"…THERE was a time when the power, and, in a great measure, the civilization of Europe, seemed to have their chief seat in the South; a time when the Ottoman empire and the Spanish monarchy had grown up, face to face, to an overtopping greatness, dangerous to neighbouring and remote nations, and when no literature in the world could compare with that of Italy…" -Leopold von Ranke, Preface, 1843 The Ottoman and Spanish Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by German historian Leopold von Ranke was first published in German in 1830, and translated into English in 1843. Von Ranke described the rivalry between the two leading powers in the Mediterranean, the Ottomans and the Spaniards. Just as in his other books, von Ranke's writing was based on eye-witness accounts, in this case the well-documented reporting of the Venetian ambassadors who had been emissaries to both empires.