[32] See the price averages, above, p. 680, note 12. The absence of marked influence upon prices exerted by the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks deserves special attention, since that conquest has been imagined to have closed the routes of the Levant to such an extent as to force the western Europeans to seek now routes. If this had been the case the price of spices must have shown a marked increase between 1453 and 1498, which it did not do. Nor was it the agencies engaged in the Mediterranean trade which sought the new routes, but Atlantic powers in no relation with the Turks. It is not even certain that the desire to profit from a more direct spice trade emerged in the consciousness of western Europeans before 1490 (see H. Vignaud, _Histoire critique de la Grande Entreprise de Christophe Colomb_, Paris, 1911, i. 213). The entire hypothesis seems to be a legend of recent date, developed out of the catastrophic theory which made the fall of Constantinople an event of primary importance in the history of mankind. The great discoveries had their origin in a separate chain of causes, into which the influence of the Moslems of Spain, North Africa, and the Mameluke empire entered, but not that of the Ottoman Turks. [33] R. Fulin, _Diarii e Diaristi Veneziani_, Venice, 1881, pp. 155 ff. (Dal Diario di Girolamo Priuli, 1494-1512); Marino Sanuto, _Diarii, 1496-1533_, Venice, 1879-1903; _passim._ [34] Fulin, pp. 165, 173, 175. [35] Faria E. Souza, as epitomized by J. Briggs in his _History of the Rise of the Mohamedan Power in India_, London, 1829, iv. 501 ff. Of 114 ships sent in the first ten years 55 returned; Heyd, _Colonie commerciali_, ii. 277. [36] Albuquerque took Ormuz in 1507, and made an attempt on Aden in 1513. Lorenzo Almeida was killed while fighting the Mameluke fleet in 1508, and his father destroyed the Egyptian fleet in 1509. Thus began a long struggle; in which the Portuguese tried to stifle the direct trade between India and the Levant. See, for a general statement, Heyd, _Colonie commerciali_, ii. 273. [37] Fulin, pp. 160, 164 ff. [38] Marino Sanuto, _op. cit._, xxiv. 22-36. [39] Sec above, note 23.