Chapter One
Patterns in Livorno's Commerce

Continuity, Change, Crisis

Both contemporary observers and recent studies agree that Livorno's commercial situation changed radically in the period following the wars of the French Revolution and the restoration of the grand ducal government in Tuscany. Previously, the city's prosperity had been based on its unchallenged ability to function as a free port of deposit open to the goods, ships, and merchants of all states. Commercial conditions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had favored the development of these ports. The difficulty of communication, the insecurity of the seas, and the modest carrying capacity of ships encouraged the establishment of free ports in convenient locations on the major trade routes, where commercial transactions could be handled easily and securely.

Livorno had been well endowed to prosper in this commercial situation. From the time of its absorption into the Florentine state in 1421—and especially during the two centuries of Medici rule—the city benefited from a series of provisions designed to encourage the settlement of foreign merchants and tradesmen in the area, to develop the city's commercial facilities, to establish the port as a privileged tariff zone, and to affirm its neutrality in disputes involving the major powers.

The basic provisions encouraging settlement in the area were promulgated by Ferdinand I in the 1590s.^[1] In an attempt to foster the economic development of a region that was underpopulated and insalubrious, the state promised to provide houses, shops, and warehouses for those settling in the city, to prevent the imposition of guild restrictions, and, for a certain period, to waive tax assessments. In addition, for those willing to reside in the area, the state annulled all personal debts under 500 scudi and suspended previous penal condemnations, making exceptions only for the crimes of heresy, lese majesty, murder, and counterfeiting.^[2] In the famous Livornina provision (10 June 1595) these fiscal and penal immunities were extended to religious minorities, especially Jews, who were in addition granted certain civic rights and freedom of residence and religion.^[3]

Even though this provision was severely criticized during the nineteenth century for attracting undesirable elements to the city and for blackening its reputation, at the time of its enactment it did encourage population growth and the settling of a number of enterprising merchants in the area.

Due largely to the efforts of Cosimo I, Ferdinand I, and Cosimo II, Livorno acquired a port and storage and quarantine facilities, which made it among the best-equipped ports in the Mediterranean. Cosimo I completed work on a navigation canal linking Livorno and Pisa. Ferdinand I contributed the lazaretto of San Rocco for the purgation of ships arriving from areas that were sanitarily suspect and the pits (buche ) constructed throughout the city for the storage of grain. In 1611, Cosimo II ordered the construction of the wharf that bears his name. With its completion, the port of Livorno acquired the shape it would retain for more than two centuries.

The foundation of Livorno's prosperity as a free port, however, lay in its fiscal privileges. A series of piecemeal customs' reforms which began in 1451 culminated in a decree by Cosimo III (11 March 1675) abolishing the gabelles on most goods entering Livorno by sea and instituting in their place a small, fixed duty called the stallaggio .^[4] Having paid this charge, a merchant could introduce his goods into the city

and sell, store, or refine them, then reexport them by sea without undergoing any further fiscal obligation. This provision provided the juridical basis for Livorno's existence as a free port.

The city's neutrality assured that its commercial activity would remain unharmed by the disputes of the great powers and that, if anything, it would benefit from them. First declared by Ferdinand II in a treaty with the French in 1646, Livorno's neutral status was confirmed by the great powers in 1691 and officially recognized in the treaty of 3 October 1735, which sanctioned the succession of the House of Lorraine to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. As the only port in the Tyrrhenian Sea which for most of the period could declare itself securely neutral, Livorno prospered particularly well during the times when war upset the commercial patterns of its rivals. In addition to taking over their commercial functions, Livorno was able to act as a marketplace for booty and to provision ships on both sides of a given conflict.^[5]

Livorno's privileges enabled it to achieve a level of prosperity unknown to most other cities of the Italian peninsula. The centuries of its most rapid expansion paradoxically coincided with a period of economic and demographic stagnation in the rest of Tuscany. The city's commercial prosperity was clearly not predicated on the economic growth of the hinterland nor on the resourcefulness of an indigenous commercial elite.^[6] The predominant activity of the port—the deposit and trans-shipment of merchandise—was handled primarily by foreign merchant companies or Jews, because only these two groups possessed the necessary capital resources and business contacts to succeed in commercial activity of this type. These merchants showed little interest in the marketing of Tuscan products or in the economic development of the Tuscan state.^[7]

The fiscal privileges that Livorno enjoyed served to reinforce the city's detachment from the rest of Tuscany. Merchandise deposited in Livorno and transshipped out by sea was subject only to minimal stallage and port charges. However, merchandise that moved from Livorno into the internal market or, conversely, from the Tuscan hinterland into the port city was subject to the full duties of the Tuscan state.

While some commercial exchange did of course take place between Livorno and the Tuscan hinterland, in 1765 this direct, two-way commerce formed only a minimal part of the port's activity.^[8]

Livorno's position in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, then, was exceptional. Both fiscally and economically the city remained detached from the Tuscan state, and the most important sector of its commerce was primarily in the hands of foreigners or Jews. Indeed, Livorno's facilities and privileges enabled it to prosper especially during those periods of dislocation when the Mediterranean world was beset by one or more of the principal scourges of the age—that is, plague, famine, and war. It was precisely at such times that the city's superb lazaretto facilities could guarantee the secure purgation of merchandise shipped from suspected areas, that its storage depots could ensure ample supplies of grain at a relatively stable price, and that its neutrality could guarantee that the port would remain open to the ships and goods of all states.^[9]

After 1814, however, Livorno's traditional role as a free, neutral port seemed destined to provide a more tenuous foundation for its commercial prosperity. The period of relative peace following the wars of the revolution ended the special advantages that Livorno had derived from its neutral status.^[10] The growing security of Mediterranean commerce coupled with the development of larger and faster ships and improved communications seemed to render free, deposit ports superfluous; the necessity to perceive the maximum profit on every commercial transaction made the expenses of transshipment undesirable.^[11] Commercial transactions tended to become simpler everywhere as producers sought to establish direct links with consumers. In such a situation, the economic position of a given port would be increasingly forced to reflect the productive capacity of the state of which it formed a part. Because of the low productive capacity of the Tuscan economy during this period, the situation therefore did not offer bright prospects for Livorno's future prosperity.

