This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 724544
Average-Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries)
Project Team
We are a large team comprising of a Principal Investigator, seven Senior Visiting Fellows, five Honorary Research Fellows, a Research IT Developer, Project Administrator and a Postdoctoral Research Associate.
Maria Fusaro graduated from the Università di Venezia Ca’ Foscari, and then moved to Cambridge where she completed her PhD in 2002. After a Junior Research Fellowship at St. Hugh’s College at Oxford, she was Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. At the University of Exeter since 2006, she is presently Professor in Early Modern Social and Economy History and she directs the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies.
Selected publications
She is the author of Political Economies of Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Decline of Venice and the Rise of England 1450-1700 (Cambridge, 2015); Reti commerciali e traffici globali in eta' moderna (Rome-Bari, 2008); L’uva passa. Una guerra commerciale tra Venezia e l’Inghilterra, 1540-1640 (Venice, 1997). She has co-edited with B. Allaire, R. Blakemore, T. Vanneste, Labour, Law and Empire: Comparative Perspectives on Seafarers, c. 1500-1800 (London-New York, 2015); with C. Heywood and M.-S. Omri, Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Braudel’s Maritime Legacy (London, 2010) and with Á. Polonia, Maritime History as Global History (St. John’s, 2011).
Amongst her articles: ‘Public Service and Private Trade: Northern Seamen in Seventeenth Century Venetian Courts of Justice’, The International Journal of Maritime History, 27 (2015): 3-25; ‘Politics of justice/Politics of trade: foreign merchants and the administration of justice from the records of Venice’s Giudici del Forestier’, (59 pp.) Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, MEFRIM, 126/1 (2014); ‘Cooperating mercantile networks in the Early Modern Mediterranean’, The Economic History Review, 65 (2012); ‘Maritime History as Global History? The methodological challenges and a future research agenda’, in Maritime History as Global History; ‘Les Anglais et les Grecs. Un réseau de coopération commerciale en Méditerranée vénitienne’, Annales Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 58 (2003).
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Sabine Go works at the the School of Business and Economics of VU Amsterdam. Her research is focused on the emergence and development of economic institutions during the early modern times in the Low Countries, in particular marine insurance. Her current research concerns the occurrence and evolution of contract enforcement mechanisms, and the way these have affected economic development in general and behaviour of parties to an industry in particular. Within the AveTransRisk Project, Sabine is concentrating on the Amsterdam Chamber of Insurance and Average in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Her research is centered on a unique manuscript, the Statute Book of the Chamber (1598- ca. 1623). This manuscript includes not only formal regulations and how these were adjusted and altered, but also how the regulations were interpreted and applied. By analyzing the regulations and the alterations, the adjudications and the reasoning both, we may for example learn how municipalities copied regulations from other commercial cities, how these specific commercial conflicts were governed in a way that would promote the city’s status as commercial center, and how General Average and marine insurance, both served a purpose as risk management tools for early modern entrepreneurs.
Selected publications
Go, Sabine and Jaap Bruijn, ‘Keeping Risk at Bay: Risk Management and Insurance in Eighteenth century Dutch- Whaling’, in: Brandon, Pepijn, Sabine Go, and Wybren Verstegen, Navigating History: Economy, Society, Knowledge, and Nature. Essays in Honour of Prof. Dr C.A. Davids (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 146-169.
Brandon, Pepijn, Sabine Go, and Wybren Verstegen (eds), Navigating History: Economy, Society, Knowledge, and Nature. Essays in Honour of Prof. Dr C.A. Davids (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
Brandon, Pepijn, Sabine Go, and Wybren Verstegen, ‘Preface’ in: Brandon, Pepijn, Sabine Go, and Wybren Verstegen, Navigating History: Economy, Society, Knowledge, and Nature. Essays in Honour of Prof. Dr C.A. Davids(Leiden: Brill, 2018) xi-xiv.
Go, Sabine C.P.J., ’The Insurance Market in Amsterdam/L’Assurance d’Amsterdam’ in: Catherine Secretan et al (eds), Dictionnaire des Pays-Bas au Siècle d'Or (Aachen: CNRS 2018).
