Collection ID: 0002 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Lists and reports concerning Italian slave trade

Authors

• Corno, Giovanni del

Call number

Ms. Coll. 771
(Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book & Manuscript Library)

Alternate identifiers

• bibid: 4683643
• http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/4683643

Publisher

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Language

In Italian

Summary

Collection of 7 lists of slaves (Folders 1-6) and 2 reports (Folders 7-8) on slave trade. The lists, 3 written between 1609 and 1611 and 4 undated (ca. 1600), contain detailed information about slaves captured by Italian galleys, including Florentine and other Tuscan ships whose captains were Jacopo Inghirami, Arrigo Arrighi, Giuliano Sirigatti, Girolamo Lenzoni, and Guglielmo Guadagni. These men were often members of the grand-ducal aristocracy or administration: the admirals Guglielmo Guadagni and Arrigo Arrighi were close friends of Cosimo II de' Medici and members of the prestigious military religious order of the Knights of Malta; and the admiral Jacopo Inghirami was a marquis from Volterra. The lists give the name of the captive, the place of origin, a physical description of the individual (hair color, build, age, weight, height, as well as any special remark, such as moles, scars, disability, and whether a female slave was pregnant at the time of capture), their destination and, sometimes, the name of the individual to whom they would be assigned. Most of the slaves mentioned in the documents were Muslims, captured in different areas of the Ottoman Empire (Greece and Turkey in particular, sometimes referred to as Levante) and North Africa, and deported to Italy (to Naples, Messina, Palermo, Florence, and Pisa) and, in certain cases, to Spain and Portugal. The first report, written by captain Giovanni del Corno in 1612, examines the conditions of a complicated trade involving the sale of slaves and bullion, in which the counterparts included the Monte di pietà and the Florentine mint. The second report, dated 1643 and unsigned, denounces the inhumane conditions under which a group of Christian slaves were forced to live and work in Tunis.

Extent

9

Support

Paper.

Provenance

• Ms. Lea 210 sold by Il Polifilo (Milan).
   
• Ms. Lea 353 sold by Bernard M. Rosenthal, 1961.
   
• Ms. Lea 476, Ms. Lea 489, and Ms. Lea 549 sold by Bernard M. Rosenthal, 1963.
   

Subjects topical

• Monte di pietà (Florence, Italy)
• Slave trade--Italy--History
• Slavery--Italy--History
• Muslims--Italy--History

Genres

• Reports
• Lists
• Manuscripts, Italian--17th century
• Manuscripts, European

Licenses

• Text

  This description is ©2016 University of Pennsylvania Libraries. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License version 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. For a description of the terms of use see the Creative Commons Deed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode

• Text

  All referenced images and their content are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/