The most succinct presentation of Livorno's position in the new commercial age was made in an article that appeared in

1837 in the prestigious Milanese journal Annali universali di statistica . . . .^[12] It was understandable, the author noted, that those who predicted a brilliant commercial revival for Livorno should see it in terms of the reflorescence of a commerce of deposit, for the facilities that the city possessed for a commerce of this sort were such to make it preferred to all other ports in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, he wrote, this type of commercial activity was by its very nature becoming less important every day. In an age of stiff competition and low profit margins, every effort was being made to rationalize business practices and eliminate unnecessary expenses. Commerce was tending toward its simplest expression, that is, to the direct exchange of merchandise between producer and consumer. All other parties were considered to be drones living at the expense of either one or the other of these and were eliminated from the commercial process whenever possible.

Livorno, the article's author noted, had already begun to suffer from these commercial changes. At one time the port had received colonial products from America and Holland and manufactured goods from England. In exchange for this merchandise the Levant would send its cottons, silks, and dyed cloths. Now, however, the English were going directly to Smyrna, Constantinople, and Alexandria to make their exchanges. They were carrying their sugar and salt products [salumi ] to Civitavecchia, "and they would go to the mouth of the Arno if they believed that they could sell a cargo there."^[13]

It was highly unlikely, the author felt, that Livorno could develop its commercial ties with northern and central Italy to compensate for the loss of this commerce. In the eighteenth century, Lombardy, the Marches, Modena, and the Papal States had turned to Livorno for their colonial products and their dyed and manufactured goods. With the reopening of the free port in Trieste, however, the city had lost its markets in northern Italy and in much of the Papal States, for these regions could supply themselves more conveniently and cheaply there than in Livorno. Indeed, the author stressed, because the Apennines served to divide Livorno from the

plains of Lombardy the port could not hope to reassert its position in the transit trade. Geographic configurations would increasingly restrict Livorno's commercial range to Tuscany, Lucca, Massa, and Carrara. The few commissions still arriving from Modena, Bologna, and the Papal States were decreasing daily and would soon disappear altogether.^[14]

Although the appearance of this article caused considerable stir, many of its points had been noted by members of Livorno's political and commercial elite long before the French Revolution, indicating that what appeared to be an incipient commercial crisis had deep roots. As early as 1758, in response to an inquest set up by the government, various spokesmen for the "nations" into which the merchant community of the city was then divided had stressed the decline of Livorno's commerce of deposit and transshipment and the growing tendency of producers to establish direct contacts with consumers.^[15] The Jewish community reported that since 1748 the government of Naples had attempted to enter into direct commercial relations with Great Britain and the West by granting concessions to merchants willing to settle in that region. The policy had proved successful, with the result that much of the silk, grain, oil, fruit, and wine of Naples and Sicily were now passing directly to the West instead of going through Livorno. The French emphasized the growing spirit of enterprise and competition which was impelling states to handle their own commerce when possible instead of relying on foreigners. The auditor of the governor (Pierallini), in his Osservazioni sulla pace cogli Ottomani , stressed that the real decline in Livorno's role as intermediary occurred in 1748. In that year, in response to the peace treaty between Tuscany and the Ottomans, Livorno was placed under a stringent interdict by rival ports and had its traditional commercial patterns severely disrupted.^[16]

Gloomy reports on the decline of Livorno's traditional commerce continued into the first half of the nineteenth century. A long, anonymous report in French sent to the Tuscan government in 1820 stressed again the decline of Livorno's commercial ties with Great Britain.^[17] Traditionally, it said, Livorno had been the center of English commerce in Italy. With the

establishment of a general European peace, however, "this commercial protectorate, which had carried the prosperity of Livorno to the farthest limits, underwent several modifications." Feelings of rivalry toward the Continent encouraged Britain to use its maritime superiority to consolidate a firm commercial monopoly—"Its merchants wished to exploit directly, and by themselves, all branches of Mediterranean commerce which previously they had turned over to their factors." Other reports on the commerce of Livorno did not bother to discuss the reasons for the city's decline as a port of deposit, but simply took it as a given.^[18]

Commentators corroborated another point made in the Annali di statistica , that the development of rival ports in the Italian peninsula was seriously weakening Livorno's hold over its traditional markets. In the inquest of 1758, Giuliano Ricci, a Tuscan merchant, noted that the mercantilist principles of the age were encouraging governments to channel commerce through their own ports. The Papal States were utilizing Civitavecchia or the recently established free port of Ancona, and Lombardy was establishing closer commercial ties with Venice.

In response to the same inquest, the Jewish community laid particular stress on the danger of Ancona, which, it said, derived its strength not so much from the facilities and privileges of its port as from its location. From Ancona one could ship goods to the major centers of northern and central Italy without having to repack them in smaller bundles, as was necessary in Livorno. The result was a considerable savings in time and money. In the first half of the nineteenth century, as we shall see, efforts were made to strengthen Livorno's ties with northern Italy. Evidence will suggest, however, that despite these attempts Livorno's transit commerce remained largely within the boundaries outlined in the Milanese journal.^[19]

Although commentators agreed that Livorno could not hope to revive its commerce of deposit or even to preserve the majority of its markets in the Italian peninsula, many were unwilling to accept the commercial decline of the city as inevitable and believed that an expanding commerce in

Tuscan products could compensate the port for the loss of its traditional trade. In its report of 1758, the Italian nation (composed of merchants from the states of the Italian peninsula) had emphasized that with the growing competition from other ports it would be increasingly necessary to exploit the commercial possibilities of Tuscan agricultural and manufactured goods.^[20] By 1830 this appeared to be taking place, for the gonfaloniere , the head of the municipal administration, proclaimed in his annual report that the marketing of Tuscan products had strengthened Livorno's commercial ties with other states and that it had "compensated us for the loss of traffic which previously was nourished by those foreign products of which the deposit has been lost."^[21] The Giornale di commercio (Florence) noted in 1829 that although in a previous epoch Livorno's every resource had been based on its existence as a port of deposit, "it has become today the permanent and necessary vehicle for the export [sfogo ] of many indigenous products [produzioni territoriali ]."^[22]

