Cross-Cultural Trade between Venice and Istanbul from the Records of the Consular Court of the Venetian Bailo

During the long period of peace between 1573 and 1645, bilateral trade between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire reached it utmost intensity. Historians of these two major Mediterranean powers have focused almost exclusively on diplomatic and commercial agreements (the Capitulations), while overlooking the actual practice of trade, and the legal and economic institutions that allowed the conduct of trade. 

With this paper I aim to shed light on the conduct of trade between Istanbul and Venetian territories at the end of the sixteenth century by analyzing the records of an important institution that regulated cross-cultural trade between the two states: the consular court of the Venetian bailo in Istanbul. The bailo was the ambassador and consul of the Republic of Venice in the Ottoman Empire during the early modern period. As part of his consular duties, he held a civil court which was accessible to individuals coming from European and Asiatic polities and belonging to different ethnic and religious communities. This court functioned as both a forum of justice and a notary court. There, the bailo passed sentence over civil disputes, mostly trade-related cases, among both Venetian and non-Venetian individuals, while his secretary served as a public notary for the international community recording wills and testaments, and notarizing commercial and official transactions. The court produced extensive records that historians have greatly neglected so far, even though they contain valuable information on the conduct of trade between Istanbul and Venetian territories. I will present the results of my preliminary analysis of these records for the years 1580-1590. I will focus on the political and religious identity of the individuals who turned to the bailo’s court, the legal and economic transactions that they conducted there, and the business associations that they established.