AHC: Portuguese merchant republic

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make Portugal, or at least the area around Lisbon, into a merchant republic akin to Venice, Genoa, Pisa or the city states which made up the Hanseatic League.

Any thoughts?
 
Get rid of the Moorish invasion of the Visigothic Kingdom and have it crumble to bits instead. A republic springs up in Lisbon to trade with the French and Berbers.
 
Now that I think about it, maybe a better place would be at Cadiz or Catalonia.
Valencia is best suited for what you're asking in my opinion.

There could be a heavily trade oriented republic in Portugal around the Renaissance period though. Both succession crises in 1383 and 1580 are interesting POD where a Dutch-esque form of government could be installed somehow.
 
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