From the Black Sea to the Americas. The trading companies of Trieste and the global commercial network (18th Century)

Habsburg port on the Adriatic Sea, for a long time Trieste developed very little in economic and social terms, its access to the sea blocked by the power of the Republic of Venice. During the eighteenth century, the city and its port underwent massive economic, social and demographic growth. The port became one of the most important in the Mediterranean Sea. Such growth has long been viewed as the direct result of policies initiated by Emperor Charles VI of Habsburg, policies that created Trieste ‘artificially’ . This approach is inclined to highlight the role of the state in the growth of the port and the city, underlining a few elements in its strategies such as the granting of free port status – between 1717 and 1719 – and the creation of privileged companies. These have often been the focus of the attention of historians who have studied the Habsburg empire and today, due to a renewed interest in the privileged companies, of many scholars at an international level . In part, this appears to be an attempt to locate Trieste within the ‘great history’, however it risks reiterating traditional visions which hypothesised the ‘artificial’ creation of the city. On one hand it reduces Trieste’s history to a sort of second rank history, full of failures and whose attempts to emulate the large Atlantic powers were, if seen through this prism, especially unrealistic. On the other hand it impedes us from fully understanding the port’s growth mechanisms and the way in which it related to global trade networks. And this within the framework of a substantial devaluation of the Mediterranean. This means that the reconstruction of the role played by the privileged commercial companies in Trieste, in their relationship to the spaces, powers and interests and with the state and its structures, can contribute to the debate over the large privileged commercial companies besides dealing with the issues raised by the rapid development of the port and the city. Much has been written about companies connected with Trieste. My objective, however, is somewhat different. In fact it is to place such events within the context of the trade system centred around Trieste and try to understand how this may have affected the ways globalisation took place in the eighteenth century, shaping the networks that joined the different ‘local realities’.