Keep on Saltin'

Venice monopolized salt after the fall of the Roman Empire. Venice was settled on islands in the Adriatic and had many lagoons which were protected by sand bars. On the sandbars, which are called lidis, ancient people had vacation homes and went to resorts there. I found this interesting because I didn't think that people back then took vacations. Even today the sandbars are a popular tourist attraction.

Venetians used the geography of the land to create salt ponds. From these ponds they created a fine salt. When they wanted a courser salt they imported it. The Venetians realized that more money could be made by buying and selling salt than producing it. They used this technique to create a monopoly. They could then afford to sell goods at lower prices that their competitors could not keep up with. I wonder if this was like the Rockefeller oil monopoly? The Venetians' system of trade worked well so they kept growing in power. Venice was very into controlling the salt trade. When they wanted to increase the price of salt they had all the salt works in Crete destroyed and banned local trade of salt. This would be equivalent to countries destroying their oil to increase the price of oil. I could just imagine the reaction people would have to this and it would not be pretty.

The famous explorer Marco Polo was from Venice. He went with his father on a twenty five year adventure exploring many lands. A controversy evolved about whether Marco really went on all the adventures he said he did. Even if his adventures were not true he created interesting reading material and sparked an interest in China.