Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

Jewish Consuls in the Mediterranean
but also by Jews. In 1589 Rodriga himself maintained that he received
a fixed annual salary of 500 ducats from the merchants whom he represented,
and payment of a grosso for every bale of merchandise. 87
The Venetian ruling class in turn respected him as ‘fedelissimo nostro
Daniel Rodriga’. 88 We should not overlook, however, that Rodriga’s
advocacy of a scala in Spalato also benefited his own commercial interests.
The beneficiaries of the scala were mainly Jewish merchants in
Spalato and the nearby town of Narenta, including the local consul
there, namely, Rodriga. Nor do we need to stress that Rodriga or his
brother—the sources here do not permit an exact identification—
soon rose to become ‘Console della Nazione Ebraica in Spalato’. The
project of the scala, which Rodriga had pushed for decades, certainly
cannot be separated from his vital business interests. It is this specific
blurring of commercial and political interests that we shall en coun -
ter again and again in the office of the consul ‘degli ebrei’. For in -
stance, it is also apparent in the life of Maggino, and far more unluckily,
although in the long term by no means accidentally, as I shall
now show.
The Case of Maggino di Gabrielli
I will now present Maggino’s biography in greater detail, as it is still
known only to a few specialists. 89 During his lifetime, the Italiano Jew
Maggino (born 1561) ventured on a number of different undertakings,
including the production of cloth, an invention for the improvement
of the silk industry, trading in spices, moneylending, and glassmaking.
In the 1580s a decree was issued granting Maggino the privilege
of producing crystal glass and mirrors by a new method for fifteen
years in all the Papal States. There is evidence from papal
sources that the glass produced by the Jewish businessman was used
87 Leoni, ‘Ruolo economico dei mercanti’, 156.
88 Thus the Senate in a document of 20 July 1590; printed in Leoni, ‘Ruolo
economico dei mercanti’, 189.
89 For his biography and additional bibliographical references see Daniel
Jütte, ‘Handel, Wissenstransfer und Netzwerke: Eine Fallstudie zu Grenzen
und Möglichkeiten unternehmerischen Handelns unter Juden zwischen Reich,
Italien und Levante um 1600’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirt schafts ge -
schichte, 95 (2008), 263–90.
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