could venice or genoa or any other italien state colonise the americas

TBH I had not thought of it in this manner, however with Egypt it is fundamentally more vulnerable to Ottoman invasion, compared to North Africa
First of all, the Ottomans are in the Balkans and have just had their teeth kicked in by Tamerlane.
Second, a strong Italian state would change the rules of the game in the Mediterranean, the more so if Visconti and Venice realize the advantages of an alliance.
Constantinople might not fall (hell, Thessaloniki might not fall), and even if it does the Ottoman expansion in the Egean and in southern Anatolia would be significantly harder (incidentally, a side effect of all these butterflies is that no Suleiman the Magnificent will be born: it is unlikely that the Ottomans may be so lucky to get a sultan with the same skills and mettle).
Third, the first time the Ottomans tried to conquer Egypt they got their teeth kicked in on the Taurus mountains. The second time they prevailed but only because the Mamelukes never got interested in the progress of fire arms in Europe: when the traditional cavalry armies of Egypt met the Janissaries it was a massacre.
Fourth: to defend Egypt is pretty simple, and it takes only naval superiority. The invasion force has to march along the coast, and would be very hard pressed to manage its logistics.
 
I was referring to the eventual loss of one or both gates to the atlantic(gibraltar and ceuta), assuming said italian state conquered them from granada/morrocco, making it very easy for Spain/Portugal to block or restrain italian interests in the americas. As you said, smaller colonies(which is what we'd probably get out of an italian colonizer) aren't very self-sufficient, and thus need supplies that could be harder to obtain with iberians holding both sides of the strait.
English and Dutch ships were trading in the Mediterranean even while these countries were at war with Spain (not to mention that both of them were also smuggling large quantities of goods into Spain).
Even if it is a strait, there is little or no possibility to keep a blockade of it: width varies from a minimum of 14 km to a maximum of 44 km, and the ships passing through would be individual ones, or maybe two or three together. What should the Spanish do? Stop and search every single ship which goes through the Gibraltar strait? How many ships do they allocate to this task (which would be illegal anyway)?
Are you aware of the fact that in those days a savvy captain had always a chest of various flags and changed his colors when needed?
The best the Spanish could do would be to stop and search all the ships they could get in the Caribbeans: which is what happened IOTL, and it is the reason for the saying "There is no peace beyond the Line", where the Line in question is the one drawn in the treaty of Tordesillas.
 
what if the venetian plans for a proto suez canal in Egypt were to come fruition? Couldn't they use that as a jumping off point for colonizing parts of Asia?
 
what if the venetian plans for a proto suez canal in Egypt were to come fruition? Couldn't they use that as a jumping off point for colonizing parts of Asia?
A "Suez canal" cannot be built so early. However it is quite feasible to use a connection between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea patterned on the one developed in antiquity (there were in succession a Pharaonic canal and an Arab canal) by using one(or more) of the branches of the Nile delta with some portage and/or a short canal dug to make the final connection with the Red Sea.
The main difficulty would be transporting the first ships (which most likely would be patterned on the design of a nao or a caravel: fundamentally, a small ship for modern standards but very effective in all wind conditions and a good gun platform. Obviously the Venetians were very well aware of this design, due to their bi-annual trade convoys to Flanders). However emptying this ships, taking out the guns and so on would make the portage more feasible. The guns and the goods unloaded from the ships can be transported easily by flat barges. The alternative would be to set up an arsenal on the Red sea coast, and send timber (which is very scarce in Egypt) to build the ships there, again by barges. The merchandise arriving from India can be unloaded in Berenice and then sent overland by caravan to the Nile, then by barge to the Mediterranean coast. The inverse route would be used for the goods to ship to India. The Nile is a very effective trade route, since the prevailing winds are always north-to-south, and the river flows south to north. An alternative route would be to use oared galley from Berenice to the Nile delta, and in any case the caravels can sail very close to the wind, and therefore can sail north in the Red sea even if the prevailing wind is north-to-south: this means that if some goods are especially valuable or the ships need a refitting in the arsenal, they can sail north as well.
 
I was referring to the eventual loss of one or both gates to the atlantic(gibraltar and ceuta), assuming said italian state conquered them from granada/morrocco, making it very easy for Spain/Portugal to block or restrain italian interests in the americas. As you said, smaller colonies(which is what we'd probably get out of an italian colonizer) aren't very self-sufficient, and thus need supplies that could be harder to obtain with iberians holding both sides of the strait.

Such a feat wasn't and wouldn't be possible with any of the other colonial powers you listed, for obvious geographic reasons.

Indeed, the sheer scale of the americas made it hard for the spanish and portuguese to hold on to their belongings, but overall they were pretty successful. Even portugal got their share of low-key kicking french teeth in when they tried to intervene in their interests in africa and brazil.