This belief in the fundamental shift in Livorno's commercial activity during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has continued to the present and forms a basic tenet of recent studies on Livorno's commerce.^[23] This is particularly evident in the work of Giorgio Mori, a historian who has had great influence in defining Livorno's social and economic position in this period. In an important article published in 1956,^[24] Mori attempted to present a more concrete picture of Livorno's commerce in the early nineteenth century. To do so he restudied the statistics presented in 1837 by John Bowring to a parliamentary committee of the British House of Commons (see table 1).^[25] On the basis of these statistics Mori concluded that of a total of 84,524,770 Tuscan lire (14,873,960 pezze) worth of merchandise imported into Livorno in 1835, only 19,346,000 lire (3,400,500 pezze)—or little more than 23 percent—was destined for deposit and successive reexport. The rest, he argued, was consumed in Livorno and the hinterland. To Mori these findings were of fundamental importance, for they indicated that "the nature of the port of Livorno and of its commercial emporium was radically changing in this period. Up until then it had been

substantially extraneous [estraneo ] to Tuscany. . . . From now on its wealth and its life would depend ever more on the wealth, life, and economy of the state at its back."^[26]

Not considering for the moment whether an excess of imports is in itself evidence of the wealth and vitality of a state, it should be noted that Mori based his conclusions on a total misreading of Bowring's statistics. What Mori considered as merchandise imported into the city and deposited there for later reexportation was clearly not meant to be that at all. True, for reasons that will be explained shortly, Bowring used the term riesportazione to describe this merchandise in his final summary.^[27] In the tables themselves, however, he called it varie manifatture e articoli d'esportazione .^[28] That the latter is the more precise description appears evident in looking at the specific items, for nowhere to be found are the spices, cereals, or foreign manufactured goods that had traditionally been imported into Livorno for successive reexport. Instead, one finds olive oil, coral, tanned hides, pit carbon, boric acid, potash, marble, and so on—articles traditionally produced in Tuscany.

That Bowring resorted to the confusing use of the term riesportazione probably resulted from his desire to distinguish Tuscan products imported into Livorno (which, in terms of the tariff structure, stood outside the Tuscan state) for simple consumption from those imported into Livorno and held there for successive reexport. Such a distinction would be crucial in attempting to work out Livorno's balance of trade. Thus, in working out his final summary, Bowring subtracted this item from the import side of the ledger and considered it solely as an export.

The complexity of this analysis reflects Livorno's nebulous relationship to the Tuscan state. Nevertheless, when due allowance is made for this, the major categories in Bowring's statistics and what they tell us about the structure of Livorno's commerce in the mid-1830s become, I think, fairly clear. Read accurately, they show that of the imports the value of merchandise from abroad deposited in Livorno for successive reexport (4,699,500 pezze) totaled not 23 percent, as Mori supposed, but 41 percent. Of the exports, Tuscan products

(valued at 3,400,500 pezze) equaled 42 percent of the total, while the value of goods imported into Livorno and deposited there for successive reexport reached 4,699,500 pezze, or 58 percent of the total exports. Clearly, apart from indicating a real imbalance in Tuscan trade, these figures show that while direct, two-way commerce between Tuscany and other states was important, Livorno's traditional commerce of deposit and transshipment retained a dominant share of the city's commercial activity.

Another report helps to confirm this view. In 1838, Edoardo Mayer, director of Livorno's discount bank, prepared a long memorandum for Emanuele Repetti.^[29] In his memorandum, Mayer indicated the final destination of many of the city's major imports. Of goods from the Levant (given an average annual value of 6,500,000 Tuscan lire), Egyptian raw cotton was reshipped in its entirety to manufacturing centers in Switzerland, England, France, and Belgium; two-thirds of the wool passed into France, England, and Piedmont; the silk not consumed in Tuscany was sent primarily to Genoa; wax and linens were consumed largely in Tuscany, though much of the former was marketed also in Sicily; gall nuts, saffron, and so on were reexported to England, Belgium, Holland, and Germany; and opium was reexported to England, France, and America. Of goods from the West and the North, salt fish (salumi ), metal, wood, pitch, tar, linens, and cowhides (valued at 6,750,000 lire) were consumed largely in Tuscany. Colonial products (valued at 9,500,000 lire) were consumed in Tuscany or shipped to other areas of the Italian peninsula. The most important single item that Mayer listed was manufactured goods from England, France, and Switzerland, to which he gave an average annual value of 23,000,000 lire. Only one-fourth of the manufactured goods imported into Livorno were consumed in Tuscany or in other parts of Italy; the remainder were reexported, primarily to the Levant.^[30] Mayer concluded that "Livorno is a central point where, with a bustle of activity [con somma attivita[attività] ], products arriving by sea from opposite points are exchanged." Clearly, then, the city had not lost its character as an international emporium.

Regrettably, Mayer made no attempt in his report to assess

the final destination of cereals imported into the port (valued at 15,000,000 lire). Nevertheless, the report does possess the real merit of documenting the importance of a deposit trade in manufactured goods well into the nineteenth century. Table 2 shows that the volume of this trade remained important in the late 1840s. At the same time, however, this table illustrates the overwhelming predominance of another item in the city's commerce: cereals. Indeed, by the late 1840s (if

not earlier), cereals from the Black Sea seem to have become the single most important item in Livorno's commerce. This question merits further consideration.

