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Market Expansion: The Case of Genoa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Robert Sabatino Lopez
Robert Sabatino Lopez
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

The honorable program chairman has appended to my paper a title I had not entirely foreseen, and this drove me to modify my line to some extent. I had toyed with the idea of taking a long look at a short period in the fifteenth century, when the Genoese did all they could to adjust to shrinking opportunities and to find new markets in the place of those they were losing. This will still take about one half of my time, if only because it dovetails with the paper of Harry Miskimin. But if Genoa has to be considered as a test case for market expansion, we cannot restrict ourselves to the years when the going was not so good.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1964 , pp. 445 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1964

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References

1 It seems unnecessary to supply specific references for every point of this wellknown period, especially as the second volume of Vitale, V. A., Breviario della storia di Genova (Genoa: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 1956)Google Scholar is entirely devoted to a critical survey of the bibliography of Genoese history. The following works can help an American reader to obtain a general picture of Genoese economy before the midfourteenth century crisis: Sources: Bautier, R. H., “Notes sur les sources de l'histoire économique médiévale,” Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, LIX (1948)Google Scholar; Lopez, R. S. and Raymond, I. W., Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955)Google Scholar. General views: Reynolds, R. L., “In Search of a Business Class in Thirteenth Century Genoa,” Journal of Economic History, Suppl. V (1945)Google Scholar; Lopez, R. S., “Le marchand génois,” Annales (Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations), XIII (1958)Google Scholar. Specific periods: Storia di Genova, II: Formentini, U., Genova nel basso Impero e nell'alto medioevo (Milan: Garzanti, 1941)Google Scholar; Lopez, R. S., “Aux origines du capitalisme génois,” Annales d'Histoire Economique et Sociale, IX (1937)Google Scholar; Bach, E., La Cité de Gênes au XIIe siècle (Copenhagen: Classica et Mediaevalia, Dissertationes, 1955)Google Scholar; Krueger, H. C., “Post-War Collapse and Rehabilitation in Genoa, 1149–1162,” Studi in Onore di Gino Luzzatto, I (Milan: Giuffrè, 1950)Google Scholar, and other papers in the same volume; Vitale, V. A., Il Commune del Podestà a Genova (Milan: Ricciardi, 1951)Google Scholar; Lopez, R. S., Studi sull'economia genovese nel media evo (Turin: Lattes, 1936)Google Scholar; Caro, G., Genua und die Mächte am Mittelmeer, 1257–1311 (Halle a. S., 1895)Google Scholar. Special topics: Byrne, E. H., Genoese Shipping in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy, 1930)Google Scholar; Di Tucci, R., La nave e i contratti marittimi; la banca privata (Turin: Bocca, 1933)Google Scholar; Lopez, R. S., La prima crisi della banca di Genova (Florence: Olschki, 1956)Google Scholar; idem, “Back to Gold, 1252,” Economic History Review, IX (1956)Google Scholar; Sayous, A. E., “Aristocratie et noblesse à Gênes,” Annales d'Histoire Economique et Sociale, IX (1937)Google Scholar; Di Tucci, R., Le imposte del commercio genovese fino alla gestione del Banco di S. Giorgio (Bergamo: Nava, s.d.)Google Scholar; idem, “Genova e gli stranieri,” Rivista Italiana di Diritto Internazionale Privato e Processuale, II (1932)Google Scholar. Special directions: Schaube, A., Handelsgeschichte der Romanischer Völker des Mittelmeergebiets (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1906)Google Scholar; Lopez, R. S., Storia delle colonie genovesi net Mediterraneo (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1938)Google Scholar; Doehaerd, R., Les relations commerciales entre Gênes, la Belgique et l'Outremont (Rome: Academia Belgica, 1941)Google Scholar; Bratianu, G. I., Recherches sur le commerce génois dans la Mer Noire au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Geuthner, 1929)Google Scholar; R. S. Lopez, “L'extrême frontière du commerce de l'Europe médiévale,” Moyen Age, Livre Jubilaire (1963). Obviously, this selective list does not aim at completion.

2 Sieveking, H., “Aus Genueser Rechnungs- und Steuerbüchern,” Sitzungsberichte der K. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil. -Hist. Klasse, CLXII/2 (1909), 48–52, 55Google Scholar; Desimoni, C., appendix to L. T. Belgrano, Della vita privata dei Genovesi (2nd ed.; Genoa: Tipografia Sordomuti, 1875), p. 506 ff.Google Scholar Other available figures, though not very significant in themselves, seem to lend support to the assumption of a crest just before 1300. For instance, tax-farming data indicate that the number of contracts drawn in Genoa exceeded 30,000 in 1191, but 80,000 in 1291. Again, the number of major ships composing the Genoese war fleet rose steadily during the thirteenth century, reached its peak in 1295, then steadily declined.

3 The most important, and recent, work on the late medieval economic history of Genoa is Heers, J., Gênes au XVe siècle: Activité économique et problèmes sociaux (Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1961)Google Scholar; it contains a large, though not exhaustive, bibliographic list, which it would be useless to duplicate here. My comments on that book have appeared in Lopez, R. S., “Quattrocento genovese,” Rivista Storica Italiana, LXXV (1963), 709–27Google Scholar; in the present paper, I am heavily indebted to Heers' original synthesis of previous works and fresh research of his own. Among earlier books which Heers did not use, the most informative is Pandiani, E., La vita della Republica di Genova nell'età di Cristoforo Colombo (Genoa: Civico Istituto Colombiano, 1952)Google Scholar, covering much the same period. Unfortunately, there is no general work on Genoa in the fourteenth century; the best guide for that period is still Vitale, Breviario.

