Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

Jewish Consuls in the Mediterranean
After years of advocacy, he persuaded Venice to build a scala in the
Dalmatian city of Spalato (today Split), linked with Salonika and Is -
tan bul by the land route. 79 Far more important within the total Jewish
context, of course, was that in the same year Rodriga was able to persuade
the Venetian authorities to approve official toleration for the
Ponentini or Ponentine Jews in the city. Although they had resided in
Venice for several decades, they lived in a precarious grey zone. The
official opening of the city to the Ponentini, who could now permanently
settle there, marked a momentous turn in the history of the
Sephardic Jews. Henceforth they were no longer regarded as foreigners
who were only temporarily tolerated in Venice. Now they
were subjects. They could not be arrested in case of war and were
permitted to engage in all forms of foreign trade that were otherwise
allowed only to Venetians. 80 Their future settlement was established
on the basis of an authorized, renewable ten-year mandate. 81
Rodriga’s victory against his rival Saruq set the course for a more
political interpretation of the consular office within the Jewish context.
Saruq seems to have been something of a loner. The range of his
abilities and activities was unquestionably impressive. He spoke several
languages, was active as a financier, insurer, and international
merchant, owned a ship, patronized Hebrew printing, and spied for
the Serenissima. 82 Saruq appears to have seen the duties of a consul
as consisting of ad hoc, problem-oriented action in the broadest
sense. There is an abundance of documentation to show that he re -
peatedly concerned himself with the practical affairs of the Levantini,
but he does not appear to have been a daring visionary like Rodriga.
It is prob ably for this reason that historians have bestowed considerably
more attention on the activities of Rodriga. What is more, many
historians have not shied away from piling superlatives on him. Ben -
jamin Ravid, for instance, sees in him ‘one of the leading—if not the
leading—and most successful Jewish entrepreneurs of his century’. 83
79 See Paci’s fundamental work, La ‘scala’ di Spalato.
80 Cooperman, ‘Trade and Settlement’, 97.
81 Benjamin Ravid, ‘An Introduction to the Charters of the Jewish Merchants
of Venice’, in Horowitz and Orfali (eds.), The Mediterranean and the Jews,
203–46, at 207.
82 Leoni, ‘Ruolo economico dei mercanti’, 156–8.
83 Ravid, ‘A Tale of Three Cities’, 148.
171