Much of the commercial and technological infrastructure was purchased from abroad. Portuguese sailing skills were unrivalled but the country lacked an entrepreneurial middle class. As well as cannon founders and gunners, it required knowledgeable resident agents in the Indies to buy and sell, and in Lisbon and across Europe it needed distributors, retailers, bankers and investors with business acumen. It attracted an influx of human capital from Florence, Genoa, Bologna, Antwerp, Nuremberg and Bruges.
