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Lords, Kings & Caliphs

The Mediterranean basin was the end point of the commercial and cultural routes across Asia and Africa. From the 11th century, and in spite of rivalries and conflicts, trade intensified between the Byzantine empire, the Islamic world and Christian Europe, where money and merchants held sway. While the cities of Venice and Genoa played an active part in this trade, the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus for the Arabs) became a cultural melting pot, and Hispano-Moorish art would go on to have a lasting impact, particularly through its production of ceramics. In Europe the notions of secularisation and individuals as social actors were both on the rise. At the end of the 15th century, advances in navigation enabled Christopher Columbus to cross the Atlantic. The first interactions with the American continent suddenly brought Europe into contact with hitherto isolated Amerindian civilisations.