Italian Merchants Research Articles

El reino de Murcia en el sistema económico mediterráneo de la Baja Edad Media

Le royaume de Murcie, après son incorporation définitive à la Cou­ronne de Castille en 1266 et la perte d’une partie de son territoire côtier en 1304-1305, participa avec difficulté aux activités méditerranéennes que le roi Alphonse X avait cherché à travers les ports de Carthagène et d'Alican­te. Pendant le XIVe siècle il ne fut inclus que circonstanciellement dans les routes des grandes maisons de marchands italiens, et seule la conjonction de la faiblesse progressive de Grenade et les intérêts d'exportation de laines et grains des grands propiétaires permit à partir la fin du XIVe siècle et avec des difficultés, l'implantation de quelques maisons avec un certain degré de stabilité, en une constante relation avec le marché sévillan et la banque et l'artisanat de Valence. Cinq familles génoises en un peu plus d'un siècle canalisèrent l'exportation des matières premières et l'importa­tion des produits élaborés et de luxe en régime de monopole, qui, à côté des politiques monétaires, furent les facteurs fondamentaux de la stabilité, ou de l’instabilité, du marché.

Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations in the Later Middle Ages ed. by Helen Fulton, and Michele Campopiano

Reviewed by: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations in the Later Middle Ages ed. by Helen Fulton, and Michele Campopiano Nicholas D. Brodie Fulton, Helen, and Michele Campopiano, eds, Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations in the Later Middle Ages, Woodbridge, York Medieval Press, 2018; hardback; pp. 224; 2 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £60.00; ISBN 9781903153697. This is a book about 'the variety of ways in which British and Italian cultures spoke to each other' (p. 1). Words thus feature prominently within its constituent essays as signifiers of communication. Margaret Bridges examines the Polychronicon, partly focusing on place names. 'Italian toponyms evoke a distant past and foreign clime' (p. 21) she notes, before going on to unpick an erudite medieval literary gaze focused more on the Roman past than any Italian present. Caroline P. Collette unravels a 'shared bibliophilia' (p. 42) that bridges time and place for Richard de Bury. Threading through issues like the reception of Petrarch, the habits of humanism, and the movement of books and texts, Collette deftly blurs the sometimes too-arbitrary distinction between medieval classicism and early humanism. Similarly focused on text and people and time, Michele Campopiano explores 'some less well known evidence for the reception of Italian legal and political works in the northern English city of York' (p. 52). European volumes with English annotations reveal how jurisprudential ideas developed in Bologna were read in the light of contemporary concerns in York. These are small but telling bits of evidence for wider networks of trade and information transfer, Campopiano [End Page 247] argues, which should encourage further exploration of such connections in ways that expand beyond centre-and-periphery scholarship. Ignazio Del Punta's focus is economic. Pointing out that modern and medieval financial crises are not as cleanly comparable as popularly assumed, Del Punta then explores and exposes structural elements of the medieval monetary system. He concludes that 'efficient international banking companies fostered speculative spirals' (p. 8). What worked well in good times proved unable to cope with the bad. The next chapters move from macroeconomics to societal micro-studies. Bart Lambert provides a survey of the Lucchese community in England by drilling into a case study of the Gigli family. Through a fascinating use of Italian sources he presents 'a surprisingly clear view of the businesses of one of the most important foreign trading groups in late medieval England' (p. 88), revealing where they lived, prayed, and travelled. Complementing this well is Helen Bradley's essay on London's Italian merchants, principally traced through examination of their wills. She focuses on the everyday 'linguistic, economic and social interface between cultures' (p. 103) that such individuals reveal, finding evidence for 'several distinct Italian city-state communities' (p. 108) in medieval England, among other things of interest. Victoria Flood investigates Franciscan prophetic texts and rumour in a study of political Joachism. Following threats from Italy to England, Flood notes how 'political Joachism presented not only a possible overture to good rulers, but a mechanism for the critique of the bad' (p. 136), explaining how 'Franciscan prophecies were part of an oppositional culture' (p. 149). Thus, Italian prophecy helped inform and interpret Franciscan relationships with English monarchs. Similarly showing a broader cultural influence informing English texts, Helen Fulton offers 'a redefinition of what urban history was and what forms it took in medieval Britain' (p. 150) by charting continuities over time, particularly those that link urban centres with political narratives and agendas. From Bede to Camden, Fulton casts a wide net to make a compelling case that British urban history has a long history with clear Italian and classical resonances. While at once broad and particular, as most edited volumes are, this book highlights the diverse range of ways wherein English society was influenced by Italian culture. Revealing links personal, economic, and textual, it is a counterpoint to any view of England that would see it in isolation from Europe generally, or Italy specifically. [End Page 248] Nicholas D. Brodie Hobart, Tasmania Copyright © 2020 Nicholas D. Brodie

Gdańskie testamenty reciproce i praktyka tworzenia inwentarzy mienia w XVII–XVIII w.