Go, Sabine C.P.J.,’The Amsterdam Wisselbank’ in: Catherine Secretan et al (eds), Dictionnaire des Pays-Bas au Siècle d'Or (Aachen: CNRS, 2018).
Go, Sabine C.P.J., "On Governance Structures and Maritime Conflict Resolution in Early Modern Amsterdam: The Case of the Chamber of Insurance and Average (sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)."Comparative Legal History 5, no. 1 (2017): 107-124.
Go, Sabine C.P.J. and Th. Allain, 'Les archives de la Chambre des Assurances et Avaries d’Amsterdam, une source méconnue pour l’histoire maritime à l’époque modern’, in: Christian Borde en Eric Roulet (dir.), L'assurance maritime XIVe-XXIe siècle, Aachen, Shaker Verlag.
Go, Sabine C.P.J., 'Amsterdam: emergence, dominance, and decline', in Leonard, A.B. (ed.): Marine insurance: international development and evolution, Palgrave History of Finance Series, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Go, Sabine, e.a., Zekere zaken; Mijlpalen uit de geschiedenis van de coassurantie, Rotterdam 2016.
Go, Sabine, “Agenten en de strijd tegen de concurrentie: buitenlandse maatschappijen op de Nederlandse markt (ca. 1850 tot ca. 1900)”, in: Go, Sabine, e.a., Zekere zaken; Mijlpalen uit de geschiedenis van de coassurantiemarkt, Rotterdam, 2016, 20-25.
Sabine C.P.J. Go, 'The Amsterdam Chamber of Insurance and Average: A New Phase in Formal Contract Enforcement (Late sixteenth and seventeenth Centuries)', Enterprise and Society 14 (3), 511-543.
Sabine C.P.J. Go, “The Amsterdam and Rotterdam Insurance Markets in the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century: Inertia versus Adaptability”, International Journal of Maritime History, XXIII, 2, 85-110.
Sabine C.P.J. Go, Marine insurance in the Netherlands 1600-1870, a comparative institutional approach (Amsterdam 2009).
Press statement
VRIJE Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) released a press statement on 16 January 2018. 'School of Business and Economics researcher Sabine Go has, as part of a team led by Professor Maria Fusaro from the University of Exeter, received an ERC Consolidator Grant to investigate the development of General Average laws and procedures during the Early Modern period.' For more information, see this page.
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Andrea Addobbati is Associate Professor (Reader) in Early Modern History at the University of Pisa. His PhD was in Economic History at the Istituto Universitario Navale of Naples, where his thesis examined the Insurance Market in Livorno in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He cultivates an interest in both the history of Italian society and cultural history. He is a member of the Advisory Board for the programme for Doctoral Studies in History and has been repeatedly Primary Advisor and Committee member of the same programme.
Selected publications
Commercio, rischio, guerra. Il mercato delle assicurazioni marittime di Livorno (1694-1795), Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2007, pp. 320.
La festa e il gioco nella Toscana del Settecento, Plus, Pisa 2002, pp. 306.
A. Addobbati, M. Aglietti (eds), La città delle nazioni. Livorno e i limiti del cosmopolitismo (1566-1834). Studi dedicati a Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, Pisa University Press, 2016.
A. Addobbati, R. Bizzocchi e G. Salinero (eds), L'Italia dei cognomi. L'antroponimia italiana nel quadro mediterraneo, Pisa, Pisa University Press, 2012.
A. Addobbati (ed.), Islam e Occidente: la storia e il mondo che cambia, Pisa, Plus 2003.
Italy: cooperation and competition, 1500-1800, in A. Leonard (ed.), Marine insurance: origins and institutions, 1300–1850, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 46-77.
Until the Very Last Nail: English Seafaring and Wage Litigation in Seventeenth-Century Livorno, in M. Fusaro, B. Allaire, R. Blakemore, T. Vanneste (eds), Law, Labour, and Empire. Comparative Perspectives on Seafarers, c. 1500-1800, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 43-60.
Una nuova lettura del Dei Doveri dei Principi Neutrali di Ferdinando Galiani, in M. Cini (ed.), Traffici commerciali, sicurezza marittima, guerra di corsa. Il Mediterraneo e l'Ordine di S.Stefano. Pisa, ETS, 2011, pp. 181-219.