Because of the destruction of the city's annual customs records and the lack of a complete statistical series on the port's commercial movement, tracing the growing importance of cereals in Livorno's commerce is hazardous, at best. One important indicator of this trend, certainly, can be seen in the repeated pleas of the merchant community for an expansion of the city's grain-storage facilities. The capacity of these facilities—both public and private—at the end of the eighteenth century was estimated at approximately 522,000 sacks.^[31] In 1817, at the high point of the post-Napoleonic famine, the first requests were made to expand this capacity. In a letter to the secretary of finance, the governor of Livorno reported that comestibles were almost the sole staple of the city's commerce: grain and corn (biade ) were arriving daily; 400,000 to 500,000 sacks were already in deposit; and additional arrivals were imminent. The governor opposed the request of the chamber of commerce for the utilization of the lazarettos as grain-storage warehouses. However, he frantically searched the city for other possible storage depots.^[32] During the 1820s the grain trade leveled off, and requests for additional facilities declined,^[33] but the impetus picked up again in the late 1830s. The destruction of the old wall of the city in 1834 had eliminated many of the old ditches (fossi ) and pits (buche ) that had been located in or near it, and officials in charge of the government grain-storage warehouses and members of the chamber of commerce argued that new facilities would have to be constructed to replace them.^[34]

Pressure on the government to this end increased in 1843 because of a growing fear of competition from rival ports. In his third quarterly report in that year, A. G. Mochi, the government commissioner appointed to oversee Livorno's discount bank, indicated that the grain trade was deserting Livorno for Marseilles. According to some, he said, this was because of the opinion that good storage facilities had been lost with the enlargement of the city and no new ones had been constructed to replace them. Giovanni Chelli, presi-

dent of the chamber of commerce, made a similar point and stressed that "it is absolutely necessary to demonstrate that we do not lack the necessary means . . . [and that] if some storage facilities have been destroyed, they have been replaced with new and better ones."^[35]

Underlying these demands, it seems, lay the sense that the grain trade now formed the foundation of Livorno's commercial prosperity. In 1844, Carlo Bargagli, the captain of the port, stated succinctly that "the deposit of grain is today the principal branch of commerce in this city."^[36] In 1845 the governor reechoed this sentiment in a report to the secretary of finance.^[37] And in 1850 the chamber of commerce remarked more broadly that "experience had demonstrated that the city of Livorno is considered the principal cereal deposit of the Mediterranean."^[38]

While they are revealing, reports of this sort are nevertheless fundamentally impressionistic. A more concrete sense of the relative importance of the grain trade in Livorno's commerce was provided by Mochi in several of his reports, in which he presented annual summaries of the value of goods (expressed in Tuscan lire and broken down into two categories, cereals and other merchandise) sold on the wholesale market (vendite di primo mano ) in Livorno. This material is summarized as shown in table 3.^[39] Mochi admitted that his figures, drawn from Livorno's Giornale di commercio , were at best approximate.^[40] However, at no point did he question their fundamental indication of the predominant value of grain sales. Indeed, his only comment on this point was to note that the disadvantageous position of other merchandise vis-a-vis[vis-à-vis] grain appeared less than many had supposed.^[41]

The most concrete and dramatic evidence of the growing importance of grain in Livorno's commerce, though, can be found in some general summaries of the port's commercial movement. These summaries are reproduced in tables 2 through 9. They include the number of sailing ships arriving in the port as a raw annual aggregate and broken down according to their port of origin and the nature of their cargoes. The data are regrettably sparse. The summary of large

sailing ships arriving in the port is reasonably complete but provides no information on cargo or port of origin. This latter information is available in a complete annual series only from 1815 to 1826. Information for three years in the 1830s has been discovered and for only one—but an exceptional one—in the 1840s. None of these summaries by itself furnishes a complete picture of the grain trade in Livorno from 1815 to 1850. Taken together, however, they can provide a sense of the general profile of this trade and of its relative importance to other merchandise.

All these summaries document the massive movement of ships into Livorno during the two brief periods of famine (1815–1817 and 1847) which struck Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century. In both these periods the failure of the domestic harvest and the resulting increase in demand and soaring prices led the Tuscan government to temporarily suspend all charges on grain imports, which stimulated commercial activity in the port. Thus, in 1811, at the culmination of the French occupation of Tuscany, the number of large sailing ships entering Livorno had fallen to a low of 81 (table 4). By 1814—when Tuscany regained its independence—the number climbed to 422. In 1815 it jumped to 943, and in 1816 the number of arrivals peaked at 1,124.

A similar sharp increase is evident in the movement of

ships from the Black Sea, which almost exclusively carried grain from the ports of southern Russia (see table 5). Here the number increased from 65 in 1815 to a peak of 195 in 1817. Finally, the arrival of ships in the port carrying grain climbed from 238 in 1815 to 398 in 1817 (see table 6). This last summary illustrates the relative importance of the grain trade at the climax of the post-Napoleonic famine. Of a total of 891 ships arriving in the port with merchandise in 1817, 398 (45%) were carrying grain.

A similar sharp increase in the movement of the port occurred in the famine year of 1847 (table 7). From 1846 to 1847 the arrival of large sailing ships jumped from 1,712 to 2,201. In 1848, as the result of a good harvest and the uncertainty of the political situation, arrivals dropped to 1,587, and in 1849 they fell still further, to 1,307. From figures provided by the customhouse one can obtain a sense of the relative importance of the grain trade in 1847 (table 2). Of the 2,501 arrivals noted in the customs records, the largest number by far (871 or 35% of the total) came from the Black Sea; 1,429 (57%) arrived with grain. From sixth place (8% of the total) in 1815, the Black Sea in 1847 had become Livorno's chief source of supplies. Grain cargoes arriving in the port in 1847 surpassed all other cargoes (including the large catchall category of "diverse merchandise") combined.

Between these two brief periods of famine the grain trade in Livorno was relatively less important. From 1818 well into the 1820s the commercial movement of the port slackened (table 5). In part, as commentators have pointed out, the decline was a result of disturbances in Levantine commerce caused by the revolution in Greece. It also reflected, however, a series of good harvests in Europe and, as we shall see shortly, the rigid tariff policies instituted by many European states to protect their agricultural producers. Thus, the number of large sailing ships arriving in Livorno with cargo dropped from a peak of 891 in 1817 to 682 in 1818 and reached a low of 501 in 1826 (table 7). An even sharper downturn is evident in the arrival of large sailing ships from ports in the Black Sea (table 5). The number of ships arriving with grain showed a similar drop, although with a much more erratic profile (table 6).

(table continued on next page)

By the end of the 1820s, however, with the Greek question settled and more flexible tariff policies being instituted by European governments, the grain trade in Livorno had become stable and prosperous. This is evident from the follow-

ing list, which indicates the number of large sailing ships arriving in the port with grain from 1829 to 1836.^[42]

Finally, summaries covering two periods from 1780 to 1789 and from 1816 to 1825 provide useful comparisons, since both cover periods of relative peace and security in the Mediterranean and include years of active trading and relative stagnation. Together, these summaries (presented in tables 8 and 9) graphically illustrate the fundamental expansion of Livorno's commerce with the Black Sea and testify to the growing predominance of the grain trade in the port.