The article focuses on two crucial issues connected with property inheritance in Gdansk (Danzig) in the 17th–18th c. First, it discusses spouses’ reciprocal last wills (reciproce testa-ments) as a form widely used in this city and its impact on the practice of establishing the net value of the inheritance. Second, it explains the origin of the probate inventory and the popularization of the particular formal characteristics of this document throughout Europe. On the basis of thousands of testaments and probate inventories of Gdansk burghers from the period between the last quarter of the 16th c. to the early 19th c. surviving in the State Archives in Gdansk it is possible to analyse in detail how those legal instruments developed in the early-modern era. In the light of the Kulm Law (ius culmense, Kulmer Recht), which was applied in Gdansk, a reciproce testament drawn up by spouses made it possible to enlarge the portion of the inher-itance due to the widow (or widower), or to another heir indicated, or to make a charity bequest. This legal instrument allowed to keep up to 7/8 of the worth of the spouses’ property and served to protect the integrity of their workshops. The Kulm Law, following the Flemish law, pro-tected the interests of widows, and did not exclude women — widows or daughters — from inheriting, treating them on a par with male heirs. A key issue in inheritance proceedings was the evaluation of property and of its portions due to particular heirs, some of whom were often minors. This required a socially accepted legal instrument, i.e. a reliable official probate inven-tory, which was the basis of evaluating the property and its portions going to individual heirs. On the basis of the documents surviving in the State Archives in Gdansk, and published comparative materials concerning various regions of early-modern Poland and Europe, the author claims that the widespread knowledge of the rules of drawing probate inventory, as well as the characteristic formal features of probate inventories (the subject order, the balance of values) had resulted from adopting the book-keeping techniques developed since the 14th c. by Italian merchants. Theoretical knowledge and practical tips about drawing an inventory and a balance sheet were systematized by Fra Luca Pacioli de Burgo (1445–1514?), a Franciscan and a mathematics professor, in 1494 in Summa de Arithmetica, Geometrica, Proportioni et Proportionalita. In treatise XI (Particularis de computis et scripturis) Pacioli described the Venetian method of drawing up an inventory and of keeping basic account books, also presenting the profit-and- oss account and the balance of accounts, which were the beginnings of the future balance sheet. Thanks to the development of printing, Pacioli’s ideas were quickly popularized throughout Europe. One of the best works devoted to book-keeping available in Gdansk at that time was Sebastian Gamersfelder’s Buchhalten durch zwei Bucher nach italianicher Art und Weise (published in 1570). The widely described rules of drawing up a probate inventory and a balance sheet were adopted by Dutch, English and German merchants, as well as book-keeping teachers and notaries all over Europe, who adapted them to local legal and social realities (including the level of literacy and arithmetic skills). This also had an impact on the standardization of probate inventories in the 17th and 18th c. This article is part of research related to the preparation of a monograph on early-modern probate inventories in Gdansk.

The correction of double entry bookkeeping errors in the late 14th century

There have been several studies in medieval bookkeeping practices. This paper adds to that literature by focusing on the treatment of errors in the ledger of the Medieval Italian merchant, Francesco di Marco Datini, most of which were in the company’s ledger for 1395-6. It shows that, contrary to the perception in the literature, accountants of that period not only detected errors, they devised methods to address them that ensured the overall financial result reflected a fair presentation of what had occurred; and that they did not simply use the account for Profits and losses as an easy outlet in which to record an amount that balanced the books. It also finds that the accuracy of individual ledger accounts was not deemed important once they had been balanced, even after errors were detected.

Los comerciantes italianos en la ciudad de Valladolid al final del Antiguo Régimen

La atención prestada a la presencia de comerciantes italianos en una ciudad de la meseta, como Valladolid, pretende poner de relieve su significación socioeconómica y su actuación en el mercado interior del Reino, precisamente cuando existía predilección por el asentamiento litoral o madrileño. A tal fin, se ha recurrido a la información por ellos generada y registrada en los protocolos notariales, sin obviar algunas otras fuentes complementarias. La investigación realizada ha permitido observar el predominio de lombardos junto a una familia de origen genovés, pero todos trataron de integrarse en la sociedad vallisoletana, aunque no olvidaron sus raíces italianas. Los negocios, con alguna excepción, fueron relativamente modestos, lo cual no fue óbice para incardinarse en los circuitos comerciales de la mitad norte peninsular, además de Madrid, e incorporarse a los europeos, exaltando, en ambos casos, la ventajosa situación estratégica de la ciudad.

