Ricerc@Sapienza

The project intends to investigate the history of Rome and its - Italian and European - economic and diplomatic networks between XIVth and XVth centuries through the analysis of two interconnected sources: merchant-bankers and diplomatic ones, which are strictly interrelated. In fact, economic documents very often and inevitably deal with political questions, while the ambassadors' letters show important informations for the economic analysis.
In particular, the correspondence and bookkeeping of merchants and merchant-bankers operating and trading between Rome and other Italian and European cities allow to trace the economic networks, to identify the principal operators in trade and banking and the most important traffic routes. The analysis of published and unpublished letters, contracts and agreements concluded between Roman and foreign operators will give an important contribution to defining the roles of Romans and non-Romans in the economy of the city, the quality of its trading and manufacturing companies, not enough described by the Roman sources.
On the other hand, the diplomatic letters of the Italian States' ambassadors in Rome are important both for the history of the city and for the study of diplomatic networks in the papal Curia. These sources will also shed new light on diplomatic relationships among major and minor powers in the European context because Rome was at the time the place where all ambassadors, sent from different States and permanently resident at the papal Curia, met and shared information and political perspectives.
Finally, the dialogue between these two kind of sources make it possible to paint a more detailed economic picture through diplomatic documents and, at the same time, a more exhaustive diplomatic portrait through economic sources: all this in order to increase the knowledge of political, economic and social history of Rome in the XIVth-XVth centuries, in an Italian and European context.