When Proof is Lacking: A ship captain's oath and commercial justice in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century, «Quaderni Storici», 3 (2016), pp. 727-52.
Assicurazioni e gioco d'azzardo tra Bordeaux, Londra e Livorno. Le polizze speculative sul commercio franco-caraibico durante la guerra di successione austriaca, «Quaderni Storici», vol. 143 (2013), p. 441-65.
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Giovanni Ceccarelli is Professor of Economic History at the Università degli studi di Parma. He holds a PhD in Economic History from the Università Bocconi of Milano (2001) and is Chercheur Associé at the Université Montaigne-Bordeaux 3. He was visiting Fellow at Princeton University, Department of History (2016/2017) and Directeur d’études invite at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (2017/2018). His research interests include early modern commerce and finance, with a special focus on risk-management contracts; late medieval economic thought; food and retail history with a specific interest on typical products, and food marketing.
Selected publications
A Risky Market: Insurance in Renaissance Florence, Brill, Boston/Leiden, 2020.
“Courtiers et assurances maritimes: les raisons d’une liaison profonde (XIVe-XVIe siècles),” in M. Scherman, A. Wegener Sleeswijk, V. Demont (eds.), Le pouvoir des courtiers. Intermédiation marchande et évolution des pratiques commerciales, XIVe-XVIIIe siècles, Éditions Rue d’Ulm/Presses de l’École normale supérieure, Paris, 2018, pp. 75-86.
“Coping with Unknown Risks in Renaissance Florence: Insurers, Friars and Abacus Teachers,” in C. Zwierlein (ed.), The Dark Side of Knowledge: Histories of Ignorance, 1400 to 1800, Brill, Boston/Leiden, 2016, pp. 117-138.
Typicality in History. Tradition, Innovation, and Terroir La typicité dans l’histoire. Tradition, innovation et terroir, Peter Lang, Bruxelles, 2013 [co-edited, with Alberto Grandi e Stefano Magagnoli].
Un mercato del rischio. Assicurare e farsi assicurare nella Firenze rinascimentale, Marsilio, Venezia, 2012.
“The Price for Risk-Taking: Marine Insurance and Probability Calculus in the Late Middle Ages,” Journ@l électronique d’Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique/Electronic Journ@l for History of Probability and Statistics, 3-1 (2007), pp. 1-26.
“‘Whatever Economics’: Economic Thought in Quodlibeta,” in C. Schabel, (ed.), Theological quodlibeta in the Middle Ages: The Thirteenth Century, Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2006, pp. 475-505.
Il gioco e il peccato. Economia e rischio nel Tardo Medioevo, il Mulino, Bologna, 2003 (Collana di Storia dell’economia e del credito, XII).
Dave De ruysscher (MA, LLM, PhD) is a legal historian and a lawyer. His research revolves around the history of commercial and private law until the present day. The focus of his research has thus far been on early modern commercial law, in particular on bills of exchange, partnership and bankruptcy. It has also focused on early modern contract law (assignment, capacity to contract). Dave has written three substantial books, and several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in English, French and Dutch. In 2016, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant, on the theme of collateral rights and insolvency. He is currently working in the Department of Public Law, Jurisprudence and Legal History at Tilburg University and in the Department of Interdisciplinary Legal Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels.
Selected publications
DE RUYSSCHER, D., “Bankruptcy, Insolvency and Debt Collection Among Merchants in Antwerp (c. 1490-c. 1540)” in Th.M. SAFLEY (ed.), The History of Bankruptcy. Economic, social and cultural implications in early modern Europe, Abingdon, Routledge, 2013, 185-199.
DE RUYSSCHER, D. en PUTTEVILS, J., “The Art of Compromise. Legislative Deliberation on Marine Insurance Institutions in Antwerp (c. 1550-c. 1570)”, BMGN-Low Countries Historical Review 130/3 (2015), 25-49.
DE RUYSSCHER, D., “Antwerp 1490-1590: Insurance and Speculation”, in A.B LEONARD (ed.), Marine Insurance: Origins and Institutions, 1300-1850, London, Palgrave MacMillan, 2015, 78-105.
