Proposal for the 3rd MMHN Conference
Eleanor A. Congdon
Youngstown State University
A Venetian Merchant’s Business Records
Marco Bembo was no one extraordinary in Venice in 1480. He was a successful
international merchant who had taken over an established family company. He
had spent the previous years training for this position by residing in the ports
where he would later have agents working for him. The company moved goods
between some of the most important markets: Bruges and Longdon; Beirut and
Famagosta; Crete and Constantinople; and the home office in Venice. In spite of
the recent war between the Ottomans and Venetians, Bembo put his emphasis on
trade around the Aegean Sea. His leadership was successful enough that he could
begin building a new palazzo for the family and their ventures on the Grand
Canal, just a few palazzi away from the Ponte Vecchio. When the construction
proved fatal – he fell off the scaffolding in 1484 – the executors created a business
entity typical of Venice. A commessaria ran the ventures a merchant had begun
until his heirs came of age.
Bembo was not one of the most important merchants, nor was he unique in
emphasizing commerce on the cultural frontier between Christian and Islamic
cultures. His importance lies in the survival of his correspondence. Three “copyletters,” where he recorded what he said in letters his agents survive. These
ledgers are almost unique among documents surviving in the public archives.
Making them even more unique and valuable is the ability to match entries with
the approximately six hundred surviving letters from his agents.
This paper will use the Bembo documents to study how a Venetian company did
business in the environment of periodic hostilities with the Ottomans. In the years
between the Ottoman defeat of the Byzantines and their successful campaign to
take over ports the Venetians controlled along the coasts of Greece and the
Peloponnesus in the years around 1500, merchants did not shrink from doing
business. The paper will look at how his agents worked as a network. It will also
address how they interacted with the Muslims. This paper is part of a much
bigger project that I will be working on during my sabbatical this year.
Eleanor A. Congdon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Medieval and Renaissance History
Department of History, Youngstown State University
1 University Plaza, Youngstown OH 44555
330-941-3454
eacongdon@ysu.edu
Employment:
Youngstown State University, Youngstown OH: Aug. 2002- Present Associate
Professor of Medieval and Renaissance History 2007, member Graduate faculty.
Plymouth State College, Plymouth NH: Aug. 1998-May 2002
Assistant
Professor of Medieval History, Director of Medieval Studies Major and Minor;
1999-2002 Director of annual PSC Medieval Forum.
Berkshire Community College, Great Barrington, MA, Jan. 1997- June 1998.
Adjunct Professor in History, assistant in Learning Skills Assessments Testing.
Education:
Ph.D. University of Cambridge - Gonville and Caius College. Late Medieval
Mediterranean History, 1997.
M.A. University of Minnesota, Medieval History, 1993.
B.A. Williams College, History with honors, 1988.
Publications:
Articles:
“Protectionist Legislation and Italians in Aragon/Catalonia 1398-1404,” in
Journal of Medieval Encounters -- Special Issue: Law and Trade 9 (2003) 2-3:
214-235.
co-authors Joseph Byrne and Eleanor Congdon, “Mothering in the Casa Datini,”
Journal of Medieval History 25 (1999) 1: 35-56.
“Private Venetian Ships and Shipping (c. 1400),” Al Masaq: Islam and the
Medieval Mediterranean, 10 (1998): 57-71.
“Datini and Venice: News from the Mediterranean Trade Network,” in Across
the Mediterranean Frontier: Trade, Politics and Religion 650-1450, eds. D.A.
Agius, I. Netton, (Brepols, 1997), 157-171.
“Imperial Commemoration and Ritual in the typikon of the Monastery of Christ
Pantokrator,” Revue des études byzantines 54 (1996): 161-199.
“Venetian Merchant Activity within Mamluk Syria (886-893/1481-1487),” Al
Masaq: Studia Arabo Islamica Mediterranea 7 (1994): 1-33.
Books Forthcoming or in Process
Istvan Petrovics, Sandor Lazlo Toth, and Eleanor Congdon, Hungarian Medieval
History: Studies in Honor of Zoltan Kosztolnyik, University of Szeged Press,
due to publisher November 15, 2009.
