Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:29:21.717Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Genoa and the Security of the Seas: the Mission of Babilano Lomellino in 1350

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

David Abulafia
Get access

Extract

For Genoa the ‘crisis of the fourteenth century’ had political as well as economic reality; the strife within the city and its colonies of Guelfs and Ghibellines was mirrored in its diplomatic affairs, as Genoa searched for friends in Guelf Naples or Ghibelline Sicily. The appearance of Catalan naval power presented a direct threat to Genoese shipping, however peaceful the intent of the latter might be; and attempts at co-operation between Genoa and Venice foundered on the banks of suspicion and envy. Commercial recession brought serious worry to what was still a trading, rather than industrial, centre, and there was a reluctance to waste valuable naval resources in attempts to eliminate Venetian or Catalan rivals. This attitude was not confined to Genoa, and perhaps explains why the western trading cities were more anxious to settle their differences by negotiation and compromise than they had been in the thirteenth century. Severest problem of all was that of the ‘pestifferam mortalitatem mundo totali occursam’; in the years immediately following the arrival of the Black Death (1347) the maritime cities found themselves suddenly deprived of invaluable manpower, and yet, paradoxically, they were not without the means to pay for the services of sailors and ship-builders if only these men could be found. Money, the money of dead men, there was in plenty; but neither the Genoese nor the Venetians knew how to adapt to the rapid change in the structure of demand that the pestilence engendered.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 45 , November 1977 , pp. 272 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Interesting from this angle is Kedar, B. Z.'s attempt to gauge the mood of Genoese merchants of the period: Merchants in Crisis: Genoese and Venetian men of affairs and the fourteenth century depression (New Haven, 1976)Google Scholar.

2 Lane, F. C., Venice, a maritime republic (New Haven, 1974), 173–9Google Scholar.

3 Bratianu, G., Recherches sur le commerce génois dans la mer noire du XIIIe si ècle (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar.

4 See e.g. Ziegler, P., The Black Death (London, 1969)Google Scholar.

5 The main account is Brunetti, M., Contributo alla storia delle relazioni veneto-genovesi dal 1348 al 1350 (Miscellanea di storia veneta, ser. 3, vol. ix, Venice, 1916)Google Scholar, but it is based on the Venetian sources only.

6 Thiriet, F., Régestes des déliberations du Sénat de Venise concernant la Romanie, i (1329–1399) (Paris—The Hague, 1958), nos. 244, 245, 246, 248Google Scholar; Thiriet, F., Déliberations des assemblées vénitiennes concernant la Romanie, i (1160–1363) (Paris—The Hague, 1966), no. 579Google Scholar.

7 Corfu, and Cephalonia, : Déliberations du Sénat, no. 249 (cf. no. 251)Google Scholar; Déliberations des assemblées, no. 584; Crete: Assemblées, nos. 581, 582, 585.

8 Following the mysterious death of Joanna's Hungarian consort Andrew, the king of Hungary invaded Naples but was forced to retreat in 1348. For this queen see Léonard, É. G., Histoire de Jeanne Ier reine de Naples, comtesse de Provence, 3 vols. published (Monaco—Paris, 1932–1937)Google Scholar. See also Brunetti, 139–42.

9 Short comment by Léonard, , Jeanne Ier, ii, 229Google Scholar.

10 Léonard, , Jeanne Ier, doc. nos. xvii, xviii, xix, 419, 421–2Google Scholar. Cf. xvi, 418.

11 Ibid., no. xxxii, 432–5.

12 Ibid., no. xxxiv, 436.

13 Lisciandrelli, P., ‘Trattati e negoziazioni politiche della Repubblica di Genova (958–1797), Regesti’, Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, n.s. i (1960), nos. 539–40Google Scholar; Léonard, , Jeanne Ier, nos. xlv, xlvi, 449–50Google Scholar. Archivio di Stato, Genoa, Archivio segreto, materie politiche, no. 2727, docs. 32 and 33.

14 Lisciandrelli, no. 546; Léonard, no. lv, 464–6 (1350 April 22). Archive no. 2727 (38).

15 Lisciandrelli, no. 548 (Archive no. 2727 (40)); also nos. 549 and 550 (2727) (41–2)). Cf. Villani, M., Cronica (Trieste, 1858 and other eds.)Google Scholar, Lib. I, cap. xc.

16 Lisciandrelli, nos. 579 and 582 (Archive nos. 2727 (54, 55)); Brunetti, 141–2.

17 Lisciandrelli, no. 531 (2727 (28), two good copies, one of 1601 and one sixteenth century). Cf. the document printed infra.

18 Printed infra from Archivio di Stato, Genoa, Archivio segreto, materie politiche, 2737A, no. 69. Cf. Lisciandrelli no. 551 for brief note; Meloni, G., Genova e Aragona all'epoca di Pietro il Ceremonioso, i (1336–54), Padua, 1971, 60Google Scholar.

19 Corfu, Butrint (Albania), etc.: see note 7 supra. Pagano Doria: Lisciandrelli 556–8 (2737A (73–75)); Balard, M., ‘A propos de la bataille du Bosphore. L'expédition génoise de Paganino Doria à Constantinople (1351–52)’, Travaux et mémoires, iv (1970), 431–69Google Scholar.

20 A list of documents concerning the Lomellini in the Naples archives (originals now destroyed) was provided in 1610 by Petrus Vincentius, archivist of the Sicilian kingdom, to a Genoese client, and now constitutes Archivio Segreto 2727 no. 18 in the Archivio di Stato, Genoa. Fuller copies of two fourteenth-century documents cited by Vincentius were also provided (2727 (17), of 1326/7 and 2727 (19), of 1327/8), plus a stray text (2727 (20)) not listed in no. 18. Nine privileges, all of the fourteenth century are listed, which with 2727 (20) makes a total of ten documents.

21 Annales Genuenses di Giorgio Stella, ed. Balbi, G. (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ser. 2, vol. xvii, part 2), 150–1Google Scholar. For later developments, see Sorbelli, A., La lotta tra Genova e Venezia per il predominio del Mediterraneo, 1350–5 (Bologna, 1921)Google Scholar (= Memorie della R. Accademia delle Scienze dell' Istituto di Bologna, classe di scienze morali, ser. 1, vol. v, sezione di scienze storico–fililogiche, 1911, p. 87–157Google Scholar (parte prima)). This, like Brunetti, is based on the Venetian documentation only.