DE RUYSSCHER, D., ‘Business Rescue, Turnaround Management and the Legal Regime of Default and Insolvency in Western History (late Middle Ages to Present Day)’ in J.I. ADRIAANSE en J.-P. VAN DER REST (eds.), Turnaround Management and Bankruptcy, London, Routledge, 2017, 22-42.
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Ana María Rivera Medina is Professor of Medieval History in the Medieval History and Historiographic Sciences and Technology department of the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED, Spain). She holds a PhD in Medieval History from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, and a PhD in American History from the University of Seville. Additionally, she is a specialist in ICTs, online training, digital humanities and e-learning techniques. Her current fields of interests and work are Urban History and Maritime History. She is a member of several Spanish and European research networks and groups, including “La Gobernanza de los puertos atlánticos, siglos XIV-XXI”, “Gis d'Histoire Maritime & Sciences de la Mer”, “Castilla y el mar en la Baja Edad Media”, and CITCEM – Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar “Cultura, Espaço e Memória”.
Selected publications
Ana María Rivera Medina, ‘Maritime Conflicts and Larceny in the Bay of Biscay from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries’, in L. Sicking and A. Wijffels eds., Conflict Management in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 1000-1800: Actors, Institutions and Strategies of Dispute Settlement, Leiden, 2020
Ana María Rivera Medina, ‘Economía informal: la baratería en la frontera marítima atlántica medieval’, in M. García Fernández, An. Galán Sánchez and R.G. Peinado Santaella eds., Las fronteras en la Edad Media Hispánica. Siglos XIII-XVI, Granada, 2019, 583-596
Ana María Rivera Medina, ‘Construire des ports, ouvrir des routes: les villes biscayennes en bord de mer au Moyen Âge’, in S. Llinares and G. Saupin eds., Ports nouveaux: création et renaissance du XVe au XXIe siècle, Rennes, 2020,
Ana María Rivera Medina, ‘Les faubourgs à la configuration des espaces portuaires du nord de l'Espagne (XIVe-XVIe siècles)’, in M. Acerra and B. Michon eds., Horizons atlantiques: Villes, négoces, pouvoirs, Rennes, 2019, 377-394
Rivera Medina, Ana María, Digital humanities applied to the historical cartography of the Atlantic ports: ‘E-port. Atlantic Cartography, XIVth–XVIIIth centuries’, in International Journal of Maritime History, 2017, Vol. 29, 1, pp. 182-186.
Rivera Medina, Ana María, “Navegación, comercio y negocio: los intereses vascos en los puertos flamencos en los siglos XV y XVI”, ARÍZAGA BOLUMBURU, B., SOLÓRZANO TELECHEA, J.A. (eds.) Las sociedades portuarias de la Europa Atlántica en la Edad Media. Logroño, Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2016, pp. 165-196.
Rivera Medina, Ana María, “Superando fronteras. Mujer y cultura laboral en los puertos del Norte Peninsular, siglos XIV-XVI”, Rey Castelao, O., García-Hurtado, Reyes (eds.) Las ciudades portuarias y su universo cultural. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Servizo de Publicacións e Intercambio Científico, 2016, pp. 17-32
Polónia, Amélia, Rivera Medina, Ana María (Eds.): La gobernanza de los puertos atlánticos, siglos XIV-XXI. Políticas y estructuras. Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, 2016.
Rivera Medina, Ana María: La construcción-reconstrucción de un espacio portuario. El canal y ría de Bilbao en los siglos XIV-XV. La gobernanza de los puertos atlánticos, siglos XIV-XXI. Políticas y estructura. Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, 2016, pp. 171-191.
Rivera Medina, Ana María, Espacios urbano y portuario: las dinámicas de gestión del Canal y Ría de Bilbao, Siglos XIV-XVI, en AZNAR VALLEJO, E., GONZÁLEZ ZALACAIN, R. Castilla y el Mar en la Baja Edad Media. La organización portuaria. Tenerife, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de La Laguna, 2015, pp. 93-122.
Rivera Medina, Ana María, “Los espacios portuarios vizcaínos: mutaciones y adaptaciones de los puertos vizcaínos, Siglos XIV-XVI”, en CEM. Cultura, Espaço & Memória. Porto, CITCEM, 2014, 4, pp. 51-69.
