In 1534 a decision by Paul III favoured the activity of merchants of all nationalities and religions from the Levant and allowed them to settle with their families in Ancona, which had become part of the Papal States under his predecessor Clement VII - a decision which helped make Ancona a prosperous trading city for centuries to come. A Venetian travelling through Ancona in 1535 recorded that the city was "full of merchants from every nation and mostly Greeks and Turks." In the second half of the 16th century, the presence of Greek and other merchants from the Ottoman Empire declined after a series of restrictive measures taken by the Italian authorities and the pope.