Ricostruire i circuiti di scambio nell’Italia della prima età moderna attraverso una fonte notarile

This contribution is part of the studies dedicated to energy and resources, topics that are critical to the Alpine and environmental economic historiography of pre-industrial Italy. It examines a contract kept in the Notarial Deeds of the State Archives of Venice, stipulated by notary Marcantonio Figolin in 1586. It sets forth the terms and conditions for a commercial agreement between some of the major companies operating in the Eastern Alps between the late 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries, who traded with the Venetian Arsenal and other places in the Mediterranean. This act shows how some Alpine districts under Habsburg sovereignty were integrated with the economies of the Venetian mainland, whose trade is documented as early as the 13th century. This source points out a wide availability of raw material across the border and the traffic along the riverways, that prompted the emergence of some proto-industrial districts in certain strategic points of the Italian Alps and the Prealps where the environmental conditions existed: concentration of woods suitable for commercial exploitation, competitive transit routes for the transport of raw materials and hydraulic energy operating the processing plants.