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Luisa Piccinno is Associate Professor in Economic History at the University of Genoa, Department of Economics, where she is currently teaching Economic History and Business History. Her major area of expertise is the economic history of the Republic of Genoa in Early Modern Age. Her research interests focus mostly on maritime history of the Mediterranean (private investments, sea trade, routes, risks) and on the role of the port of Genoa.
Selected publications
Genoa: a City with a Port or a Port City?, in W. Blockmans, M. Krom, J. Wubs-Mrozewicz (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe 1300-1600, London, Routledge, 2017.
Genoa, 1340-1620: Early Development of Marine Insurance, in A. Leonard (ed.), Marine Insurance. Origins and Institutions, 1300-1850, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
I trasporti in Liguria all'inizio dell'Ottocento. Nuove dimensioni e modelli operative, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2013.
Rischi di viaggio nel commercio marittimo del XVIII secolo, in M. Cini (ed.), Traffici commerciali, sicurezza marittima, guerra di corsa. Il Mediterraneo e l'Ordine di Santo Stefano, Pisa, Edizioni ETS, 2011.
Trade of precious corals in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages, in Iwasaki N. (ed.), A Biohistory of Precious Corals. Scientific, Cultural and Historical Perspectives, Hadano-shi Kanagawa, Tokai University Press, 2010.
Un'impresa fra terra e mare. Giacomo Filippo Durazzo e soci a Tabarca (1719-1729), Milano, Franco Angeli, 2008.
Economia marittima e operatività portuale. Genova, secc. XVII – XIX, Genova, Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 2000.
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Guido Rossi is Reader in European Legal History at the University of Edinburgh. He studied in Italy (Pavia) and Cambridge. Lawyer by training, he is particularly interested in the intersection between legal and economic history.
Selected publications
G. Rossi, Representation and Ostensible Authority in Medieval Learned Law, Frankfurt am Main, 2019
G. Rossi, Insurance in Elizabethan England. The London Code, Cambridge, 2016.
G. Rossi, ‘Early modern maritime insurance between mercantile customs and ius commune: some remarks on the liability of the shipmaster’, in L. Brunori, S. Dauchy, O. Descamps and X. Prévost (eds), Le droit face à l'économie sans travail. Finance, investissement et spéculation de l'Antiquité à nos jours. Tome II: L'approche internationale, Paris, Classiques Garnier (Histoire du droit), 2020, 241-263
G. Rossi, ‘The Barratry of the Shipmaster in Early Modern Law: The Approach of Italian and English Law Courts’, 87(2) Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis (2019), 504-574
* Robert Feenstra Prize, 2017-2019
G. Rossi, ‘The Barratry of the Shipmaster in Early Modern Law: polysemy and mos italicus’, 87(1) Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis (2019), 65-85
G. Rossi, "The liability of the shipmaster in early modern law: comparative (and practice-oriented) remarks", Historia et ius, 12 (2017). More information.
G. Rossi, "The Abandonment to the Insurers in Sixteenth Century Insurance Practice: Comparative Remarks", in A. Cordes, S. Dauchy, D. De ruysscher, H. Philajamäki eds., Sources of Commercial Law, Leiden, 2017
G. Rossi, "Civilians and Insurance: Approximations of Reality to the Law", 83(3-4) (2015) Tjidschrift voor Rechtsgechiedenis, 323-364
G. Rossi, "England 1523-1601: the beginnings of marine insurance", in A. Leonard (ed.), Marine Insurance: International Development and Evolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
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Dr Marta García Garralón worked as a Research Associate within AveTransRisk and is now Ayudante de Doctora in the Modern History Department, at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), in Madrid.
Marta is focusing her research on Spanish General Average (GA) during the Modern Period for the Atlantic routes of the Carrera de Indias. The Spanish case is singular and interesting because it provides an opportunity to extend the scope of the Project’s research onto a global scale, as its analysis will show how the Mediterranean GA tradition was transformed in the Atlantic Ocean during a crucial period of maritime expansion. She also works on institutions linked to the sea, nautical education, seafarers’ association and the maintenance and development of eighteenth century ports across the Spanish Empire through the harbour-masters.