Italian Glazed Ware from the Genoese and Ottoman Periods Discovered in the Consulate and Fortress of Сembalo

The article addresses a few finds of glazed ceramic ware from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, manufacture in Italy and excavated in the Consulate of Cembalo and the castle of Cembalo. These archaeological artefacts comprises fragments of jugs, bowls, ceramic dishes of the Archaic Majolica Ware (Maioliche Arcaiche I), Proto –Majolica Ware (Proto –Maiolica I, II, Ramina, Manganese, Rosso (RMR)), Renaissance Majolica Ware (Maiolica Rinascimentali), and vessels with the “ingobiatta e graffita a stecca” designs. These vessels feature different decorations: from simple geometric patterns and floral motifs to complex scenes popular in the Apennine peninsula. There is outstanding a small bowl from the early sixteenth century showing the joining of right hands called the “dexteraum iunctio” gesture. The vessel was probably a gift donated in betrothal or marriage. Another unique phenomenon of the material culture of the castle of Cembalo comprises the fragments of side of a dish belonging to the polychrome Beautiful Majolica Ware (“stile bello”) in the style called “primo istoriato” (“first story –telling”) showing military symbols of the Republican period, which became popular in the Renaissance. The spread of Italian ceramic ware in the region under analysis was directly related to the activities of Italian merchants. However, the artefacts presented in this article most likely were not the subject of commercial transactions. Quite plausibly, they came in the merchants’ baggage, a reminder of “faraway homeland” or simply a gift.

Renaissance Intersections: The Arts of Italy and Early Tudor Visual Experience

Although Italian artistic influence never supplanted England’s longstanding and ongoing artistic relations with France and the Netherlands, in the era of Henry VIII (ruled 1509–1547) it became a significant element within it, partly for political reasons. In recent years, research on this subject has been active, revealing many connections between visual developments in England and Italy in a wide range of contexts. This article explores recent work on these complex intersections from the beginnings of the Tudor period to the early 1540s. Four key themes are discussed: Italian influences mediated through France and the Netherlands; the impact of the circulation of images in the era of print technology; Italian artists who worked in England; and the role of merchants. Through this survey, the article explains how standard work has been challenged and redirected on areas such as classicism; the importance of particular materials, objects, motifs, and techniques; the status of Italian artists who worked in England; and the sophistication of their English patrons. The article ends by noting how recent work on Italian merchants as mediators of Italian art and artists in England is aligning this area with the broader recent interest in the economics of art.

New sources on trade and dealings between Christians and Muslims in the Mediterranean region (ca.1440–1500)

Since the time of the Crusades the church had placed an embargo on the delivery, to Muslims, of material vital for war (especially metal and wood, but also foodstuffs) under the threat of excommunication. Whoever was in breach of this embargo – and Christian merchants in the Mediterranean region could hardly avoid this – had to apply directly to the pope for absolution. The petitions were processed and registered by the Penitenzieria Apostolica. This source – of great value because the merchants were required to describe the course of events and thus a welcome addition to the research of Heyd, Goitein and Ashtor – was strictly inaccessible to research for a long time. Here, such supplications of the years 1440–1500 are evaluated both regarding the trade of Italian and Spanish merchants with the Maghreb, as well as regarding local trade with the Emirate of Granada in its final decades.

European and Italian trades on the Silk Road: a reassessment

The principal aim of my essay is looking at the presence and the role of the European and particularly Italian merchants on the so called “Silk Road” during the 17th and 18th century. We have to remember that this expression was introduced by the German geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen, a topic that is receiving a growing attention from the contemporary historians. Indeed this focus is connected to the attention that is given by contemporary economic/political actors to the fortune of the Chinese economy. It is not an accident that Chinese advance is seen by many as the cause of the declining role of Western economies inside the world market.

