Who gained a monopoly on the Spice Trade?

The Spice Trade was a two-part endeavor. Arab merchants went to the Indian subcontinent or sailed to Indonesia to buy spices from local merchants and brought them to the Levantine ports like Jaffa, Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Or, they would be brought to the major Turkish cities like Istanbul and Bodrum. At all of these port cities, Venetian merchants would purchase the spices from the Arab merchants and redisperse them in Venice to various European States. As the Venetians were the most effective shipbuilders in the Mediterranean, they prevented the rise of any European attempting to cut into the trade. (Venice is now part of Italy, but it was independent until the 1800s.)