Selected publications
- M. García Garralón, ‘The Nautical Republic of the Carrera de Indias: Commerce, Navigation, Casos Fortuitos and Avería Gruesa in the Sixteenth Century”, in Maria fusaro, Andrea Addobbati, Luisa Piccinno (Eds.), General Average and Risk Management in Medieval and Early Modern Maritime Business. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
- M. García Garralón, ‘Echar el punto. Aprendiendo a navegar en las escuelas de náutica de la Armada española del siglo XVIII’, in M.-R. García Hurtado ed., Las innovaciones de la Armada en la España del siglo de Jorge Juan, Madrid 2020, 227-261
- M. García Garralón, ‘Dinámicas portuarias y marítimas: Capitanías de puerto en el norte peninsular español del siglo XVIII’, en M.-R. García Hurtado ed., Soltando amarras. La costa noratlántica ibérica en la Edad Moderna, La Coruña, 2019, 125-141
- M. García Garralón, ‘Maritime Empire and Portuary System: The Implementation of the Offices of the Harbour-Master in Hispanic América’, in Inside a Global Trading Network. The Spanish Empire and the World Economy (1580-1820), Seville, 2018, 131-154
- M. García Garralón, ‘Ciencia e Ilustración en la Armada Española del siglo XVIII. La educación de la oficialidad’, in J. Marchena and J. Cuño eds., Vientos de guerra. Apogeo y crisis de la Real Armada 1750-1823, 3 vols, Madrid, 2018, II: 121-327
- M. García Garralón, ‘Pilotes et conduite des navires sur les routes maritimes espagnoles du XVIIIe siècle’, in La Real Armada. La Marine des Bourbons d’Espagne au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 2018, 151-174
- M. García Garralón, ‘The Seamen of the Indies Trade and the University of Seafarers of Seville’, International Journal of Maritime History, 25/1 (2013): 91-102
- M. García Garralón, ‘El Real Colegio Seminario de San Telmo de Sevilla: un centro para la formación de gente de mar’, Dieciocho Hispanic Enlightenment, 33.1 (Spring 2010), 129-152
- M. García Garralón, ‘The Education of Pilots of the Indies Trade in Spain during the Eighteenth Century’, International Journal of Maritime History, 21/2 (2009): 189-220
- M. García Garralón, La Universidad de Mareantes de Sevilla (1569-1793), Seville, 2007
- M. García Garralón, "Taller de Mareantes": El Real Colegio Seminario de San Telmo de Sevilla (1681-1847). Seville, 200
Contact
Dr Giada Pizzoni is a Research Associate working on early modern history of the Mediterranean. Between March 2019 and March 2020, as part of the AveTransRisk project she investigated the British presence in nineteenth-century Malta through the analysis of GA documentation. She looked at the workings of the British Empire and at the complex relationship between the Maltese and the British. It is argued that the British lacked a clear vision for colonial rule in Malta beyond prioritising their military and commercial concerns, and adopted pragmatic solutions to complex issues of law; in the process creating a highly disordered legal system that was open to challenge and dispute.
More broadly, Dr Pizzoni works on European trade and religion. Between 2005 and 2010, she studied early modern history at the University of Perugia. In 2010 as an Erasmus Scholar at the University of Nijmegen, she carried out research for her Master Dissertation ‘Diabolic Unions: Inter-faith Marriages in the Dutch Golden Age’, and matured her interests in the religious discourse and marginalisation in early modern Protestant Europe. In September 2015, she obtained her Doctorate at the University of St Andrews. Her PhD thesis entitled the “Economic and Financial Strategies of the British Catholic Community in the Age of Mercantilism, 1672- 1781” investigated the crucial role of Catholic merchants in the first British commercial expansion. After completing her PhD, she worked as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick. In January 2020, she published her first monograph, British Catholic Merchants in the Commercial Age, 1670-1714.
Publications:
Book: British Catholic Merchants and their Trading Networks in the Commercial Age (1670-1714), (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020).
News Platform: ‘Britain’s long history of trying -and failing- to gain independence from European trade partners’, The Conversation UK,February 2019.
Journal of Early Modern History, ‘The English Catholic Church and the Age of Mercantilism: Bishop Richard Challoner and the South Sea Company’, 24, 2020, 111-135.
