Private owners of vessels were not allowed to send cargoes to ports to which Venice sent fleets. Vessels were built and fitted out by the State, and put up at auction to be bidden for by the merchants, the voyages all being made according to regulations, and a good share of the profits paid to the State. Private owners were licensed before freighting a ship, and no ship not commanded by a Venetian was permitted to sail from the lagoons. Ships of war guarded the mouths of the rivers, and all foreign vessels were liable to inspection. All kinds of goods {247} carried in Venetian ships were obliged to be taken to Venice before they could be sent to any other port. Thus it became a great mart for the merchandise of all countries, and we can scarcely imagine the enormous supplies of costly and magnificent Oriental products which filled her storehouses, and were thence distributed all over the western and northern world in exchange for other goods as well as for gold. Her commerce with Nuremberg was important, and there was a weekly post between the two cities in 1505, when Albert Dürer made the journey to Venice. Her unique position made Venice the chief market for all the East, and her supremacy in the Levant forbade all rivals to attempt competing with her; but if she thus deprived other nations of the privileges of commerce, she protected them from the Turk. She was a bulwark that could neither be ignored nor overthrown. Every branch of commerce was made tributary to her, and her coffers were always full. She expended her wealth at home, encouraging her workers in metals, glass, and mosaics, and the manufactures of silk and wool, as well as in cherishing the fine arts and improving the city. From the beginning of the thirteenth century so great a number of merchants periodically visited Venice that no sufficient provision could be made for them in the public houses, and the question as to how and where they could live was solved by the establishment of the Fondachi, where they were lodged, free of cost, after reporting to the proper magistrate, and showing their purpose in coming to Venice. Warehouses were attached to the Fondachi, supplied with weighers and keepers to attend to the storing and care of merchandise. The Germans, Armenians, Moors, and Turks, all had these Fondachi, as well as the Tuscans and other Italians. A superb palace on the Grand Canal, which has been {248} restored, and is now the Museo Civico, was given to the Turks. It is nearly as old as the Ducal Palace, and very remarkable. But as the Turks were infidels, the windows were walled up, the rooms thus being lighted only from the court. A Catholic warder closed the doors at sunset. No women or children were allowed to enter, and no Ottoman was permitted to lodge elsewhere. Greeks and Syrians were allowed the utmost freedom in all parts of the city.