North Italian Ports and the Levant in the 16th and 17th Centuries

From Firenze University Press Book: Maritime Networks as a Factor in European Integration

Renato Ghezzi, University of Catanzaro Magna Graecia

Following the gradual establishment of the Atlantic routes and the definitive assertions of Holland and England, the Mediterranean lost its central position and the international trade system changed profoundly. In their analyses of these changes, which first became evident towards the end of the 1500s and were consolidated in the following century, the attention of historians has concentrated at length on the inversion of the spice routes and the massive introduction of English and Dutch manufactured goods in the Ottoman countries, held to be clear proof of Venice’s progressive decline. In reality, as important as they may be, these are only a few aspects of the evolution of the traffic between the Levant and the Italian peninsula. Anatolia, Syria and Egypt were not only important intermediaries in the commerce with Persia, the Indies, Sudan and Ethiopia, but they also produced many manufactured goods and raw materials essential for Western industries, enough to spark a heated rivalry among the Italian merchants to have an privileged position in the Ottoman scale.

Due to the lack of congruent and consistent serial data, import businesses from the Eastern Mediterranean are still, however, little known today. Just as, in the absence of comparative analyses of the business activities of the main Italian ports, it is not possible to fully evaluate the effects of the Italian maritime crisis and the progressive advance of the Nordic ships over the Mediterranean routes. In the attempt to help partially bridge these gaps, the chapter aims to offer a diachronic assessment of the role of trade with the Levant in the activities in the ports of Genoa, Livorno, and Venice in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The development of long-haul trading in Genoa’s port in the 16th and 17th century was recognized by Edoardo Grendi, through analysis of the proceeds derived from the jactus navium, a tax weighted on the owners of ships with a carrying capacity of over 1,500 cantari (71 tons), which amounted proportionately to the dimensions of the hulls. Registrations of payments were collected in the cartulari and manuali of the Padri del Comune, the magistratess charged with collecting the taxes, in which there are records of the ships that reached Genoa, their tonnages, the ship-owner’s name, the nationality and the taxes they were subject to. From 1528 to 1591 the ship’s port of origin was always indicated, in the following years this information was no longer reported: it appeared again only after 1658. The useful sources for a quantitative reconstruction of the port’s activity in Venice are more fragmented. The notarial acts6 and the documents of an administrative nature are very important. In particular, the business summary reports of the mercantile sector and the commodities entering and leaving the port, which cover, however, only short periods of time. There are also the chronicles and correspondence of the merchants, in some cases very precise, which can provide important indications of the main maritime trade networks and their evolution.

Finally, some very useful information comes from the reports by foreign residents about the state of business activities in the main markets of the Ottoman empire. The series related to the import businesses of Livorno were reconstructed thanks primarily to the examination of the Registri della sanità. According to predominant medical theories of the time, the plague was caused by invisible contaminating atoms that could be transmitted not only by living beings but also by many objects, merchandise, or other materials.

The captains who reached Livorno from the Levant, from Northern Africa, or from other suspect countries, therefore had to provide detailed notes on the port of departure, the crew’s state of health and that of eventual passengers, on the route followed and the merchandise transported, after first having declared basic generalities and the name and tonnage of their ships. By consulting these documents, it was possible to individuate the different types of ship which passed through the port of Livorno in the 17th century and to classify them based on tonnage, nationality, and by their port of origin. Examining their loads therefore made it possible to make some quantitative estimates on the volume of imports from the ports of the Levant.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/978–88–6453–857–0.25

Read Full Text: https://fupress.com/capitoli/north-italian-ports-and-the-levant-in-the-16th-and-17th-centuries/4483