Seventeenth Century Journal, ‘British Catholics’ Commercial Strategies in Times of International Warfare (1688-1705)’, 1, 32, 2017.
British Catholic Journal ‘Mrs Helena Aylward: a British Catholic Mother, Spouse, Merchant and Entrepreneur in the Commercial Age’, 33(4), 2017, 603-621.
MA Thesis published in E-Journal, Discovery, Invention and Reinvention, ‘Diabolic Unions, Life and Marriage of Catholics in the United Provinces’, University of Newcastle, February 2015.
Journal of Cultural and Social History, ‘A Pass is not denied to any Romanist’, Strategies of the Catholic Merchants’ Community during the early Atlantic World’,11, 3, 2014.
Book Reviews for The Economic History Review, History Journal, The Global Intellectual History Journal.
Essay Collection: ‘Mediterranean Lives: Transcultural Networks in the Early Modern World’in The Cultural and Social History Journal, Routledge, forthcoming, 2021.
Contact details:
Gijs wrote his PhD on the development of General Average and other Averages in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Low Countries, having defended the PhD in May 2021 (Exeter) and June 2021 (Brussels). He worked in the framework of a joint degree between the University of Exeter and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, supervised by project PI Maria Fusaro and team member Dave De ruysscher. A book version of the dissertation is currently under contract with Brill’s Studies in Maritime History series. Gijs has published articles and book chapters on his PhD research in the Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History and Brill’s Legal History Library and will also contribute to the project’s edited volume appearing in 2022. Since May 2021, he has been a postdoctoral research associate at his alma mater Leiden University.
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Jake studied for his BA and MPhil at the University of Cambridge before completing a dual doctoral degree at the University of Exeter and the Università di Pisa under the aegis of the AveTransRiskproject. His thesis examined the operation of general average in the free port of Livorno, engaging in debates about the Lex Mercatoria and the role of risk-sharing institutions in historical economic growth. He has also published on Mediterranean and Atlantic slavery using evidence gleaned from general average documentation. Jake is now a post-doctoral researcher at the Università di Padova within the ERC project MICOLL. He is examining legal transfer across Europe as mediated through the city of Venice, as well as undertaking research on the connections between Mediterranean commerce and the development of Orientalist discourses in Europe.
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Lewis recently finished his PhD within the ERC-funded AveTransRisk project. Working under the supervision of Professor Maria Fusaro and Professor Nandini Chatterjee, his part of the project analysed marine insurance in France under Louis XIV within the context of broader socioeconomic, political and legal developments. Lewis has created two datasets for the AveTransRisk database, comprising a total of 7500 Parisian insurance policies – amongst the largest datasets ever produced for pre-modern marine insurance.
An article drawing on his doctoral findings, entitled ‘Royal Companies, Risk Management and Sovereignty in Old Regime France’, is forthcoming in The English Historical Review. Lewis previously studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with first-class honours in his BA in 2016. His undergraduate dissertation, entitled ‘The English Levant Company in the age of Ottoman crisis, c. 1620-1660’, was awarded the Alan Coulson Prize for its distinctive contribution to the field of British imperial history. During his time at Christ's - where he was elected to college scholarship - Lewis was also the recipient of the Levy-Plumb Prize and the Mrs Vincent Astor Prize.
Forthcoming publications and works in preparation
L. Wade, Privilege at a Premium: Marine Insurance and Amphibious Absolutism in Old Regime France, 1664-c. 1710, in preparation.
L. Wade, ‘Royal Companies, Risk Management and Sovereignty in Old Regime France’, The English Historical Review, forthcoming.
L. Wade, ‘“The honour of giving my opinion”: General Average, Insurance and the Compilation of the Ordonnance de la marine of 1681’, in M. Fusaro, A. Addobbati, and L. Piccinno (eds.), Sharing Risk: General Average and European Maritime Business (VI-XVIII Centuries), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
Contact details
Antonio Iodice is a research fellow at the University of Genoa and a member of the ERC project AveTransRisk directed by Maria Fusaro.
