Venetian Republic & Portuguese Empire in the 16th Century Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Overview

The Portuguese empire has been one of the greatest and influential empires in the world especially in the west with impressive influence in the east. This empire has seen series of developments however;the most important period of the Portuguese empire is the 16th century that allowed the empire to become apparent on the globe.
However, all this has occurred in different intervals but the foundations of the empire and its significance were laid in the early 16th century when the Portuguese sailors decided to explore. The late 16th century played a vital role in creating the competitive edge for the Portuguese and provided several hints that can easily differentiate the Portuguese empire from the Venetian Republic.

In the early 16th century, Venice was considered as the hub of trade and all the trade in the western region was carried out through this route. However, the Portuguese challenged the monopoly of Venetian and cornered them in the late 16th century to take hold of the trade in the west. All the valuable commodities that were under the hold of Venice were occupied by the Portuguese, which strengthened the base of the Portuguese empire (Stewart-Harawira, 2005).

In order to gain hold of the trade routes and expand their presence, the Portuguese sailors decided to search for new opportunities and gather new partners. In this regard, the identification of India and Arabia were the most significant achievements while the Mediterranean region was also taken under control, which was previously occupied by the Venetian Republic and was the main route to distribute to the Western Europe.

This indicates the rise of one empire and the downfall of the other and this is known as the age of great voyages. Venetian Republic which was the sole route to connect east with the west was enjoying share monopoly but unfortunately the Portuguese travelers made it quite challenging for them to sustain on that and created new routes, which provided the travelers and the traders with options to travel and to not bare the trouble and extra cost of middlemen which was quite apparent at Venice which had abundance of middlemen.

In the late 15th and early 16th century, the Portuguese navigators identified new routes which played a major role in the development of the Portuguese empire by carrying voyages and making new discoveries. Economy is a major factor that was boosted through trade in that period and in order to enhance the economy, voyages were quite significant and the impact of voyages on the economy was huge and empirical (Diffie, 1977).

Major Developments

The Venetian and the Portuguese empires have seen their growth in this era of 15th-16th centuries however;the rise of one came on the loss of other. The paper discusses the developments of each region in a separate manner to provide the right highlight.

Venetian Republic

The role played by Venice in providing a passage to the Mediterranean economy in the European region or west in a broader sense was huge and significant. Apart from that, the connections it established with the north part of the Europe were also of pivotal nature.
The main focus of Venice was to build trade but in doing so it created a political empire, which can be allotted as one of the major developments in that era which revolutionized not only the trade but also the political structure of the region. In the late 15th century, Venice acquired many mainly belonging to Italian mainland however,the population of the region was not large, which was around 1.5 million (Finlay, 1978).

The major development that occurred was the ship building, which was the main business however,the ships that were developed in the region were designed to complement the trade activities of the region and suitable to the Mediterranean trade conditions. Arsenal was the major and the largest enterprise in Venice, which was serving as a public Shipyard. However, there were other businesses as well in the region which were playing pivotal role in the development of the Venetian economy (Maddison, 2007).....................

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