Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Genoa (Italy) – Economic conditions – 16th century »

Defence date: 5 July 1996
Examining board: Prof. Franco Angiolini, Università degli Studi di Pisa (co-supervisor) ; Prof. Kirti N. Chaudhuri, European University Institute (supervisor) ; Prof. Laurence Fontaine, European University Institute ; Dr. Richard Mackenney, University of Edinburgh ; Prof. Rodolfo Savelli, Università degli Studi di Genova
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence date: 18 June 2014
Examining Board: Professor Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla, EUI-Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Director) Professor Regina Grafe, EUI Professor Cátia Antunes, Leiden University Professor Maria Fusaro, Exeter University.
While historiography has analyzed the economic rise of northwestern Europe during Seventeenth century, less effort has been devoted to tackle the relative decline of the Mediterranean. Which factors contributed to eclipse the preeminence of south-European merchant-banking networks? How did they react to that shift? This thesis aims at filling that gap by elaborating on the case-study of the Genoese company of Domenico Grillo, offering insight into those questions. The main argument is that the Genoese not only faced increasing competition for the control of exchange circuits but also the reconfiguration of the institutional arrangements that had sustained their previous role as leaders of European financial markets. Challenging the traditional view of decay, this study reveals an astonishing dynamism of Genoese and Italian merchant-bankers in commercial circuits across and within different states and empires, and suggests that these networks adapted rather than collapsed. Furthermore, it shows something perhaps unexpected: the Genoese response went beyond the Mediterranean and encompassed the Atlantic as well. The thesis starts discussing how the Genoese case has been traditionally approached, to then examine the role of those networks in European circuits of exchange. Next, a deep investigation is carried out into the institutional devices supporting Grillo’s business in the Americas, exploring how he collaborated and competed with other actors. The study continues analyzing the trading chains he established across the Mediterranean, Atlantic Europe and the Americas. Finally it focuses on the many times neglected role displayed by the Republic of Genoa in framing the performance of Genoese networks abroad. Using a transnational approach, sources are interrogated in dialogue with the flourishing literature about merchant networks and institutions. Thus, this investigation goes beyond traditional images about the "Genoese capitalism" and revisits one of the axioms underpinning dominant metanarratives about the rise of the so-called "Western civilization".

Defence date: 6 December 2013
Examining Board: Professor Antony Molho, EUI (supervisor); Professor Jacques Bottin, CNRS (external supervisor); Professor Antonella Romano, EHESS; Dr. Francesco Guidi Bruscoli, Università degli Studi di Firenze
This thesis was awarded the European Business History Association (EBHA) Dissertation Prize 2014 in Utrecht in August 2014.
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
The commercial archives of the Salviati bank of Lyons record the entire activity of one of the most important companies on the 16thcentury marketplace. They also keep information relative to other businessmen and companies on the European scene at the time. This thesis scrutinises the organisation, methods and main sectors of activity of the Salviati bank (exchange, finances and commodities trade) in the middle of the 16th century, at the height of Lyons’ prosperity. It examines mercantile practices in relation to economic spaces and underlines the reciprocal influence of Florentine mercantile traditions and Lyonese economic structures. More specifically, it shows how the involvement of Italian firms in Lyons shaped their choice of business organisation and trade objects and how the strategies of Italian businessmen impacted in turn on the functioning of the marketplace. While the study of the Lyonese branch of a Florentine firm allows to assess its adaptability to local economic structures, the analysis of the activity of the main actors on the Lyons marketplace sheds light on the economic and social processes essential to the good functioning of that marketplace (forms of collaboration between various economic operators and different levels of market integration). This leads to a questioning of many of the hypotheses formulated in the current historiography (mostly, on the basis of local sources), concerning the Italian dominion over Lyons, and a refutation of the vision of market organisation and changing economic conditions that it puts forward. The section devoted to the exchange business, the main field of specialisation of the Salviati bank at the time, challenges the notion of Lyon’s key function in the European system of exchange. The uncovering of previously unknown financial techniques, and of techniques whose use in the space-time frame of this thesis is traditionally denied, brings an additional contribution to the history of banking.