Portugal in the Indies by Roger Pocock — Read

A. D. 1542

It was Italian trade that bought and paid for the designs of Raphael, the temples of Michelangelo, the sculptures of Cellini, the inventions of Da Vinci, for all the wonders, the glories, the splendors of inspired Italy. And it was not good for the Italian trade that Barbarossa, and the corsairs of three centuries in his wake, beggared the merchants and enslaved their seamen. But Italian commerce had its source in the Indian Seas, and the ruin of Italy began when the sea adventures of Portugal rounded the Cape of Good Hope to rob, to trade, to govern and convert at the old centers of Arabian business.