The first summary, broken down by country of origin, not only testifies to the drop in commercial relations with Sicily and Malta (a fact that, as we have seen, was emphasized by many commentators) but also illustrates in detail the expansion of the city's contacts with the Black Sea. From 1780 to 1789 an average of only four ships a year (0.93% of the total arrivals) came from ports in the Black Sea, while in the decade from 1816 to 1825 the yearly average had jumped to 82 (12%). This was still below the average of 109 ships a year arriving from England and of 90 arriving from Egypt, many of which undoubtedly also carried grain. However, in rate of growth the Black Sea outclassed all other areas (1,950% versus 41%).

The second summary, broken down by cargo, shows that in the period from 1816 to 1825 the average number of ships arriving with cereals per year was superior to the number of ships carrying any other single product, and it also shows that the rate of growth for cereals from the first to the second decade was one and a half times greater than that of all other products combined.

The difficulties involved in using commercial statistics drawn from different sources and measuring different things are obvious. Not only do these statistics often confuse ships arriving in the port with and without cargo and occasionally

fail to clearly distinguish war and merchant ships but they also do not take into account that ships of the same type can differ greatly in tonnage. Value, moreover, does not at all necessarily follow from volume: a small cargo of spices is worth much more than a large cargo of grain or salt. Finally, as we shall see, a more active commerce does not necessarily indicate a more prosperous one. Crude as they are, however, these statistics do provide at least a rough indication of relative growth. Some reasons for this growth will be examined shortly. At present, it is sufficient to reaffirm that in the first half of the nineteenth century cereals had become a

predominant, if not the predominant, branch of Livorno's commerce.

What factors enabled a deposit trade in cereals to flourish at a time when, as we have seen, commentators were predicting the end of Livorno's traditional role as a port of deposit? Probably the most important single factor was the basic inability of the states of Western Europe to provide their expanding populations with domestic grain at moderate, stable prices. This inability, coupled with the availability of relatively cheap, high-quality Russian cereals, led European governments to eventually adopt more flexible policies toward the admission of foreign grain into their internal markets. These policies, as we shall see, would prove especially advantageous for a deposit trade in cereals.

Government policy toward the admission of foreign grain, however, had not always been flexible. The famine years of 1815–1817 had witnessed a tremendous influx of foreign—particularly Russian—grain into the markets of Western Europe, and once the crisis had ended governments had moved to erect controls to protect their domestic producers from competition with this cheap, high-quality product. England set the trend with its Corn Law of 1815, under the

provisions of which the importation of foreign cereals was prohibited when the price of grain on the domestic market fell below 80 shillings a quarter and was entirely free and unrestricted when the price exceeded that figure.^[43] France imposed similar controls in 1819, permitting entry of foreign grain only if domestic prices rose, according to region, above 20, 18, or 16 francs per hectoliter. Prussia, Switzerland, Holland, Spain, and Portugal followed suit, setting up virtually prohibitive tariffs on cereal imports and waiving them only during periods of famine. These protectionist policies held sway in the 1820s, a period when the grain trade in Livorno was for the most part stagnant or in decline.

By the late 1820s, however, under pressure from consumers to stabilize the price of grain in their domestic markets, governments began to take a more flexible approach to the introduction of foreign cereals. In 1828, England provided the model once again by introducing a sliding-scale tariff for grain imports. Under its provisions a tariff of 23 shillings per quarter was levied on foreign grain when domestic prices reached 64 shillings; 16 shillings, 8 pence when the price reached 69 shillings; and I shilling when the price rose above 73 shillings.^[44] Similar graded tariff systems were later adopted by Sweden (1830), France (1832), Belgium (1834), Holland (1835), and Portugal (1837).

It was no accident that the introduction of sliding scales coincided with the resurgence of the grain trade in Livorno, for these tariffs especially favored a deposit trade in cereals. For the maximum profit to be made under the new system, large amounts of grain had to be stored in ports near the great markets so as to be available promptly for taking advantage of passing opportunities. Thus, in 1833, after the introduction of the sliding scale in France, the price of wheat on the domestic market rose sufficiently to permit the importation of foreign grain. The effect on Livorno was immediate. Massive shipments to France over a two-month period depleted Livorno's grain deposits. Ships from the Black Sea that would normally have deposited their grain in Livorno were hurrying on to Marseilles to unload their cargoes under the low tariffs. As a result of these massive imports, however, the price of

grain was falling. Speculators in Livorno were predicting that the French market for foreign grain would soon close and that cereals would again reenter Livorno for storage until a new opportunity for their profitable sale presented itself.^[45]

However, cereals deposited in Livorno not only supplied the demands of foreign states but also responded to the needs of the Grand Duchy itself. These needs were especially great in years of famine. Of the 702,565 sacks extracted from Livorno in 1815, for example, 507,059 passed into the Tuscan hinterland.^[46] Of the 2,382,784 extracted in 1847, 1,914,028 passed into the hinterland.^[47] Even normal years witnessed massive shipments from Livorno into Tuscany. O. Forni, a high-ranking member of the Tuscan customs administration, estimated that an average of 1,049,000 sacks of cereals were unloaded each year in Livorno and that of this total, 800,000 (roughly 80%) passed into the hinterland.^[48] Luigi Serristori estimated that imports equaled about 13.3 percent of Tuscany's annual consumption of six million sacks, enough to feed its population for seven weeks and three days.^[49] According to the administrator of the Royal Revenues, these imports were on the increase, reaching an annual average of 1,157,793 sacks in the five-year period from 1835 to 1839.^[50]

Tuscany clearly was unable to feed itself. This had not always been the case. In the eighteenth century Tuscany had imported wheat only in times of famine, and in good years it had been able to export some of it.^[51] The situation changed after the Napoleonic Wars. The disruption caused by war and the protracted fall in wheat prices in the 1820s coupled with the general unsuitability of the Tuscan terrain for intensive grain cultivation forced the state to rely increasingly on foreign grain to feed its expanding population.^[52]

