When foreign powers wanted the loan of money, it was to Venice they came.
Consider the probity of Venetian men.

They once held as pledge the Crown of Thorns itself.

King Louis IX of France redeemed it.
The processions of the tradespeople were like a king's retinue, and they marching in state on the election of a doge.

Each in their separate order they'd come, the master smiths first, as is right, every one garlanded like a conqueror, with their banner and their buglers.
The furriers next in ermine and taffeta; the tanners, with silver cups filled with wine; the tailors in white, with vermilion stars; the wool-workers, with olive branches; the quilt-makers in cloaks trimmed with fleur-de-lis; the cloth-of-gold weavers, with golden crowns set with pearls; the shoemakers in fine silk, while the silk-workers were in fustian; the cheese-dealers and pork-butchers in scarlet and purple; the fish-mongers and poulterers, armed like men-of-war; the glass-makers, with elegant specimens of their art; the comb-makers, with little birds in cages; the barber-surgeons on horseback, very dignified, very learned, and with that you'd think there'd be an end to them, but cast your eye back on that procession and you'd find guilds as far as your sight would reach...
Let you be going down the markets, and what would you see for sale?
Boots, clothes, bread?
No, they were out of sight; but scattered on the booths, the like of farls of bread on a fair-day, you'd find cloves and nutmegs, mace and ebony from Moluccas, that had come by way of Alexandria and the Syrian ports; sandalwood from Timor, in Asia; camphor from Borneo.

Sumatra and Java sent benzoin to her markets.
Cochin China sent bitter aloes-wood.