Julfan Networks and the Circulation of Calico Textiles in the Mediterranean during the Seventeenth Century

The Purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the role of Armenian merchants and artisans from New Julfa in the Safavid Empire of Iran and their counterparts from Diyabakir, Smyrna, and Istabul in the Ottoman Empire in the circulation of Indian calico textiles and techniques for their production in the seventeenth century Mediterranean. By relying on previously unexamined notarial records, ledgers of trade tribunals and municipal documents from provincial archives in Southern France, the paper will study the role of Armenian merchants and artisans in the early modern trade of the Mediterranean and will focus on their contributions to the development of the consumption and the production of calicoes mainly in the south of France but also in the northwest of Italy (Genoa and Livorno) during the second half of the seventeenth century. Principally through the examination of notarial acts about the sale and production of textiles, the paper seeks to make a contribution to early modern European and Armenian economic history by highlighting the importance of Armenian networks in the circulation of commodities and technologies and artistic and cultural constructs between Asia and Europe in this crucial period in world history when mercantile communities and their networks played an important role in connecting cultural regions and facilitating in cross-cultural trade in world history.