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580 Daniele Andreozzi

network and the mechanisms which structured trade. At the same time
they also tell us about the goods which shored up the identity and role
of the Trieste marketplace. On 2nd June 1785 a ship from the Papal
States moored at the port having set sail from Ancona with sugar and
pepper as did an English ship with a cargo of ginger and orpiment,
sugar and wood from Brazil and a French ship from Marseilles carrying
coffee, cocoa and sugar. On the 18th and 24th of the same month two
ships docked, both sailing under the imperial flag: one from Le Havre
carrying sugar and the other from Lisbon carrying salt and sugar. On
the 26th a French ship from Marseilles arrived carrying coffee, cocoa,
sugar and pepper. On 7th July a ship sailing under the Dubrovnik flag
arrived having left from Cadiz and stopped at Genoa, Palermo, Messina
and Dubrovnik. Its cargo encompassed wood from the Americas, sugar,
jalap, cocoa, vanilla, pepper, lemons, lamb and fox skins and linen oil.
That same day a Genoese ship which had left from Genoa and stopped
at Livorno and Messina came to Trieste with a cargo of lamb skins,
almonds, oil, cloth, drugs, cocoa, sugar, wool, sweets, coffee, cotton,
jalap, pepper, porcelain, lemons and wood from Brazil. That same
month, on the 28th, a Dutch ship which had left from Amsterdam
arrived at the port having stopped in Ancona carrying sulphur, sugar,
timber, dyes and pepper. If we change year and month, the situation is
the same. In March 1786 a ship sailing under the Danish flag, from
Bordeaux and having stopped at Cadiz reached Trieste with a cargo of
coffee, American cotton, wine, cocoa, indigo and jalap. On 23rd August
a Danish brigantine sailed from Hamburg with a cargo of fish oil, sugar,
canvas, coffee, arsenic, porcelain, paper, clay pipes, wood from Brazil
29
and pens for writing with .
Further examples would be pointless. Trade focusing on Trieste was
the outcome of the interweaving of all these ‘segmental routes’ which
are apparently chaotic but actually followed a certain logic in the
overall make-up of trade. It is a logic which was further complicated
by the fact that the goods arriving in Trieste were not simply of diverse
eastern and western provenance but also by the fact that the same
goods came from these areas at different qualities and prices,
depending on year, production trends and geo-political situation. This
was the case, for example, with potash, cereals, coffee, cotton, sugar
and tobacco. In 1778, when the American War of Independence broke
out, an Antwerp company linked to Trieste merchants purchased
coffee, sugar, drugs and American wood to trade with Hungarian

29 Sav, Savi, I s., 759, 1785-1786.

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