For the most part, the British/French/Dutch did not really try to capture the Spanish/Portuguese colonies that were well established. There were exceptions (e.g. the Dutch in Brazil) but generally they focused more on colonizing areas that had little or no existing European presence. Which makes sense as it was already difficult enough logistically to set up a colony, even without having to fight a war against a European power for it first.

Regarding the straits of Gibraltar, perhaps an Italian state could form an alliance with Morocco, to guarantee it safe passage?
 
For the most part, the British/French/Dutch did not really try to capture the Spanish/Portuguese colonies that were well established. There were exceptions (e.g. the Dutch in Brazil) but generally they focused more on colonizing areas that had little or no existing European presence. Which makes sense as it was already difficult enough logistically to set up a colony, even without having to fight a war against a European power for it first.

Regarding the straits of Gibraltar, perhaps an Italian state could form an alliance with Morocco, to guarantee it safe passage?


Yes Morocco, the nation well known for liking Catholic Powers.
 

Lusitania

Donor
One aspect that I think most forget was that the Italian states ships were not equipped for traversing the Atlantic Ocean. It would of required a new fleet of ships to be built. Not a priority for the Italian states who still saw power and trade in the Mediterranean.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
Yes. But with a POD earlier than 1250. You need to block any idea of Iberian unity, ideally Spain and Portugal in 1450 should look like... well Italy in 1450 but without the good bits. Taifatastic! Also, Morocco needs to be a disaster area at this time, as OTL.

Then a reasonably secure power on the eastern coast of mainland Italy, probably Genoa or Pisa gains dominance in the Western med, all the big islands under its control apart from Sicily. It takes coastal cities in North Africa and controls the Campo de Gibraltar. From there it basically does what OTL Portugal did, in an attempt to outflank Venice. It settles Canaries, Madeira, Cape Verde, as slave sugar islands. At some point we get a pseudo-Columbus.

But how Italian would this empire be?
 
One aspect that I think most forget was that the Italian states ships were not equipped for traversing the Atlantic Ocean. It would of required a new fleet of ships to be built. Not a priority for the Italian states who still saw power and trade in the Mediterranean.
Yes and no: during the war for Crete (1636-1654) Venice hired half-a-dozen of Dutch fluyts, and started building similar vessels in their arsenal. These ships proved their worth in more than one occasion, and were able to effectively blockade the Dardanelles for about 6 years from their harbor in Tenedos.
Even earlier, Venice had made use of round ships in its battles since the last decades of the 15th century, and at the battle of Lepanto they used 6 galeasses as effective artillery platforms.
I don't think it takes a big logical leap for an experienced seaman to see the necessity of adopting a different ship design, more suitable for the Indian ocean.
 
It's possible, but they need a logistical line to the Atlantic - the Balearics and Gibraltar, maybe the Canarias. If something like Genoa manages to get its hands on American wealth firsthand, then the worst is over - they're going to have the cash to keep the riches flowing. The problem is getting there.
 
I'd like to point out that the Genoese were very involved in the Spanish empire. The Canaries, where Castille learned most about colonization were funded mostly by Genoese and Flemish sources, these were the men that brought the capital, knowledge, connections, and skilled workers required to make, refine, and ultimately sell the sugar from the plantations. There was in many ways that Genoa influenced the Castilian new world, by the 16th century where a handful of Genoese bankers welded immense power within and profited generously from the Hapsburgs. I don't think it mattered that the Spanish colonies was Spanish in name if it benefited the Genoese more.
 
I'd like to point out that the Genoese were very involved in the Spanish empire. The Canaries, where Castille learned most about colonization were funded mostly by Genoese and Flemish sources, these were the men that brought the capital, knowledge, connections, and skilled workers required to make, refine, and ultimately sell the sugar from the plantations. There was in many ways that Genoa influenced the Castilian new world, by the 16th century where a handful of Genoese bankers welded immense power within and profited generously from the Hapsburgs. I don't think it mattered that the Spanish colonies was Spanish in name if it benefited the Genoese more.
So, can we change some things around, so that 1) Iberia is more divided with a big part of it, preferably including the region around Gibraltar, is downright subordinated to a strong Genoese ruling clique; 2) in its home region, Genoa is strong enough to repel all comers, be they imperial, papal, French or Ottoman 3) Genoa is motivated to look west for opportunity--say they are very strong in the western Med but ruthlessly excluded from the Eastern Med.

