«La gloria di un dilatato commercio». L'intrico delle politiche e lo sviluppo di Trieste nell'Adriatico centro settentrionale (1700-1730)

The mercantile policies of the Hapsburg found a mythical exemplification inside the narrations about the creation of Trieste as the artificial product of the enlightened and centralizing strategies of the emperor Carlo VI of Hapsburg. However, the actual meaning of the aspirations and policies of Carlo VI must be found within the specific context belonging to the High Adriatic area in the eighteenth century. This paper intends to delineate the processes of creation of the policies set in action in order to start the growth of Trieste and find the main actors of those processes and highlight their motivations, interests and practices. All of that points back to the society and the ways of interacting, blend and mingle between State and society, allowing us to complicate the relations between policies and practices and between the regulatory apparatus and rules.