In this situation Russian cereals possessed distinct advantages on the free Tuscan market. As we shall see in more detail later, Russian grains were far less expensive than comparable products grown in Tuscany or the rest of Italy. Only Egypt could provide cheaper grain, but Egyptian wheat, subject to weevils and deterioration if exposed to dampness, traveled poorly and was more difficult to maintain in storage than its Russian counterpart. In addition, Egyptian

wheat was lighter in character (i.e., weight per volume) and was subject to sporadic export restrictions by the Egyptian government.^[53]

Russian grain, moreover, was rich in gluten. This was especially important for hard wheat and indispensable for the manufacture of pasta, an important item in the Tuscan diet. Hard wheat could not be grown in Tuscany, and millers previously had imported it from Sicily. But Sicily could not supply the demand, and its commerce was periodically subject to vexing restrictions on grain exports. For these reasons, pasta makers in Tuscany increasingly came to rely on imported Russian grain, much of which was ground into flour at mills near Livorno.

Russian soft wheat also found great favor on the Tuscan market. Although some Tuscan soft wheat was better than the Russian, it was in short supply, was more expensive than Russian wheat, and was much demanded abroad—especially in England—for seed. Unknown to the Tuscan consumer, perhaps, Russian soft wheat was employed in the manufacture of even the finest bread. In December 1845 the British consul in Livorno reported to the Foreign Office that contrary to the reports of bakers, Tuscan soft wheat was probably not being used in the manufacture of prime-quality bread. "At the present prices," the consul said, "it could never suit the bakers to use it, as they profess to do, and the consumption in Livorno is known to be very limited." More likely, he felt, Russian and Polish were the types chiefly used, "the former because it is a wheat which yields an excellent result and the latter to impart whiteness."^[54] Price, availability, and quality, then, served to give Russian grains a distinct advantage in the Tuscan market.

Periodically, tension was generated between the Tuscan government—which was concerned with maintaining its tax base and with protecting producers and consumers in the hinterland—and grain merchants in Livorno who were speculating on the Tuscan market. Grain speculators in Livorno, the secretary of finance remarked sarcastically in 1818, were quick to celebrate the outbreak of famine in the interior of Tuscany and correspondingly quick to lament the prosperity

of the local harvest and a drop in the price of grain, demanding in compensation that the government sacrifice the income it gained from its modest charge on the import of this product.^[55] Save in periods of famine, the Tuscan government refused to modify its charges on grain imports and resolutely opposed attempts by the merchant community to transfer fiscal burdens from itself to consumers in the hinterland.^[56]

But tension on this issue tended to be lessened by the basic adherence of the Tuscan government to the principle of free trade, which had provided the foundation of the state's political economy since the reign of Peter Leopold (1765–1790). Grain tariffs existed, but their aim was fiscal and they had in no sense been conceived to protect the Tuscan producer. Government officials and most of Tuscany's landowning elite realized that Tuscany could no longer produce sufficient grain to feed its population, and they believed that one of the best defenses against famine lay in the maintenance of Livorno's facilities and privileges so as to encourage grain merchants to settle there and make the port their base of operations.

In the 1820s and 1830s some proprietors did urge the Tuscan government to adopt the practice of other European states and impose protective tariffs on cereals.^[57] But these efforts won little support from either the government or from the vast majority of the members of Tuscany's most important economic circle, the Academy of the Georgofili. For the leading members of this circle—men such as Gino Capponi, Cosimo Ridolfi, and Raffaello Lambruschini—the granting of special protection to Tuscan grain producers would serve merely to encourage inefficient and marginal production, force up the price of grain, and ruin commerce. Wise policy, they argued, dicated that Tuscan agriculture be allowed to adjust freely to the new economic situation and that it be encouraged to transfer its major effort from cereal production to other products such as wine, silk, oil, wool, and minerals, which promised Tuscany a more secure place in a free, competitive market. Within this context, acceptable government support of agriculture would consist of the following actions: adjusting the tax burden of agricultural producers to reflect more accurately their place in the Tuscan economy, and initiating reclamation and road construction projects to increase

the area of profitable cultivation and to facilitate the movement of products from farm to market. These projects would possess the additional attraction of providing employment for Tuscany's surplus population, enabling it to purchase its bread in a free, unregulated market.^[58]

Perhaps, then, the comments made in the first half of the nineteenth century on the changing character of Livorno's commerce did have some foundation. Both the structure of the Tuscan economy in this period and the economic attitudes of its political and social elite seemed to encourage the development of a two-way commerce of consumption and export: while government officials and important members of the Academy of the Georgofili stressed the commercial value of Tuscan raw materials, at the same time they recognized Tuscany's growing dependence on foreign cereals.

It would be a mistake, however, to see in these developments the definitive eclipse of Livorno's traditional commerce of deposit. As indicated in the statistics provided by Bowring, Tuscan raw materials still formed a small percentage of the port's exports. Although grain shipments to the Tuscan hinterland were increasingly important to the commerce of the state, they did not conflict with Livorno's traditional role as a port of deposit and a center of speculation. For the grain merchant in Livorno, Tuscany was simply one of several potential customers. In pushing for tariff reductions or for extensions of the port's privileges, the merchant community in Livorno still wanted to keep all of its options open, as we shall see shortly. To understand the economic impetus for the reform proposals of the merchant community, then, we must pass beyond the notion of a radical shift in the port's commercial activity and examine other factors that can better explain the timing and the specific character of the reform proposals.

Commercial, Demographic, and Pricing Movements

To describe Livorno's commerce is only the first task, for by itself such a description cannot entirely define the

economic condition of the city nor respond adequately to the general question raised at the beginning of this book—that is, whether Livorno's commercial situation was improving or deteriorating in the period that followed the French Revolution and the restoration of peace in Europe. In an attempt to answer this question we must examine other factors, such as the general level of commercial activity in the port city, the nature and movement of its population, and the prices of the most important items of its commerce. With this information we shall be in a better position to understand not only Livorno's economic situation but also the response of the merchant community to the changing economic and social environment in which it lived and operated.

