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‘Segmented Trade’. Merchants, Mercantile Practices and Mercantilism 573

with the Atlantic were taking place. Ships carrying northern European
flags began, however infrequently, to dock at Trieste’s port from the
Atlantic, though generally not directly but only after having stopped at
9
other Mediterranean ports too . Merchants based in Trieste began
bringing in goods from the Atlantic, sometimes to send them on to central
Europe, connecting up Levant goods with those from the continent. Later,
Hapsburg trading policies centred on creating chartered companies,
building further, still fluid and unstable contacts. In the twenties the
Ostend Company and the Oriental Company were set up. The former’s
objective was to manage trade between the section of the Low Countries
ruled over by Charles VI and India and China and the latter with the
10
Ottoman Empire, with headquarters in Trieste and Vienna . The Ostend
Company got off to an outstanding start but was disbanded in 1732 in
response to demands by and protests from other European powers. The
Vienna court thus attempted to transfer its capital and skills to Trieste.
The Oriental Company story, on the other hand, was a much more
chequered one and its activities largely ceased in around the 1730s.
Attempts to transfer the Ostend Company’s capital were equally
unsuccessful and its activities did not go beyond the Mediterranean.
However its existence put Trieste in contact with the Imperial and
European financial worlds and with Antwerp in particular and the Proli
financial group which was based there. This latter built a network of
bonds and interests which turned out to be important to the building of
relationships with the Atlantic in the second half of the century .
11

3. The free port takes shape

At the end of the 1740s Empress Maria Theresa of the Hapsburgs’
power stabilised and the international situation settled down. This
enabled the Viennese court to turn its attention to Trieste once again

9 Sav, Savi, s. II, 6, p. I, 16 December 1723 and 8 and 22 February 1724.
10 Sav, Inquisitori, 254, 30 June 1728.
11 G. H. Dumont, L’épopéé de la Compagnie d’Ostende: 1723 – 27, Cri, Bruxelles,
2000; M. Huisman, La Belgique commerciale sous l’Empereur Charles VI. La Compagnie
d’Ostende. Etude historique de politique commerciale et coloniale, Henri Lamertin-Picard,
Bruxelles-Paris, 1902; M. Wanner, The Ostend Company as phenomenon of international
politics in 1722-1731, «Prague Papers on the History of International Relations» (2006),
pp. 29-63; M. Wanner, The establishment of the General Company in Ostend in the context
of the Habsburg maritime plans 1714-1723, «Prague Papers on the History of Interna-
tional Relations» (2007), pp. 33-62; G. Bussolin, Della imperiale privilegiata compagnia
orientale nel secolo scorso e del Lloyd austro-ungarico nel secolo presente. Studio storico,
L. Herrmanstorfer, Trieste, 1882; D. Andreozzi, Mediterranean doubts cit., pp. 65-87.

n.44 Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XV - Dicembre 2018
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)