Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

DANIEL JÜTTE
the explosive power of words, well-remembered in the sixteenth century,
was the 1536 controversy over Josel von Rosheim’s claim to the
title of ‘governor’ (Regierer) of the Jewish community, which was
taken as far as the Imperial High Court. 111 Conversely, to avoid specifying
a title was likewise unpromising, since this ensured confusion
in the non-Jewish world. 112 How careful Maggino was about the
choice of words with respect to his business in the Holy Roman
Empire is apparent in his insistence on calling the trading company
‘Hebraic’. This was connected with a desire to avoid harming the
company’s chances by a false designation, in this case the provocative
word ‘Jewish’. There can thus be little doubt that his decision
concerning the title of consul was thoroughly deliberated.
What has here been said about the situation in the Holy Roman
Empire also applies mutatis mutandis to Italy. Rodriga knew that in a
century which had witnessed so many different plans and attempts
concerning Sephardic settlements, 113 it was important for Christian
contemporaries to know who they were dealing with. The title of
consul enabled a classification in the categories of the Christian commercial
world and, in particular, of the Levantine trade. That the title,
as used by Maggino and Rodriga, was bound up with the claim to
political representation of the Jewish nation (of whatever sort) did
not escape the Christian side. This can clearly be seen, for example, in
the correspondence of the English government, which closely ob -
served the activities of Jewish merchants from the Levant in Rome in
the late 1580s—and hence those of Rodriga, 114 though he is not men-
unter neuen Bedingungen? Zur politischen Rolle der Elite in der Judenschaft
des 16. und beginnenden 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Sabine Hödl, Peter Rauscher,
and Barbara Staudinger (eds.), Hofjuden und Landjuden: Jüdische Leben in der
Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin, 2004), 91–141, at 107.
111 Friedrich Battenberg, ‘Von der Kammerknechtschaft zum Judenregal: Re -
fle xionen zur Rechtsstellung der Judenschaft im Heiligen Römischen Reich
am Beispiel Johannes Reuchlins’, ibid. 65–90.
112 Ries, ‘Alte Herausforderungen unter neuen Bedingungen’, 123.
113 Segre, ‘Sephardic Settlements in Sixteenth-Century Italy’.
114 Rodriga’s stay in Rome at this time is documented. See Benjamin Ravid,
‘An Autobiographical Memorandum by Daniel Rodriga, Inventore of the Scala
of Spalato’, in Ariel Toaff and Simon Schwarzfuchs (eds.), The Mediterranean
and the Jews: Banking, Finance and International Trade (XVI–XVIII Centuries)
(Ramat-Gan, 1989), 189–213, at 210.
180