4 • Safavid Subjects in Venice
abstract
Venice was a key entrepôt for the Safavid silk trade throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and served as the ideal location in which to commission and purchase the items needed for the shah’s court. The main arena of contact between the Safavids and Venetians, in both in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was trade and it was their mutual trade interests that kept these contacts alive even when the anti-Ottoman alliance was no longer pursued.