What, then, was Livorno's economic situation in the period after 1815? On the surface it looked promising. Commercial statistics indicate that the number of sailing ships entering the port from 1815 to the 1850s increased steadily and that their number was augmented considerably by the arrival of an increasing number of steamships (see table 10).^[59] The population of the city expanded from 57,446 in 1815 to 83,537 in 1850.^[60] In describing Livorno, contemporaries stressed the dynamic character of the city, its bustling population, and the signs everywhere of an expanding opulence.^[61]

Commentators stressed that the conjunction of these aspects was a sure sign of Livorno's continuing prosperity. To Guido Sonnino the figures on Livorno's commercial and demographic expansion "more and better than any digression demonstrated the falsity of the myth of Livorno's decline and showed on the contrary an ever-increasing activity."^[62] They led Emanuele Repetti to conclude in his Dizionario that under Leopold II (1826–1859), Livorno had arrived at the most brilliant and fortunate period of its history.^[63] This sentiment was warmly supported by Giovanni Baldasseroni, a minister of finance under Leopold II and a noted apologist for the regime.^[64]

Historians who have tried to present a more pessimistic picture of Livorno's economic situation during this period appear clearly daunted by the commercial and demographic statistics. In his study of the city, Giorgio Mori remarked that

all students of Livorno's commerdal history were in agreement that the maritime traffic of the port grew "with a certain rhythm" during the period, and he concluded reluctantly that while the early years of the restoration may have been difficult for the Tuscan economy as a whole, Livorno, "at least from this point of view," did not seem to have been much affected.^[65] Mori also noted that the population of the city from 1814 to 1856 had almost doubled, though he hastened to caution, somewhat lamely, that it would be too simplistic and not always correct to link population expansion with the improvement of the economic condition of a given area.^[66]

Mario Baruchello, anxious to depict the early nineteenth century as the beginning of a long period of economic decline for the port city, attacked more directly the "problem" raised by Livorno's demographic statistics. He argued that the population of Livorno continued to expand at a rapid rate even as the economic crisis of the city became grave and definitive.

This, he argued, though without evidence, was because people continued to come to reside in Livorno even though the prosperity of the city was now based more on past reputation than present fact. In addition, he argued, the population of Livorno, now more stable, was expanding from its own natural increase.^[67]

In fact, however, the causes of Livorno's demographic expansion in the period after 1815 are far from clear, and commentators have seemed wont to attribute it to natural increase or immigration as much from a desire to reinforce their own points of view as from a careful consideration of the statistics. In his 1855 study of the population of Livorno, Cesare Caporali, strongly Malthusian and anxious to demonstrate the prosperity of the city, argued that the population increase in Livorno was due primarily to immigration. "The prodigious development of the population, inseparable from the principle of subsistence, is evidence of the prosperity of the city, prosperity constant and continuous and demonstrated not, of course, by an excess of births but by the annual immigration."^[68] Giuliano Ricci, on the other hand, concerned with demonstrating the stable, indigenous character of the population of his native city, argued that the increment of Livorno's population was due almost entirely to natural increase.

The constant growth of its population did not fail to demonstrate the prosperity of Livorno. . . . It was consoling to see that this population growth sprang from the intrinsic life of the city and was not due to accidental circumstances. . . . Almost the entire population resident in Livorno is livornese as much by birth, custom, and affection as by simple residence. In this respect the population of Livorno is like that of any other commercial city. . . it would have a truly indigenous population of more than 60,000 inhabitants, about nine-tenths of the total, calculated at 78,000.

These few figures demonstrate the falsity of the opinion which wishes to consider Livorno as a temporary place of residence for foreigners rather than [as] a truly Italian city populated by a population which is politically and civilly its own.^[69]

Analysis of the population statistics provided by P. Bandettini has enabled us to obtain a clearer picture of the character

and growth of Livorno's population during this period than that advanced by the advocates of prosperity or doom (see table 11).^[70] From an examination of the yearly population changes between 1815 and 1850, it becomes apparent that, save for the plague year of 1835, the natural rate of population growth after 1814 was relatively steady. In contrast, the movement of population in and out of the city was far more erratic—an extraordinarily large movement of people into the city in one year would be followed by a more moderate exodus in the succeeding year or years. When the totals are considered, one sees that in the period from 1814 to 1850 the population of Livorno grew by 33,482. Of this figure, 19,989 resulted from natural increase and 13,493 from immigration. Clearly, then, natural increase was the more important factor behind Livorno's population growth in this period, although the contribution of immigration was not as insignificant as some would have liked to believe.

Further examination of these annual population figures indicates that Livorno's demographic expansion during this period was not constant. From 1814–1819, Livorno's population increased by 12,182 (24.3%); from 1820–1829, by 9,515 (15.1%); from 1830–1839, by 6,083 (8.3%); and from 1840–1849, by 1,670 (2.1%; 4.5% if we use the more normal year of 1850). Clearly, then, the phenomenon of Livorno's population growth contains internal variations that vitiate somewhat the optimistic picture of its general, long-term growth.

Moreover, if the growth of Livorno's population was not constant, neither did it seem excessive in comparison with that of other Tuscan cities or with the growth of Tuscany as a whole. True, the rate of Livorno's population growth from 1818 to 1848 was greater than that of Florence 38.2% as opposed to 33.5%), but it was far below that of Pisa (50.05%) as well as that of Tuscany as a whole (48.06%).^[71] In summary, then, Livorno's population growth does not represent the unmistakable sign of the city's prosperity, as the optimists had hoped and the pessimists had feared.

The same can be said for the commercial statistics. Indeed, at the very time that such optimists as Repetti were stressing the expansion of Livorno's commerce, the local chamber of commerce was bombarding the central government in Flor-

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ence with memorials stressing the competition that Livorno was facing from other ports—particularly Genoa—and warning the government that if all existing charges on goods were not abolished and the port made truly free, Livorno would increasingly lose place to its rivals.^[72]

In part the position of the merchants in the chamber of commerce was a prudent one, and their dire predictions should not be taken too literally. Regardless of the economic situation of Livorno, it would never have been a wise policy for the merchants to emphasize their prosperity, thus alerting the secretary of finance in Florence to new sources of tax revenue.^[73] Rather, sound counsel advised that the chamber consistently place in evidence the poverty of the merchant community, bring pressure to bear for the elimination of as many charges as possible, and urge the government to maintain and develop the physical facilities of the port.

