Benjamin Arbel, TAU

During the later Middle Ages Venice functioned as the capital of a ‘World Economy’, whose main arena was the Mediterranean and the countries around it. The city served as a commercial intermediary between Asia and Europe. International trade was considered in Venice as the main instrument for building and maintaining the Republic’s leading role in Italy and the Mediterranean world, and Venice’s elites were to a considerable extent involved in this activity. By the early seventeenth century, following the developments that will be discussed in this seminar, Venice had lost it hegemonic position in Mediterranean trade, but the changes characterizing its economy and society reflect a remarkable capacity of adaptation to changing circumstances. The following aspects of this process will be discussed in this course:

A. Venice as “the hinge of Europe”: the disintegration of the Mongol empire in the early fourteenth century and the reorganization of trade between Europe and Asia.

B. Venice and Mediterranean trade in the later Middle Ages

I. Structural Aspects:

a. The importance of trade for the Venetian state and society; social privileges related to trade; public and private income derived from trade.

b. Merchant culture: education, preparation and professional literature.

c. The institutions of international trade in the later Middle Ages: companies, joint ventures, forms of credit, business associations.

d. The characteristics of the ‘Commercial Revolution’ of the 14th century: commercial techniques (double-entry bookkeeping, bills of exchange, maritime insurance, commercial correspondence and commercial agents).

e. Private and public commercial shipping.

f. The overseas empire and its function in Venice’s system of international trade.

g. The institutional infrastructure of Venetian trade: legislation, diplomacy and defense.

II. The dynamics of change: challenges and solutions

a. The advance of the Ottomans – war and international trade.
b. The impact of Portuguese discoveries.
c. Competition and rivalry in the Mediterranean.
d. Sixteenth-century adjustments: industry, finance and agriculture.

Teaching method:

Interactive seminar, preliminary readings of chapters from the bibliography or of articles from the course pack are required for each session. Discussion are based on bibliography and illustrative documents, prepared in advance. Two written exams: one intermediate and one for final evaluation. Recommended preliminary reading: D.S. Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380-1580, London 1970.

Bibliography (only books by alphabetical order. For articles – see course pack)

Arbel, Benjamin. Trading Nations. Jews and Venetians in the Early-Modern Eastern Mediterranean, Brill, Leiden 1995.

Ashtor, Eliyahu. Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton UP 1983.

Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Translated by S. Reynolds. 2 vols, London, 1975.

Braudel, Fernand. The Wheels of Commerce. 3 vols. Vol. 2, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, London 1985.

The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 4: The Economy of Expanding Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century (Cambridge UP 1967); vol. 5: The Economic Organization of Early Modern Europe, ed. E.. E. Rich & C. Wilson, Cambridge UP 1977.

Cipolla, Carlo Maria, Before the Industrial Revolution. European Society and Economy, 1000-1700, Routledge, London 1993.

Dotson, John E. (ed.), Merchant Culture in Fourteenth-Century Venice: The Zibaldone Da Canal, Binghamton NY 1994.

Favier, Jean, Gold and Spices. The Rise of Commerce in the Middle Ages, Holmes and Meier, New York 1998.

Lane, Frederic C. Andrea Barbarigo, Merchant of Venice, 1418-1449, John Hopkins UP, Baltimore 1944. Reprint 1967.

Lane, F.C., Venice: a Maritime Republic, John Hopkins UP, Baltimore & London 1973.

Lane, F.C.; Mueller, R.C. Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, vol. I: Coins and Moneys of Account, John Hopkins UP, Baltimore & London 1985.

Lopez, R.S.; Raymond, I. W., ed. Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World, Columbia University Press, New York 1955. Reprint 2001.

Molà, Luca, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice. The Challenge of Innovation in a Mercantilist Economy 1450-1600, Johns Hopkins UP, Baltimore-London 2000.

Mueller, Reinhold C. Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, vol. II: The Venetian Money Market. Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500, Johns Hopkins UP, Baltimore & London 1997.

Sapori, Armando, The Italian Merchant in the Middle Ages, New York 1970.

Tenenti, Alberto. Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580-1615. London, 1967.

Tracy, James D., ed. The Rise of Merchant Empires. Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350-1750, Cambridge UP 1993.

Tracy, James D. ed., The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, Cambridge UP 1977.

Wallerstein, Immanuel M., The Modern World System I. Capitalist Agriculture and the Origin of European World Economy in the 16th Century, New York 1980.

Biography
BA in Middle Eastern History and General History (TAU), PhD in History (Hebrew University, Jerusalem). Full Professor at the Department of History and founder and Director of the Program on Renaissance Studies at TAU. Member of the editorial board of the “Mediterranean Historical Review” and “The Medieval Mediterranean”. Member of the Commission for the Publication of Sources on Venetian History at the State Archives of Venice. Published extensively on Venetian overseas possessions with particular focus on Cyprus, and, more broadly, on the Later Middle Ages and the Reanaissance, the Mediterranean World and on the Jews in the Levant and in Italy. Author of the books: Trading Nations. Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean (Brill, Leiden 1995), xi+237 pp; Cyprus, The Franks and Venice (13th-16th Centuries) (Ashgate, London 2000) (Variorum Collected Studies Series CS 688), xii+332 pp.; The Italian Renaissance: The Emergence of a Secular Culture (Tel Aviv 2000), 144 pp. [in Hebrew].