4 Genoese agricultural history is virtually unexplored; neither Heers nor Vitale is of much help on it. While waiting for the book P. J. Jones is preparing on the agrarian history of medieval Italy, one may use the stimulating insights of Sereni, E., Storia del paesaggio agrario italiano (Ban: Laterza, 1961)Google Scholar. Luzzatto, G., An Economic History of Italy from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the XVIth Century (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961)Google Scholar, and G. Mickwitz in Cambridge Economic History, I, are also valuable, but leave Genoa out.

5 Beside Heers, p. 218–51 and the works quoted by him, see the debate Cipolla, C. M.-Lopez, R. S.-Miskimin, H. A., “Economic Depression of the Renaissance?”, Economic History Review, XVI (1964).Google Scholar

6 Ruddock, A. A., Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton, 1270–1600 (Southampton: University College, 1951), p. 80 ff.Google Scholar, with bibliographic references.

7 This does not mean, of course, that the Genoese traded with the western Mediterranean only to feed themselves; Sardinia, for instance, had silver mines, Sicily had low grade alum, Corsica had leather, Provence had fox skins, North Africa had wool, wax, indigo, and so forth. Moreover, the Genoese did not consume all the grain and salt they imported, but redistributed it to other countries. The essential character of imports of foodstuffs, however, is indicated by the fact that they were prominently mentioned in every treaty concluded by Genoa with a western Mediterranean power, as far back as documents go; and that as late as 1166, the Sardinians expressed their loyalty to Genoa by the annual tribute of an enormous cheese, which was solemnly carried on an oxcart in the Easter parade.

8 To the works quoted by Heers we should add Argenti, P., The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese, 1346–1566 (Cambridge [Engl.]: University Press, 1958)Google Scholar, especially useful for its documents, and Banescu, N., Le Déclin de Famagouste (Bucharest: Institut Roumain d'Etudes Byzantines, 1946).Google Scholar

9 On the Florentine side of the alum contest, see now de Roover, R., The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397–1494 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963)Google Scholar. Yet the celebrity of the Medici Bank should not lead us to forget the eventual winners, on whom, beside the work of Heers, one ought to consult the paper of his wife, Heers, M. L., “Les Génois et le commerce de l'alum à la fin du Moyen Age,” Revue d'Histoire Economique et Sociale, XXXII (1954)Google Scholar. For later developments, see Delumeau, J., L'Alun de Rome (Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1962).Google Scholar

10 It must be noted, however, that the cost of slaves had been steadily rising ever since the beginning of the fourteenth century. According to the latest (but certainly not the last) paper on this subject by Verlinden, C., “La Crète, débouché et plaque tournante de la traite des esclaves aux XIVe et XVe siècles,” Studi in Onore di Amintore Fanfani (Milan: Giuffrè, 1962), III, 699Google Scholar, in the Venetian colony of Crete prices rose five times for women and ten times for men between 1300 and 1400. Verlinden connects this phenomenon with the peculiar lack of manpower in Crete; true, but both the rise in prices and the demographic crisis occurred throughout Europe.

11 Rau, V., “The Settlement of Madeira and the Sugar Cane Plantations,” Afdeling Agrarische Geschiedenis Bijdragen, II (1964)Google Scholar, the latest of a long string of important publications by the same author; compare Verlinden, C., “Gli italiani nell'economia delle Canarie,” Economia e Storia, VII (1960)Google Scholar, and see also Konetzke, R., “Entrepreneurial Activities of Spanish and Portuguese Noblemen in Medieval Times,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, VI (1953)Google Scholar, on the small role played by native capitalists. On geographical explorations, see the Actas do Congresso International de Historia dos Descobrimentos (Lisbon: Comissão Executiva das Comemorações do V Centenario da Morte do Infante D. Henrique, 1961)Google Scholar. A helpful bibliographic survey of Iberian medieval history, in English, was published by Bishko, C. J., under the apologetic title “The Iberian Background of Latin American History,” Hispanic American Historical Review, XXXVI (1956).Google Scholar

12 An early sketch of the main lines of what was then an almost unexplored field—Lopez, R. S., “Il predominio economico dei Genovesi nella monarchia spagnola,” Giomale storico e letterario della Liguria, XII (1936)Google Scholar—is now utterly outdated but not yet replaced. Most of the later bibliography is listed and utilized by Heers; some complements are found in the interesting paper of Pike, R., “The Genoese in Seville and the Opening of the New World,” Journal of Economic History, XXII (1962)Google Scholar, but the “literature” of the subject is still gaining momentum. No one should neglect two capital works, encompassing broader aspects: Braudel, F., La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II (Paris: A. Colin, 1949)Google Scholar, and Vives, J. Vicens, Historia económica de España (Barcelona: Teide, 1959)Google Scholar. Lastly, it is important to remember that the Iberian peninsula with its dependencies was the most important direction of the Genoese search for new markets but not the only one; see, for instance, Gioffré, D., Gênes et les foires de change: de Lyon à Besançon (Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1960)Google Scholar, and Doehaerd, R., Études Anversoises (Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1963).Google Scholar