I read somewhere that representatives of the Republic of Venice, after learning that the Portuguese had successfully circumnavigated Africa, approached the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and suggested the possibility of building a canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that the route would have been the same as a canal used in ancient Persian & Hellenistic times running from the Nile east to the Red Sea, rather than the route of OTL Suez canal. In any event, Venice supposedly suggested the same idea again in the 1520s to the Ottoman Empire after the Ottomans conquered Mamluk Egypt.
What if the Ottomans and Venice had come to an agreement and actually built (or rebuilt) such a canal?
What if the Ottomans and Venice had come to an agreement and actually built (or rebuilt) such a canal?