Note 53 — Chapter I
Reading edition
It cannot but be remarked how Italy, in Columbus, Cabot, and Vespucius, not to name others, led in opening the way to a new stage in the world’s progress, which by making the Atlantic the highway of a commerce that had mainly nurtured Italy on the Mediterranean, conduced to start her republics on that decline which the Turk, sweeping through that inland sea, confirmed and accelerated.