The discovery of the unpublished will of a Venetian merchant, Marco Zeno, notarized in Tripoli in 1278 (a deed published in the Appendix of the present paper), offers the opportunity to re-examine the presence of the lagoon merchants in that city, from the earliest evidence to the end of the fourteenth century. During the period of the crusades, the Venetians mainly frequented Acre and Tyre but were also active in Tripoli. After the fall of the city in 1289, we have no further evidence of the presence of the Venetians, who only reappeared there in the 1360s, following the profound restructuring of Venice’s trade towards the Levant that took place during that century. After 1360, Damascus became increasingly important as a market for cotton, silk and spices, overtaking Tabriz. This opened a new route for Venetian merchants, with Beirut as its terminus. The other ports on the Syrian-Palestinian coast were also frequented by them in that period, albeit as secondary destinations; and among them the role of Beirut’s most important subsidiary port was played precisely by Tripoli, as demonstrated by the rich unpublished documentation relating to the last thirty-five years of the century presented and discussed here.