Antonio has a first PhD in Modern History at the University of Naples “Federico II” with a thesis on Mediterranean free ports (1590-1817), and recently got a second oe in Maritime History at the University of Exeter in a bilateral agreement with the University of Genoa on Genoese maritime Averages (1590-1700),. as part of the General Averages Transaction Risk Project. He is part of the international projects Risky Business, Insurance Pricing Database, 14th-19th Century, coordinated by Sabine Go (Amsterdam), Giovanni Ceccarelli (Parma), Adrian Leonard (London) and Guido Rossi (Palermo); and of A Global History of Free Ports. Capitalism, Commerce and Geopolitics (1600-1900), coordinated by Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki) and Antonio Trampus (Venice). His research interests include early modern commerce and political economy, with a special focus on risk-management tools, maritime trade and individual business’ activities.
Selected publications:
with Luisa Piccinno, ‘Whatever the Cost: Grain Trade and The Genoese Dominating Minority in Sicily and Tabarka (16th-18th Centuries)’, in L. Andreoni, L. Mocarelli, G. Ongaro, D. Do Paço eds., Business History, Special Issue - Minorities and Grain Trade in Early Modern Europe, 2021, 1-20.
with Luisa Piccinno, ‘Managing Shipping Risk: General Average and Marine Insurance in Early Modern Genoa’, in G. Rossi, P. Hellwege eds., Maritime Risk Management. Essays on the history of Marine insurance, general Average and sea loan, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 2021, 83-109.
‘A source of gold and prosperity? The debate for the free port in Naples between early modern and contemporary age’, in G. Delogu, K. Stapelbroek, A. Trampus eds., History of free ports in the Mediterranean, Routledge, London, forthcoming, 1-21.
‘General Average in Genoa: between rules and customs’, in A. Addobbati, M. Fusaro, L. Piccinno eds., Sharing Risk: General Average and European Maritime Business (VI- XVIII Centuries), Palgrave Macmillan, London, forthcoming, 1-28.
with Luigi Oddo, ‘Northern is better? A quantitative transaction costs analyses of the Northern Invasion phenomenon, Genoa 1590-1616’, in A. Baffigi, G. Vecchi eds., special issue of the Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, forthcoming, 1-22.
Contact details:
Susan Lee is the Project Administrator for the AveTransRisk Project, PI Prof Maria Fusaro. She provides part-time project support to the team working on this EU-funded European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator project, which is researching the development of a legal instrument - general average (GA) – which underpins maritime trade.
Susan has a BA (Hons) in Philosophy & Politics and an MA in Medieval History.
Contact details:
Ian is a computer programmer who has worked in IT at the University of Exeter since 2003. During this time he has had a variety of roles and been involved in a number of different projects:
- 2003 (The Telematics Centre) : Creating data rich websites for education and research
- 2004-2008 (Department of Lifelong Learning) : Web database project work, presenting distance learning material online and teaching programming courses.
- 2009 (Education Enhancement Unit) - Seconded to develop an online repository for reusable teaching material in higher education
- 2010-2011 (Integration and Web Services, Exeter IT) : Developing online student assignment submission system (BART) and attendance monitoring database
- 2012 (The Library / Infrastructure Systems, Exeter IT) - Secondment to the 'Open Research Exeter' project ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository
- 2013 (Learning & Teaching Systems, Exeter IT) - Secondment to the 'eBART' project allowing students to submit assignments online
- 2014-2017 (Student Records Systems Team, Exeter IT) - Developing online forms for staff and students in SITS
- 2018-present (Research IT, Exeter IT) - Offering technical assistance to research projects across the University
Ian has also worked in several tutoring roles with the University of Exeter Department of Lifelong Learning, Computer Science Department and with the Open University, teaching computer programming languages including Java, Visual Basic.Net, Javascript and Python.
Ian is currently working as a Research IT Developer on a number of projects:
- AveTransRisk
Database design and development using the Python Django framework. - Forms of Labour - Studying the work of women based on historical parish council records
Access database development.
Funded by the European Research Council - TerraHunting Experiment - Searching our galaxy for earthlike planets
Python/django development on the target scheduler and data archive. - MaxLLG - High frequency magnetics software
GUI development using Python Flask. - Smartline - Exploring the relationships between people, technology and wellbeing
Database work including amalgamating sensor data for research and analysis.
Funded by the EU