Tra il Fiume delle Perle e il Tago. I commerci sino-europei in un’area di lingua franca nella prima età moderna

The essay focuses on an issue of the history of maritime contacts between Europe and Far East Asia in the early modern period, analyzing the phenomenon of large scale maritime expansion both of the Chinese junks in the Indian Ocean at the beginning of the 15th century, and the Portuguese galleons in the area at the end of the same century. Some evidence of the emerging global commerce is offered through a selected bibliography and some historical sources on the presence of Chinese and Portuguese merchants on the ocean routes and their commercial trading networks.