Journalist and author Nicholas Walton writes about medieval Genoa’s economy, trade and role in the Black Death. Walton recently published a book on Genoese history entitled, “Genoa: La Superba”
BOOK REVIEW: Genoa ‘La Superba’: The Rise and Fall of a Merchant Pirate Superpower by Nicholas Walton
August 9, 2015 By
While most books about Italy have been dedicated to tourist hubs like Milan, Florence, Rome, Sicily and Venice, Genoa with its rich history, rugged landscape, and tenacious residents, has been given only a passing mention.
Foundation Myths in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
June 10, 2015 By
The 3 papers featured here looked at the development of the civic identities of Florence, Genoa and Rome through art, architecture and foundation legends.
The Fashion Police in 16th-century Italy
October 2, 2014 By
Patrolling the streets and squares of the bustling city as arbiters of the level of ostentation that was deemed appropriate, the sumptuary magistrates were quite simply the Fashion Police.
The Zaccaria Deal : Contracts and options to fund a Genoese shipment of alum to Bruges in 1298
December 14, 2013 By
This paper analyses one of the most fascinating late medieval commercial contracts. Some have advanced that it is was the first ever written maritime insurance.
The so-called Genoese World Map of 1457: A Stepping Stone Towards Modern Cartography?
May 18, 2013 By
Around the time of Christopher Columbus’s birth, we find on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, especially in the north of Italy, a variety of people particularly interested in problems of geography and cartography.
The Family Consciousness in Medieval Genoa: The Case of the Lomellini
March 10, 2013 By
The most famous figure of the family in this century was Napoleone Lomellini. He was a member of the ‘anziani’ and was known as ‘multum dives et magnus mercator a very rich and important merchant’
CRISIS OF CONTRACTS FOR MERCHANTS IN CRISIS: INSTITUTIONS, CORPORATE FINANCE AND GROWTH IN GENOA (11TH -17TH C.)
January 13, 2013 By
My paper focuses these “merchant princes” from Genoa before the “industrial revolution”. The rise and fall of Genoa provides indeed a striking case about the success and failure of what, in the same vein than Bagehot, Joseph Schumpeter called the “creative destruction”, and the role financial markets in that process.
The Sovereign and the Pirates, 1332
December 7, 2012 By
One Monday in early Spring 1332 a galley commanded by two Genoese ran aground on the tiny island of Brescou in the Mediterranean, a mile or so off shore of the episcopal city of Agde.
The sea republic of Genoa and the conquest of Black Sea in 1261
November 1, 2012 By
I’m going to explain how Genoa conquered the Black Sea in 1261, which was the most important, or better, only road to Asia
‘You say that the Messiah has come.’:The Ceuta Disputation (1179) and its place in the Christian anti-Jewish polemics of the high middle ages
October 28, 2012 By
Disputation could be the result of the Christian protagonist’s meeting with the North AfricanJew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of considerableinterest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the discussion in Ceuta hador had not taken place, the new Christian attitude towards anti-Jewish polemics expressed inthe Disputation’s text was most likely inspired by real-life discussions between Jews andChristians.
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2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Jewish and Christian relations; Mediterranean trade in the middle ages; Ceuta; Genoa;Scriptural exegesis, Almohads
The Messiah came in the twelfth century. This time he did not arrive in themanner anticipated by the prophets of the Bible. Rather, his arrival occurred in theworld of polemics, where he suddenly emerged from relative obscurity to becomethe central topic of the continuing religious debate between Jews and Christians
Labor Markets After the Black Death: Landlord Collusion and the Imposition of Serfdom in Eastern Europe and the Middle East
August 19, 2012 By
The differences in the imposition of serfdom led to different economic and political effects for the peasantry in Europe. In Western Europe, wages rose, grain prices fell, and the consumption of meat, dairy products, and beer increased. More and more peasants moved into a widening “middle class” that could afford to buy manufactured goods.
Long Distance Trade Partnerships and Social dynamic in Medieval Genoa
July 8, 2012 By
Likewise, for those specifically addressing the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the participation of the dominant class to the Italian medieval commercial revolution often run contrary to account that pits the nobility against the urban merchants.
Living the middle life, secular priests and their communities in thirteenth-century Genoa
June 10, 2012 By
It has long been known among medievalists that secular priests, like Pagano, standing in front of their churches, rubbing elbows with the other clerics and lay people walking past,occupied a central place within medieval society. Not only did they carry out important duties within the institutional Church, but they also participated in the community life of both city and countryside.
‘The inordinate excess in apparel’: Sumptuary Legislation in Tudor England
April 29, 2012 By
Sumptuary legislation can be defined as a set of regulations, passed down by legislators through statutory law and parliamentary proclamations, that sought to regulate society by dictating what contemporaries could own or wear based on their position within society.
Genoese trade networks in the southern Iberian peninsula: trade, transmission of technical knowledge and economic interactions
August 1, 2011 By
Genoese trade networks in the southern Iberian peninsula: trade, transmission of technical knowledgeand economic interactions Porras, Alberto Garcıa and Garcıa, Adela Fabregas (Departamento de Historia Medieval y Ciencias y Te ́cnicas Historiogra ́ficas, Universidad de Granada, Spain) Mediterranean Historical Review, Vol. 25, No. 1, June (2010) Abstract This paper presents the results of a research project undertaken at the […]
Piracy as Statecraft: The Mediterranean Policies of the Fifth/Eleventh-Century Taifa of Denia
August 1, 2011 By
Piracy as Statecraft: The Mediterranean Policies of the Fifth/Eleventh-Century Taifa of Denia Bruce, Travis Al-Masa ̄q, Vol. 22, No. 3, December (2010) Abstract The taifa of Denia on the Iberian eastern seaboard was one of the most dynamic of the regional polities that emerged from the disintegrated Cordovan caliphate. Muja ̄hid al-‘A ̄mir ̄ı based his […]
Saint Peter and Paul Church (Sinan Pasha Mosque), Famagusta: A Forgotten Gothic Moment in Northern Cyprus
July 27, 2011 By
Saint Peter and Paul Church (Sinan Pasha Mosque), Famagusta: A Forgotten Gothic Moment in Northern Cyprus Walsh, Michael Inferno, Volume IX, 2004 Abstract When Pope Urban II called the Council of Clermont in 1095, and in so doing ordered the start of the Crusades to the Holy Land, it was neither obvious nor predictable what […]
The Debate on the Fourth Crusade
July 22, 2011 By
The Debate on the Fourth Crusade Harris, Jonathan History Compass, Volume 2, Issue 1 (2004) Abstract This article examines attempts over the past two hundred years to account for the diversion of the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople and its sack of the city in 1204. While nineteenth-century scholars dreamed up far-fetched conspiracy theories, their successors […]
The merchant of Genoa : the Crusades, the Genoese and the Latin East, 1187-1220s
May 20, 2011 By
The merchant of Genoa : the Crusades, the Genoese and the Latin East, 1187-1220s By Merav Mack PhD Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2003 Abstract: The Merchant of Genoa is a study of the Genoese engagement in the affairs of the eastern Mediterranean during the late Middle Ages. In particular, the dissertation examines Genoa’s involvement in […]
The Genoese citizenship of Carlo I Tocco of December 2, 1389
January 24, 2010 By
The Genoese citizenship, granted to Carlo I Tocco and his regent mother Magdalene by the authorities of the Republic of Genova (December 2, 1389) is a document the existence of which is widely accepted in the scholarly circles despite the fact that the details of its content have still remained largely unknown.
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