Page 89 - 1

The ‘backbone’ of the Serenissima: Venice and the trade with the Holy Roman... 615

We may presume with substantial likelihood – as did the author
who put this data forward – that these numbers reflect to a large de-
gree the German-Italian trade. The years until the end of the Thirty
Years War saw no resurgence of the textile exports of Southern Ger-
many. Such a picture of decline is reflected in the income of the toll
of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice. Here, the revenues fell from
63,168 ducats in 1602 to just 24,661 ducats in 1640 . This all seems
3
to verify the strong statement that Gerhard Rösch made in 1986: «La
guerra di Trent’anni segna il definitivo arresto delle relazioni commer-
ciali tra Germania e Venezia» .
4
Despite the stance of previous research, we can now state with
certainty that the bleak outlook for the future after the mid-17
th
century was an exaggeration, based on an extrapolation from the
first half of the century. Such an interpretation led to the overlook-
ing of a complex resurgence of German-Venetian trade relations
that came about in the 1670s and which was to result in stable and
at times flourishing trade relations that continued mostly unabated
until the end of the 18 century .
th
5
One of the greatest problems that hampered any analysis of the
German Venetian trading relations from the German side was the lack
of contextualisation into two important frameworks . The first one was
6
the overall transalpine trading relationship between Germany and It-
aly. Within this system, the German-Adriatic trade axis was, certainly
until 1800, always the most important one. Yet, its dynamics can only
be properly understood if looked at from a comparative perspective
that includes what was happening on the other transalpine axes. The

3 M. Fusaro, Uva passa: Una guerra commerciale tra Venezia e l'Inghilterra (1540-
1640), Cardo, Venice, 1996, p. 135.
4 G. Rösch, Il Fondaco dei Tedeschi, in G. Cozzi (ed.), Venezia e la Germania.
Arte, politica, commercio, due civiltà a confronto, Mondadori, Milan, 1986, pp. 51-
72, here p. 72.
5 Admittedly, there was one dissenting voice that called for a reevaluation of Ger-
man–Venetian trade relations in the 18 th century: J. Georgelin, Venise au siècle des
Lumières, Mouton, Paris, 1978, pp. 669-676. However, Georgelin’s work did not find a
strong reception neither in Germany nor in Italy and, also, he himself admitted that he
could not come up with a coherent picture, as the evidence at hand was simply too
contradicting. See especially pp. 72-98.
6 This holds especially true for two fundamental and oft-cited articles on the German
nation: L. Beutin, La décadence économique de Venise considérée du point de vue nord-
européen, in C. Cipolla (ed.), Aspetti e cause della decadenza economica veneziana nel
secolo XVII, Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, Venice, 1961, pp. 87-108; H. Kel-
lenbenz, Le déclin de Venise et les relations économiques de Venise avec les marchés au
nord des Alpes, in ivi, pp. 109-183.

Mediterranea – ricerche storiche – Anno XIX – Dicembre 2022
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)