Page 91 - 1

The ‘backbone’ of the Serenissima: Venice and the trade with the Holy Roman... 617

2. The Crisis of the Mid-17 Century
th

In one of the most remarkable articles that was ever written on Ve-
netian commercial and economic history of the 17 century, four of
th
the most distinguished historians of their time, Fernand Braudel,
Pierre Jeannin, Jean Meuvret, and Ruggiero Romano pooled their ex-
pertise together to produce a profound text of over 60 pages length.
The article offers some striking contrasts. In the middle parts, it is
complex, aware of nuances and trying to problematize substantial
gaps in our knowledge. It has a sound sceptical undertone towards
any easy conclusions that continues to make it a worthwhile read
more than sixty years after its publication. The conclusion however,
somewhat disconnected from the main part of the text and unfittingly
moralizing, repeats again that the Republic reacted inadequately to
the challenges of the century and thus deserved its own downfall .
8
We shall look at one of the in-depth parts of that article. Regarding the
trade with Germany, the authors were capable of putting some remarka-
ble insights forward. They could illustrate with some Dutch sources that
the land trade to Venice recovered to some degree in the 1620s as mari-
time trade to the Mediterranean was hampered by Spanish corsairs. It
speaks for the authors that they remained cautious with regard to the
developments after 1630 and gave some hints that speak to the continu-
ation of solid trading relations . For the development after the peace of
9
Westphalia, they were able to cite from a specialised piece of secondary
German literature and present a complex explanation:

In Leipzig, in 1650-1651, the total transit of cloth was three times greater
towards Nuremberg than towards Hamburg; in 1678, Leipzig sent cloth worth
130,000 taler to Hamburg, and only 34,600 taler to Nuremberg, Augsburg and
Frankfurt combined. Comparing this data, could we not, in the absence of a
real series, see the sign of a new direction in the interior of Germany? A slow
change, which in the third quarter of the century gave the advantage to west-
east lines over north-south lines. 10

8 F. Braudel, P. Jeannin, J. Meuvret, R. Ruggiero, Le déclin de Venise au XVII e siècle
in C. Cipolla (ed.), Aspetti e cause della decadenza economica veneziana nel secolo XVII,
Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, Venice, 1961, pp. 23-86.
9 Such thoughts can be fleshed out more substantially nowadays. Recently, another
work on entrepreneurs from Upper Germany in the 17 th and 18 th centuries has put
forward some examples of German traders who even settled in Germany in the 1630s
and 40s due to the ongoing situation of warfare north of the Alps: G. Seibold, Wirtschaft-
licher Erfolg in Zeiten des politischen Niedergangs. Augsburger und Nürnberger Un-
ternehmer in den Jahren zwischen 1648 und 1806, Wißner, Augsburg, 2014, pp. 73-74.
10 F. Braudel, P. Jeannin, J. Meuvret, R. Ruggiero, Le déclin de Venise, cit., p. 76:
“À Leipzig, en 1650-1651, le transit total des toiles est trois fois plus important vers
Nuremberg que vers Hambourg; en 1678, Leipzig expédie pour 130,000 taler à

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