Capitalisme marchand et classe marchande à Venise au temps de la Renaissance

摘要

Merchant capitalism and the merchant class in Venice during the Renaissance Jean-Claude Hocquet The evolution of freight fees for Mediterranean salt in Venice between the 13th and 16th centuries reveals the following paradox : this freight was extremely costly beginning in 1350, while the historiography, for more than half a century, stresses the serious slump existing throughout all of Europe with regard to over-all prices and the marasmus of economic activity during the 14th and 15th centuries. Why, then, in this period of depression did Venice stand out as an island of prosperity at the height of its power? The patrician State and the patrician merchant tried to set up an extensive commercial operation : in order to lower shipping costs on luxury commodities and their cost , they had the salt that was used to ballast the ship, bear part of the freight cost to find outlets for this salt imported from all the Mediterranean shores frequented in the trade of precious products, they proceeded with the quasi-systematic destruction of saltworks on the Adriatic Sea and made a common product scarce, thereby, putting it into the same category with rare products of great market value. The salt monopoly, which is a consumer sales monopoly, was set up as a means of managing the commercial policy that guaranteed the maintenance of revenues for the ship-owner and merchant classes. However, the salt trade had no margin for autonomous action at its disposal and it fell into ruin at the end of the 16th century when the major sea routes by-passed Venice for Atlantic seaports. In search of more profitable investments the State favoured the development of nearby saltworks within their coastal territories, just as the upper classes put their capital into agricultural development.