Remember that when the Crusaders needed ships for their crazy fourth crusade, they headed to Venice, because the Venetians were famous for their ships, including merchant ships like the Gali and the Cod. Not only could they build ships, they could also sail them to pleasant locales like Constantinople and the Levant, so the Venetians formed trade treaties, sometimes called concessions, with the Byzantines, and then when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans and became Istanbul, the Venetians were quick to make trade treaties with their new neighbors, famously saying that while Istanbul had been Constantinople, the matter of Constantinople getting the works was nobody's business but the Turks. But even before the Ottomans, Venice had experience trading with the Islamic world. It initially established itself as the biggest European power in the Mediterranean, thanks to its trade with the Egypt's sultan in the outlandishly lucrative pepper business. Can't blame the Europeans, really. That stuff's delicious. Oh, you mean like actual pepper?