Editing Suez Canal (section)

=== Conception by Venice ===
The successful 1488 navigation of southern Africa by [[Bartolomeu Dias]] opened a direct maritime [[trading route to India]] and the [[Maluku Islands|Spice Islands]], and forever changed the balance of Mediterranean trade. One of the most prominent losers in the new order, as former middlemen, was the former spice trading center of [[Venice]].

{{Blockquote|Venetian leaders, driven to desperation, contemplated digging a waterway between the Red Sea and the Nile—anticipating the Suez Canal by almost 400 years—to bring the luxury trade flooding to their doors again. But this remained a dream.|[[Colin Thubron]], ''Seafarers: The Venetians'' (1980), p. 102}}

Despite entering negotiations with Egypt's ruling [[Mamelukes]], the [[Republic of Venice|Venetian]] plan to build the canal was quickly put to rest by the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] [[Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–17)|conquest of Egypt in 1517]], led by Sultan [[Selim I]].<ref>Starthern, P. (2013) "The Venetians" p. 175</ref>