required firewood and manpower (=slave labour) which seems to have limited the places where it was grown.
Other islands also specialised in a few products/monoculture:crete, corfu -wine, Djerba - oliveoil, ibiza-salt, elba-iron, naxos- salt and wine,

Spread of sugar India-Egypt-Cyprus-Sicily (11thcentury)-Maderia-the Azores-Canary Islands-cape verde islands- the Americas

Sardinia, Catalan influence, in Braudel's life time Catalan was still dpomen on Alghero. Sardinia was apparently the first cheese exporter in the Mediterranean region, selling to Naples, Genoa, and Marseilles among others.

Timber for Philip II's armada came from Poland, while in Venice timber eas being delivered from Holland, the straits of Gibraltar, the Basque country, the Black sea region, patmos, and Constantinople. Since most of thise places are not obvious places to get timber from they were presumably re-exports originally from somewhere else.

Maps of the Adriatic showing shipwrecks to and from Venice (p118), and piracy (p.119) between 1592-1609. The Venetian lagoon looked so crowded with shipwrecks that I am surprised that anyone could dail in ir out -presumably the wrecks were swifted salvaged and cleared? Just as I was thinking that insurance costs must have been through the roof i saw tgat the source was a book about insurance.

Pattern of Arab and later Turkish conquests shaped, says Braudel, by the capabilities of the Camel. Therefore a tendendency to go round and avoid mountainous or highland regions and to keep to the plains.

Successful agricultural land improvement projects in the 16th century were all in the vicinity of large cities; Venice, Milan, Algiers and so on.

Iirragated areas around towns in Castile were used for agriculture. When Philip II wanted to extend the Prado he could only do so by having the neighbiuring gardens, orchards, and urban vineyards bought up and cleared.

A venician traveller on the coast of Syria on 1553 remarked that people sprinkled snow over their food as in venice people did with sugar. Stroking detail in the trade in snow and snow melt. Traded into Malta and Cairo, Rome and Spain in the 16th century