Mongol rule?

Question

Which Italian cities profited most from the trade with the Mongols? What were the most important trade items?

Answer 1

The "usual suspects" - Venice and Genoa. Simply because between them they almost monopolised all of the foreign trade routes.
This created a problem- they resented any competition. It is a sad aspect of history that these cities supplied weapons -crossbows and heavy swords - and heavy cavalry horses to the muslims during the period of the Crusades. This was eagerly sough by the muslims because their weapons (except for the Turkish composite bow- and it took years to learn hoe to use it) proved too light to be able to do any harm to the european armoured knights.

Most of the Mongol trade went via the silk route, and ended in Byzantium (another competitor to Genoa and Venice). Genoa and Venice (even though they competed between themselves) used mostly the intermediary of the muslims. SO the "silk road" and the "muslim road" were competitive too- which kind of explains why the Sultans of Baghdad did their utmost to cut the silk road and obtain a monopoly