Il Sud dei Genovesi. Traffici marittimi e pratiche mercantili tra l'Italia meridionale, Genova e Marsiglia nel Settecento

Ligurian operators’ activity upon the Mediterranean routes and within the European ports during the Early Modern period rapresents a not completely explored field of research. A part from the last years’ works by Luciana Gatti, in general, the European historiography has inexplicably understimated the importance of the Genoese merchant navigation which sometimes has been described as a “local and limited phenomenon” not only on the social but even on the economic level. Many historians have asserted that the importance of the Ligurian equipments and crews should have been undertaken by the much more competitive “nordic” operators who, in a sense, were better protected by their armed national navies, while the “Genoese Republic” should have permitted, at least formally, the “diaspore” of the seamen towards the foreign and antagonist flags. Thanks to the data concerning the commercial flows among the South of Italy, Genoa and the port of Marseille during the second half of the XVIIIth Century (note the essencial works by B. Salvemini, A. Carrino e M.A. Visceglia) we obtain a completely different result. Not only the Ligurian operators were active on these routes, but in many cases they were the undiscussed leaders for example on the Calabria-Sicily rhumb line and in particular for the North-South olive oil and corn trade. The data collected in the Santé of the port of Marseille confirm the the Ligurian seamen were travelling with official Genoese documents and under the Repubblica flag. Thanks to these data from the Marseille Archives we have reconstructed the evolution and modus operandi of the Ligurian crews from the beginning of the XVIIIth Century to the Napoleonic age. In particular, using some documents from private family archives, we have analized the merchant customs which were often “out of the law” but which allowed the Ligurian seamen to become a unexpected and relevant commercial power during tha last years of the European Early Modern period.