Managing Free Trade in Early Modern Europe: Institutions, Information, and the Free Port of Livorno

In November 1644, the ship captain Sebastiane Ferro arrived at the Tuscan port of Livomo with a cargo of wine. Even before requesting the pratica of the portentry for the purpose of trade-he asked to receive the exemptions of Livomo, to be sure that in corning onto land he not be molested either in his person or in his goods for civil debts contracted in foreign states. Technically, these exemptions were restricted to inhabitants of the city. Nonetheless, the Customs Office routinely granted them even to temporary visitors of what was Europe\u27s premier free port, and in this case Customs Director Pandolfo Attavanti was happy to oblige Ferro. What happened next was therefore quite unexpected. While the regular governor was out roving the Mediterranean with the grand duke\u27s ships, several creditors of Ferro persuaded the acting governor to clap the captain into prison, disable his vessel, and seize his cargo

Book Reviews : Orpheus in the Marketplace

Orpheus in the Marketplace by Tim Carter and Richard A. Goldthwaite is reviewed

La Competitivita del Commercio Della Diaspora

Review article on Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Stranger

Imperial Ambition in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Genoese Merchants and the Spanish Crown, by Céline Dauverd

Fernand Braudel once wrote that the age of the Genoese was ‘so discrete and sophisticated that historians for a long time failed to notice it’. Unfortunately, despite the attention lavished upon Genoa by Braudel himself, few historians have taken the pains to examine the mechanics of Genoese hegemony. Céline Dauverd’s Imperial ambition in the early modern Mediterranean goes some way toward rectifying this situation