Dal Mediterraneo all’Atlantico spagnolo. La corrispondenza mercantile tra un uomo d’affari fiorentino e una compagnia di negozio lucchese a cadice

Abstract

Through the use of completely unpublished Spanish and Italian documentary material, the article analyzes the correspondence between a Florentine businessman and a Lucca trade company operating in Cadiz in the last quarter of the seventeenth century from 1682 to 1689. As Raimundo de Lantery suggests in his memories, the «Bonfigli - Gualanducci» trade company was among the major Italian ones in Cadiz during the second half of the seventeenth century, whose trade activity is reconstructed here in broad lines. This work is part of the current studies which is re-evaluating the role of Italian economic operators and their contribution to the Spanish economy of the Old Regime, pointing out the importance of the Mediterranean Sea and its integration with the Spanish Atlantic Ocean which helped to expand Iberian trade globally.