Negotiating Trade: Merchant Manuals and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Medieval Mediterranean

This essay explores Italian mercantile perceptions of the non-western Mediterranean world during the late Middle Ages. In particular, it analyzes the corpus of merchant manuals known as pratiche della mercatura and argues that the intercultural and cross-confessional material included in these handbooks were vital components that helped facilitate trade across ethno-religious frontiers in the Arab-Turkic regions. This paper opens with an examination of the “traditional” manual genre, with particular emphasis on Francesco Pegolotti’s Libro di divisamenti di paesi (c. 1310-40). Pegolotti and other pratiche compilers proffered practical counsel on linguistic exchange, local folklore and customs, and resourceful intermediaries (dragomans) that could accommodate cultural assimilation for the trader abroad. The remainder of the essay builds on the fruitful historiographical shifts of recent years and identifies two additional manuals: Leonardo Frescobaldi’s Viaggio in Egitto(c. 1390) and Goro Dati’s Sfera(c. 1435). These texts, cascaded to a wide merchant audience, include striking language on the common theological underpinnings of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. These two authors, and specifically Dati, also highlight the complex character of the Italian merchant and reveal that economic self-interest helped construct common ground across major barriers of faith in the medieval Mediterranean.

The Idea of the Feminine Beauty in the Italian Merchant Treaties of the XV Century

The Idea of the Feminine Beauty in the Italian Merchant Treaties of the XV Century

Italian Merchants in the Early-Modern Spanish Monarchy: Business Relations, Identities and Political Resources. Catia Brilli and Manuel Herrero Sánchez, eds. London: Routledge, 2017. x + 156 pp. $149.95.

Italian Merchants in the Early-Modern Spanish Monarchy: Business Relations, Identities and Political Resources. Catia Brilli and Manuel Herrero Sánchez, eds. London: Routledge, 2017. x + 156 pp. $149.95.

Local vs. Global social-couponing sites: a study of merchants’ satisfaction

Purpose of the paper : In recent years, an increasing number of service providers have decided to run social-couponing campaigns. However, few studies have been conducted to investigate their satisfaction. More importantly, the results available are generally based on data collected from merchants that have run their social-couponing campaigns through the largest global daily-deals (Groupon, LivingSocial). Nonetheless, new local white-label-deals sites have entered the market. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether merchants’ satisfaction with social-couponing campaigns is different when using a local daily-deals site instead of a global site. Methodology : This study is based on a cross-sectional design. Data were collected through two surveys conducted in the Italian context: the first among 157 Italian merchants that had used Groupon; the second among 106 merchants that sold their coupons through Kauppa, a local daily-deals site operating in six Italian provinces. Findings : The results demonstrate similar levels of overall satisfaction for the two samples. However, significant differences between merchants using Groupon and Kauppa emerged in relation to the drivers of their satisfaction. Research limits : it should be noted that this paper is based on the comparison of merchants’ perceptions from two daily-deals sites: Kauppa and Groupon. Practical implications : merchants may decide to use either a global or the local daily-deals site depending on the specific objectives of the couponing campaign. Originality of the paper : The few studies about social couponing are based on data collected among merchants that have run their campaigns through the largest, global daily deals sites. To the authors’ knowledge this is the first research involving a local daily deal site.

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

N.S.B. Gras, the father of Business History in the United States, argued that the era of mercantile capitalism was defined by the figure of the sedentary merchant, who managed his business from home, using correspondence and intermediaries, in contrast to the earlier traveling merchant, who accompanied his own goods to trade fairs. Taking this concept as its point of departure, this essay focuses on the predominantly Italian merchants who controlled the long-distance East-West trade of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Until the opening of the Atlantic trade, the Mediterranean was Europe's most important commercial zone and its trade enriched European civilization and its merchants developed the most important premodern mercantile innovations, from maritime insurance contracts and partnership agreements to the bill of exchange and double-entry bookkeeping. Emerging from literate and numerate cultures, these merchants left behind an abundance of records that allows us to understand how their companies, especially the largest of them, were organized and managed. These techniques can also be put in the context of premodern attitudes toward commerce and the era's commercial-political relations. The Commercial Revolution anticipated the Industrial Revolution by over half a millennium and laid the groundwork for today's world of global business.

Social Perception of Infertility and Its Treatment in Late Medieval Italy: Margherita Datini, an Italian Merchant's Wife.

Because the perception of infertility in medieval Europe ranged from the extremely religious view of it as a malediction of God or the devil's work, to the reasonable medical conception of it as a sort of disease to treat, it is very difficult to determine the general attitudes of ordinary people towards infertility. This article seeks to elucidate the common social perception of infertility and its treatment in late medieval Europe by analyzing the case of Margherita Datini, an Italian merchant's wife who lived in the 1400s. It relies heavily on the documents left by her and her husband, Francesco Datini; the couple left many records, including letters of correspondence between them. Margherita and those around her regarded infertility not as the devil's curse or a punishment by God but as a disease that can be cured. Margherita and her husband, Francesco, tried hard to cure their infertility. They received treatment and prescriptions from several doctors while also relying on folk remedies, religious therapies, and even magical remedies. The comparative analysis of Datini documents, medical books, and theoretical treatises or prescriptive essays by clerics suggests that the general perception of infertility in medieval Europe was located between the extremely religious and modern medical conceptions of it.

