=309. Relative decline of Venetian commerce.=—From this time the energies of Venice were absorbed in an unequal conflict with the Turks in the eastern Mediterranean. Venice had prepared herself in a measure for the Turkish advance, by removing her chief staple from Alexandria to the island of Cyprus, but this too was lost in 1571 after a heroic defense. The battle of Lepanto and others following it were empty victories; on the east coast of the Mediterranean Venice had to surrender, and consent to trade on the terms which the Turks imposed. Trade was still maintained. Aleppo became in the later period a market in which the Venetians had great establishments, drawing thence the wares that came by caravan from Bagdad, Persia, and India. Venice herself became constantly more beautiful, and was in the seventeenth century, as now, one of the show-places of Europe, where foreign visitors flocked by thousands. Her manufactures of glass and silk and many artistic luxuries remained unexcelled. It is, however, by quantity and not quality that we measure the greatness of a state’s commerce; Venetian trade scarcely entitled the city to a place even in the second rank of commercial states, when it finally lost its independence in 1797. =310. Decline of commerce and industry in Tuscany.=—The history of decline in other parts of Italy must be dismissed more briefly. Florence, which at the beginning of this period ranked next to Venice in manufactures, trade, and banking, found the markets of northern Europe closed by the Dutch revolution, by the religious wars and by the tariff barriers of the protective policy. Bankruptcy became frequent in the latter part of the sixteenth century. The woolen manufactures of Florence, which, it is said, employed 30,000 men in 1338, employed 971 in 1767. Hampered not only by weakness abroad but also by restrictive legislation at home, the Tuscan people declined to poverty and indolence. Prosperity was to be found in only one spot, the city of Leghorn, which had been made a free port; but this city prospered just because it had been placed on the outside of Tuscany, and the riches amassed there went largely into the hands of foreign residents. =311. Decline in other parts of Italy.=—South of Tuscany conditions grew still worse. The Roman territory had never been of commercial importance, and the Neapolitan territory lost in this period what prosperity it had once had. Under a Spanish government, which was almost incredibly bad, the national resources were wasted abroad while Turks ravaged the coast, kidnapping slaves, at home; and the producing classes were crushed by heavy and unfair taxes.