Suppose an early Portuguese-Genoan alliance breaks apart, with the Genoans having shared in Portuguese advances south along Africa and picking up all manner of Portuguese seacraft, including constructing ships meant for Atlantic operations in their southern Iberian colony. (How do the Genoans control the region of Gibraltar and Grenada? Well, suppose that some Iberian allies invited the Genoese to take Granada if they could, to take pressure off their frontiers, long before the Iberian powers were in a position to do it all by themselves? This may have been centuries earlier. The Genoese expand their trade with the Atlantic seaboard of Europe having secured Gibraltar for themselves--it doesn't enable them to shut the straits to all others but it makes it very very easy for Genoese and other shipping they favor to be sure of passing the straits with minimal grief--especially if the G's then secure the south side of the strait as well by sheer conquest.) With a political shift, the Portuguese turn hostile to the Genoese and manage to shut them out of the coastwise African route, which makes people who think like Columbus more interesting to the Genoese. Even a scholar who avoided Columbus's two egregious errors (underestimating the radius of the Earth and overestimating the east-west range of Eurasia, which combined would place Japan and China around the longitude of the North American coast) it would still be possible to argue that there is likely to be some land on the vast great circle route from Seville to China; perhaps Columbus himself or a close ATL expy might be persuaded the positive evidence he collected from Northern Europeans and Basques that there was something in range to the west did not prove it was in fact China, but anyway the notion that sailing due west should achieve some landfall that could be colonized as a way station to China is well founded. Holding Seville, or even just Gibraltar and a thin strip of countryside to back it and being originally based out of Genoa itself, and with some holdings in Macronesia as well, the payoff of America could work as well for a Genoese centered empire as for one centered in Spain. Anything they suffer in distraction due to holding a less secure base (unified Spain, even minus Portugal, is pretty well defensible at the Pyrenees after all) and perhaps a smaller core population they might make up for with shrewder administration, a greater willingness to partner with allies and recruit from diverse populations for their ventures; the upshot might be that Genoese Italian is just one language among many in a realm as vast as OTL Spain's Empire of the Indies but maybe the regime founded is more durable and stable; come 1850 or so maybe the Genoese West Indies are still formally under Genoese hegemony albeit becoming the tail that wags the European dog, or maybe a la Brazil OTL the regime shifts its capital west to say the Caribbean, a Caribbean from which they have more successfully excluded Atlantic European powers whose colonies were driven to the marginal region of the north American Atlantic coast, and not all of that--say the Genoean power even has a strong hold on the Chesapeake Bay and lower Mississippi as well. The notion they can do better than Castile is based on an assumption the Genoese core elites are more willing to share power with suitably checked and balanced partners, so in the vast Genoese empire there are swathes of settler or merchantile/plantation colonies dominated by clusters of other ethnicities, and maybe more synergy with coopted/elevated Native American protectorates filling in the gaps, but overall the whole thing has been cleverly arranged so self-interest of dominant classes keeps them loyal to the central power--maybe in the course of that center shifting from Genoa to the viceregal administrative center in America (presumably with a quite different name, though maybe by some counter-butterfly effect Amerigo Vespucci is in an even stronger position to get the place named after himself) Genoa itself remains affiliated, gracefully accepting a peripheral but profitable and well-supported position within the whole; now "Genoa" is basically a long-unified region around the entire western Med, including a long-subjugated (with difficulty) North African coast east to Tunisia and west past the strait, the entire Mediterranean coast of Iberia, as well as having taken all of the former French Med, the islands of the western Med, and Italy's west coast down to Naples. This region being under Genoese hegemony so long it is about as unified culturally and politically (except for the Muslim-majority north African fringe) as France by that date OTL; the stubbornness with which South Italy and Sicily resist incorporation is the stuff of interim history. ITTL "Italian Unity" is a matter of either submitting to Genoan imperialism or a vision that excludes the northwest coast of what we view as Italy from the peninsula on some grounds or other.

Could someone build at least part of this up as a solid ATL? The notion that the Genoese realm in the Western Hemisphere should be larger and more enduring than the Castilian is a bit of romantic hyperbole on my part to be sure, but I think it could plausibly be at least as large and at least as durable.
 

Lusitania

Donor
What many people do not seem to remember was that the America’s were not seen as wealthy when they were discovered. The Spanish, British and French were trying to get to Asia and India.

The Spanish were bumbling around trying to get around the land mass and plundering what gold and riches they could find.

The maritime route around Africa to India and Ásia was only known to one country, Portugual. At least in the first half of the 16th century. The first country to steal the charts and challenge Portuguese were the Dutch.

The Portuguese themselves looked at Brazil first as a way stop then as source of sugar and other agricultural goods but all their effort and perceived profit was from trade to India and Asia.

The Genoans and Venetians would be interested in that trade but at time the trade republics were not into sponsoring colonies to settle or plantations.
 
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