Venetian and Genoese wealth depended on trade with Muslim powers.

Evidence

Merchants regularly paid fines for breaking every law that concerned their business, and went on as before. The wealth of Venice and Genoa was made in trade with the infidels of Syria and Egypt despite papal prohibition. Prior to the 14th century, it has been said, men ‘could hardly imagine the merchant’s strongbox without picturing the devil squatting on the lid.’ Whether the merchant too saw the devil as he counted coins, whether he lived with a sense of guilt, is hard to assess. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1764

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the narrative of a unified Christian Europe versus Islam; merchant capitalism already crossed that line, relevant to Robinson’s account of racial capitalism.