Genoese and Florentine capital dominated Europe’s backward regions.

Evidence

The commercial activity of the sea, concentrating more and more in the West, tipped the balance, spelling the inexorable decline of the eastern basin which had for so long been the source of wealth. The shift brought little joy to Milan, but brought Genoa and Florence to prominence. Genoa for her share, and a lion’s share it was, acquired the Spanish and American trade… . In the second half of the century, Genoa took the lead… . Foreign catchment was the most important, and it was by this means that Florence and Genoa gained control of all the economically backward regions, whether in Eastern Europe or southern Italy, in the Balkans, France, or the Iberian peninsula. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1822

Categorization

• XREF: This is the Atlantic-seaboard versus Mediterranean shift Robinson argues elsewhere; ties directly to his core thesis that European capitalism displaced the old Mediterranean mercantile order. — connects to: Neoplatonic natural magic was an aristocratic worldview tied to Florentine elite status defenses — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 455