Underlying the demands of the chamber of commerce, however, was the basically unfavorable economic situation in which commerce operated in this period. A drop in prices and profit margins in all ports was caused by the tremendous increase in production—in both agriculture and manufactured goods—and the greater facility in moving goods from producer to consumer, combined with the increase in the general volume of commerce.

Manufactured goods set the trend.^[74] The fall of Napoleon and the sudden cessation of hostilities created an explosion of speculative enthusiasm in British business circles. With the opening of continental ports after eight years of blockade, both large and middling business interests felt that fortunes could be made by responding to the pent-up demand for British manufactured goods. The productive capacity of the metallurgical and textile industries had been absorbed during the war years with producing arms and uniforms for Great Britain and her allies, and they were now turned once again to the production of consumer goods. Manufactured items that had accumulated in warehouses during the blockade years were suddenly thrown onto the consumer market. In 1815 the value of British exports rose to an unprecedented 51.6 million pounds sterling, and speculators felt that the rise would continue.

But the capacity of European and American markets to absorb this flood of exports was soon revealed as inferior to prediction. After the most immediate needs of foreign consumers were met, much of the exported merchandise remained unsold. By 1816, the total value of exports had already fallen to 41.6 million pounds sterling. The famine that struck Western Europe in this period because of the rise in the price of foodstuffs made the sale of British manufactured products still more difficult.

Pessimistic reports flooded the Board of Trade in London from consuls stationed throughout Britain's commercial empire. Typical of these reports were the dispatches of John Falconar, the British consul in Livorno. In his dispatch summarizing British commercial activity in the port in 1816, Falconar remarked that cargoes imported from Great Britain and Ireland in the year totaled 124, while cargoes moving in the opposite direction amounted to only 16. Of the imports, the vast majority consisted of British manufactured goods (chiefly from Manchester and Glasgow), about which the consul sadly remarked, "I am sorry to state [these] have been sold at such prices as, in many instances, to produce a loss instead of a profit to the shipper."^[75] In 1817 imports fell to 79 cargoes, and exports rose to 55. But the market, Falconar reported, remained glutted with British manufactured goods, a situation made more difficult by the closing of the old escape valve for these products into Austria.^[76]

After 1821 the situation would improve, and production of manufactured goods would better reflect the capacity of the market to absorb its products. But the very anarchistic organization of production and commerce in Britain would prevent any satisfactory, permanent solution to the problem. Throughout the period the situation facing British manufactured products would be one of low prices and profit margins and periodic crises of overproduction, resulting in fresh price declines, business failures, and mass unemployment.

A similar situation existed in the grain trade. In the period after 1815 the volume of cereals in the European market increased considerably. Technical improvements in agriculture, good weather, and the pull of an expanding consumer market were undoubtedly all factors in increasing the quantity of

grain arriving in the markets of Western Europe. The most important single factor, though, was the opening of the Black Sea and the rich cereal-producing areas of Southern Russia to European commerce. The first step had been taken with the Treaty of Kutchuk Kainaidji (1774), which had opened the Black Sea and the Straits of Bosphorus to Russian shipping, a concession that ten years later was also extended to the Austrians.^[77] Only with the establishment of peace in Europe, though, was Russian grain sent to European markets in massive, regular quantifies.

With the growth of production and availability came a decline in price. From 1818 to 1847, even in years of mediocre harvest or momentary political or economic uncertainty, grain prices never returned to the level reached in the period before the French Revolution or during the famine years of 1814–1817.^[78] Unfortunately, it is difficult to measure in detail this decline in grain prices on the wholesale market of Livorno, as no official government price figures exist for Livorno and the price series that I have constructed is based on incomplete and not entirely reliable figures extracted from the local Giornale di commercio (see table 12).^[79]

Drawing on figures from other sources, however, enables me to provide a series that is more rounded and reliable, at least in its general configuration. The state archive in Florence contains some early miscellaneous copies of Livorno's commercial journal which indicate that the price of soft wheat in the early weeks of 1815 had risen to 30 lire per sack.^[80] Antonio Zobi reported that at the peak of the famine the price of grain reached 63 lire per sack.^[81] Needless to say, the averages that we have constructed from prices in the Giornale di commercio never approach these levels. At the beginning of our series, in the mid-1820s, grain prices reached rock bottom. They recovered briefly during the period of political and social unrest at the end of the decade and then went into a new slump in the 1830s. The period 1839–40 marked a new period of recovery, but the years from 1841–1847 witnessed another drop in the price level.

Incomplete and untrustworthy as they are, the figures drawn from the Giornale di commercio are roughly equivalent

to the more solidly grounded Florentine price series constructed by Bandettini.^[82] Here, too, the year 1816 provides the major peak, with minor price recovery taking place briefly at the end of the twenties and thirties and during the period of general famine in the late 1840s (see table 13).

The decline in grain prices was reflected in the deflation of other important items in Livorno's commerce. Two of them, coffee from Santo Domingo and English cotton thread (cottoni fillati inglesi ), are analyzed by year in the following list:

The general decline in price levels would prove more important than any shift in the port's commercial activity in determining Livorno's economic and social relationships in the period following the restoration of the grand ducal regime. It would fix in large part the relationship of the mer-

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chants with the central government and with bankers, commercial agents (mezzani ), and port workers (facchini ) with whom they had regular contacts. At a time of falling prices, traditional economic and social relationships could no longer be automatically maintained. Merchants could be expected to challenge vigorously residual charges on goods moving into the port, to demand the establishment of institutions providing easier access to credit, and to contest the normal charges paid to their commercial agents and to dockworker companies in the city. An increase in the commercial movement of the port per se, then, was not an unmistakable sign of prosperity at times of falling prices. Indeed, it might serve merely to

mask an underlying reality of shrinking profits, dried-up sources of credit, lack of currency, and a resultant uneasiness in the merchant community. Having sketched the patterns of Livorno's commerce and its commercial, demographic, and pricing movements, therefore, it is time to turn to the response of the merchant community to the economic and social environment in which it operated.