Eleanor Congdon, ed. Medieval European “Expansion” into the Eastern
Mediterranean 1100-1500 (tentative working title) in series ed. by Felipe
Fernandez-Armesto and James Muldoon, Ashgate, Forthcoming 2010.
Eleanor Congdon, ed. Medieval European “Expansion” into the Western
Mediterranean 1100-1500 (tentative working title) in series ed. by Felipe
Fernandez-Armesto and James Muldoon, Ashgate, Forthcoming 2010.
Eleanor Congdon, ed. Medieval European “Expansion” into the European
Atlantic Region 1100-1500 (tentative working title) in series ed. by Felipe
Fernandez-Armesto and James Muldoon, Ashgate, Forthcoming 2010.
Venetian Mercantile Presence in the Western Mediterranean, c. 1400 (Under
contractg with E.J.Brill, Leiden, the Netherlands.) At revision stage. Target date
Two chapters still under revision. Based on research using the letters of
Francesco di Marco Datini and government records from Venice.
Research in Progress
Marco Bembo and Ambrogio Malipiero: to fight or to trade with the Turks in the
1480s. Using the letters received by the two merchants, an exploration of trade
between Christians and Muslims during a time of active warfare. Also intended:
complete transcriptions and translations of the primary materials. Preliminary
verbal agreement to publish at least three volumes in American Philosophical
Society‟s Memoirs.
“Two men and a Ca: The Prosopographical Riddle of
the Venetian
merchantAntonio Contarini, c. 1400” Based on letters from the Datini collection
of Prato and materials found in Venice in 2003 and 2005.
“Niccolo Rosso‟s Guns: A Contribution to the History of Gunpowder Weapons.”
Transcription, translation and discussion of the report of a pirate case from 1403.
“Wool from San Matteo, Venetian ships, and Francesco di Marco Datini, c. 1400”
being revised for Medieval Clothing and Textiles, by invitation of the editors
“Hungary and Venice at odds in the 1410‟s and 1420‟s” being prepared for
Hungarian Medieval History: Studies in Honor of Zoltan Kosztolnyik
University of Szeged Press.
“Francesco di Marco Datini‟s Will” being prepared for Festchrift for Christine
Meek.
Short Articles, Translations, and Encyclopedia Entries
Short articles: “Aegean Sea”, “Adriatic Sea”, “Straits of Gibraltar”, “Black Sea”,
“Mediterranean Sea,”
in Seas and Waterways of the World: A Historical
Encyclopedia (ABC Clio, due out November 2009). Submitted, accepted, and
expecting copy-proofs.
Translations of original documents and commentary in: Medieval Italy, Texts in
Translation. Ed. Katherine Jansen, Joanna Drell, and Frances Andrews.
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
“Tivoli”, “Fabriano”, “Gaeta”, “Pala d‟Oro”, “Francesco Balduccio Pegolotti”
Encyclopedia of Medieval Italy, ed. Christopher Kleinhenz, Garland Press, 2004.
Book Reviews
Olivia Constable‟s Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World for AlMasaq 19 (September 2007) No. 2: 200-204. By invitation of Editor.
Thomas Madden‟s Enrico Dandalo for International Journal of Maritime History.
XVI (June 2004) 1: 208-211. By invitation of editors.
Karin Nehlsen-von Stryk‟s L‟assicurazione marittima a Venezia nel xv secolo for
International Journal of Maritime History. XV (Dec. 2003) 2: 384-386. By
invitation of editors.
Gavin Hambly‟s Women in the Medieval Islamic World, in Al-Masaq: Islam and
the Medieval Mediterranean 14 (Sept 2002) 2: 165-167. By invitation of editors.
Luca Mola‟s La Communità del Lucchesi a Venezia in Renaissance Studies, 11
(1997) 3: 291-293.
Precis, „Christ Pantokrator‟s Typikon: the Commemoration of John II Komnenos
(1113-1143),‟ Bulletin of British Byzantine Studies 21 (1995): 69.