Venetian Merchants in Thirteenth-Century Alexandria and the Sultans of Egypt: an Analysis of Treaties, Privileges and Intercultural Relations

ABSTRACT During the thirteenth century, competition among the Italian merchants in Alexandria increased and each community sought wider trading privileges. Access to Alexandria's markets was an important addition to Venetian economic power, complementing the contemporary Venetian presence in Aleppo, in Acre and other Frankish ports, and in Constantinople after the fourth crusade in 1204. Venice differed from Pisa and Genoa in the thirteenth century because it was the only Italian merchant city that had signed four trade agreements with the sultans of Egypt. The Venetian treaties with the sultans formed the base of developing the Venetian maritime trade with Alexandria. They obtained privileges that allowed them to exercise commercial supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike the other Italian communities settled in the sultan's lands, the Venetian merchants' privileges remained fixed and continued through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This article aims to study and analyse commercial and diplomatic relations between Venice and the sultans, the Venetian merchants' privileges and their political and juridical status in Egypt.

The business relations, identities and political resources of Italian merchants in the early-modern Spanish monarchy: some introductory remarks

This article offers a preliminary approach to the special volume entitled Business Relations, Identities, and Political Resources of the Italian Merchants in the Early-Modern Spanish Monarchy. It discusses the major issues and debates addressed in the five contributions collected here about the central role played by the Genoese, Florentine and Milanese commercial networks in the framework of a polycentric imperial structure as was the Spanish Monarchy.

Nam, Jong-Kuk, The Great Challenge of Italian Merchants

Nam, Jong-Kuk, The Great Challenge of Italian Merchants

Calamity and Transition: Re-Imagining Italian Trade in the Eleventh-Century Mediterranean

In the year 1000, the Mediterranean thrummed with a commerce as vital as any that has graced its waters. With its heart in Egypt, a trading network spanned the sea from east to west. Its merchants were chiefly Muslims and Jews, and their ships hailed from ports in the House of Islam: Alexandria, Mahdia and Palermo. A century later, the situation was transformed: Italian merchants traversed the sea, and their ships emerged from the quays of Pisa, Genoa or Amalfi. By the late twelfth century, once prosperous North African entrepôts were begging for Italian patronage.1 Abrupt shifts in maritime hegemony are not rare, but the economic transition of the eleventh-century Mediterranean has attracted little attention, perhaps because of the sense of manifest destiny that has usually accompanied it in accounts of European predominance. Crusade narratives, for instance, often take for granted the seaborne supremacy that made them possible. And from a long-term perspective, the outlines of this economic transition are well known: first, the direction of trade was reversed from south to north; second, the trade techniques of the south were adopted in the north. What we do not know is how this reversal took place. It is the purpose of this paper to propose a mechanism, and its focus will be on the cities of Italy’s west coast.

Commercial conflict resolution across the religious divide in the thirteenth-century Mediterranean

Commercial conflict resolution in the medieval Mediterranean has been treated by a number of scholars in recent years, notably through the use of documents from the Cairo Geniza and the archives of the Italian port of Genoa. Recent research on this subject, and more specifically on contract enforcement, has focused on contract reinforcement within the Mediterranean Jewish community, largely because of the sources available. Parallels drawn with medieval Italian mechanisms of conflict resolution emphasize differences between public- vs. private-order responses, that is, the reliance on personalized groups in the Islamic world rather than on public institutions typical of the Italian port-cities. These studies do not, however, examine how commercial conflicts were resolved across religious and political lines, despite the growing role of Italian merchants in the trade networks of Islamic North Africa, a role that inevitably led to trade disputes and occasional uncollected payments. Through close textual analysis of 14 Latin and Arabic letters exchanged between Islamic Almohad Tunis and Christian Italian Pisa, this article explores how Almohad commercial agents and governmental authorities sought to maintain positive trade relations across the religious divide while protecting the interests of their own clients and citizens when disputes arose over commercial payments and debt collection. Rather than relying on commercial conflict resolution methods specific to one culture or the other, these documents reveal a middle ground of borrowed vocabulary and procedures. Through these letters, Almohad merchants and officials attempted to negotiate through the bonds of personal trust and reputation established with their Italian counterparts. However, they also appealed to Italian sensibilities with hybridized methods recognizable by the legal and public institutions of both cultures.